We just got our food, culture, and shopping fix in four and a half days in NYC. We arrived Saturday evening, and left on Thursday afternoon.
96 hours in NYC – backwards:
Thursday doesn’t count, that was all about packing and making frenzied bagel and Italian hero runs – you know, the take some of NYC home thing.
[BTW - the best bagel place is "Hot Bagels" on 2nd Ave. between 56th and 57th Streets. Their everything bagels rock, and their black russian bagels are heaven. I ordered a dozen to bring home, and they gave me 15. But only for a smile.]
Wednesday:
Our intended plans to walk the Highline got squashed as soon as we strolled out of the hotel into the frigid wind. The Highline is a new park on the west side that spans from around 12th to 20th streets, where elevated railroad tracks used to be. Frigid windy day and elevated park along the river – did not compute. Next time. Wusses.
So, there is time to kill before a 12:30 lunch date with Nancy, my 5150 screenwriting workshop friend, at Morrells Wine Bar. Hmm, let’s be tourists and go to Times Square and buy play tickets for tonight. Done. By the way, the red pedestrian lounging steps in the middle of Times Square is an interesting new touch.
More time to kill spent in the m&m’s store. 3 floors of marketing mania. But – there are m&m colors in that store not known to man, and they are in huge silos. And you can get a plastic bag and load up on whatever color m&m’s you want. Wow.
Lunch at Morrell’s Wine Bar was fun. Lots of chatter and good food and wine. The wine-by-the-glass menu is outrageously large, and we noticed that many of the high-priced glasses were gone from the menu. Steak salad, ricotta dumplings, black-pepper fettucine were all very good. [So I hear - I had the dumplings.]
Um – more food – we noticed a Magnolia Bakery on the corner a half-block away from Morrell’s. As in, an outpost of the Magnolia Bakery of the infamous delish-looking cupcakes Carrie and Miranda gobbled up in ”Sex and the City” (series, not movie.) Had to stop and snare some for later. They had red velvet cupcakes. But the chocolate ones were better. Icing? Superb.
We took a cab downtown to see the new “New Museum” on Bowery and Prince Streets. A short walk/smoke break before going in the museum took us to the John Fluevog shoe store, my fave in NYC. The husband spotted the store. I spotted these shoes.
The New Museum had an Urs Fischer exhibit spanning 3 floors. We strolled out of the elevator onto the 4th floor to this -
These are massive “sculptures” called “Marguerite de Ponty” made of aluminum-like material.
The 3rd floor was a large painted room with not much inside except for a fossilized croissant hanging from a string, with a butterfly atop. A melting plastic purple baby grand piano. And a hole in the wall. I inched close to the hole in the wall, and –
a tongue attacks me through that hole. Ahhh! Yes, I screamed in the museum. So did the woman who tried this next. No wonder this “work” is named “Noisette.”
The 2nd floor was interesting, it was full of mirrored chrome cubes and columns with silkscreens of objects on each side made to look like 3D – as in, a photo of the top of a shoe on the top, the front, sides, and back on the sides of the cubes.
[photos from the New Museum]
Art walk done, we squeezed in dinner at the Mee Noodle Shop uptown at 49th St. and Second Ave. before heading to see “A Little Night Music” on Broadway. Stephen Sondheim music, great story - just what I like – comedy and romance - and fantastic acting and singing by Catherine Zeta Jones and Angela Lansbury. The show had a “Midsummer’s Night Dream” vibe. Zeta Jone’s rendition of “Send in the Clowns” was truly amazing.
And, just like tourists do, we waited by the stage door and got a glimpse, first, of Catherine Zeta Jones’ fluffy white dog hopping into her limo, followed by Catherine herself. She signed Playbills, but we could not get close enough.
So, that was Wednesday. More to come.
