Off the radar

After clearing some more Uni work, we headed out on an expedition to get some sketching materials for Lynda and some geeky T-shirts from Forbidden Planet. I was pleased to get the re-issued Brian Bolland T-shirt - some 28 years ago I bought one from their London outlet.

For some reason Maserati of Manhattan is under industrial action - but instead of a picket line the protesters have put a great big inflatable rat outside their offices. Very effective ;-)

Nearby on Broadway is a nice church, The Grace Church, which has a lot of outreach activities.

Cooler in town today, and more pleasant in the wandering. On passing through West 13th, there were a number of gay and lesbian organisations talking to television journalists on the important two decisions on gay marriage handed down by the Supreme Court today. On Bleecker Street we stopped to watch a rally for Anthony Weiner, the formerly-disgraced politician now running for NYC Mayor.

The matinee for Natasha, Pierre and the Comet of 1812 was lots of fun. Despite being in a tent, the producers had created a Russian salon with rich drapes and artwork, and we sat comfortably in nice seats as the actors and musicians did their thing.

Like a lot of musicals, there weren't too many memorable tunes but the toe-tapping music did the job of moving the story along. The costumes were terrific and the two one-hour acts passed very quickly, in part due to the complimentary vodka shots and open bar.

After the show your humble narrator needed a little nap, so Lynda went sketching and shoe-shopping. We did not buy cupcakes, no no no.

After trialing the "award winning" Bleecker Street Pizza, we headed for the Fat Cat for jazz and Scrabble (as one does) and then home for a Nurly.

Back home, I read we have a newish Prime Minister. The local press noticed.

Shopping on 5th Avenue

Channeling my inner Carrie Bradshaw, I went shopping for a dressing gown at the upscale department stores. The first one, Bergman Goodman, had a sale on, and were offering a $2700 bathrobe for the bargain price of $1500. I didn't like it nearly enough, and since I was short of a dressing gown because of turning down a Euro220 one in Venice, it was time to look elsewhere. (Drats there was a $2200 green patchwork sports coat that was very nice and will haunt me later).

This is a collection of manly accessories in the gift shop. Lynda spotted a walking stick that looked quite nice, but it must have been made with parts of an extinct creature to be priced at over $2000.

Barney's turned out to be more normal, and I picked up a nice Swiss silk dressing gown for a price that was acceptable. There is a lot of high fashion to be had - I can see how people could catch the fashion bug and buy big. However, the "recommended retail" on fashion is nuts - the only sensible way to buy is "on sale" and preferably at a sale of samples.I gained the impression that some of the stores rely entirely on the super-rich and foreign despots on holiday.

Walking down 5th Avenue shows all the premium brands in their glory, from Tiffany to Louis Vuitton, and a shiny Armani store with video graphics. Louis Vuitton had a gilded dinosaur skeleton in the window, but of course I have one at home.

Barneys have a very amusing cafe, utilising the Microsoft table technology one sits on a long bench and can choose food and the fashion catalogue from an interactive menu. Wasn't amusing enough though, so we beat a retreat to Central Park in search of a chili dog for $3.

We took the train back ("The Names of the Stations are Written on the Subway Walls")

 
and stopped for a coffee at Think (which has a huge and partly deserved reputation). Back home for Guinea Fowl, and a quiet night in watching god-awful American TV just for the irony.

MOMA

Today we started the day with a walk to Bleecker Street for morning coffee and a look at a butcher's shop which specialises in game. I had the guinea fowl for tonight, so made a mental note to go back for "feral swine" and some more unusual birds for the pot.

Nearby is a craft store called Curious, which is. 

Braving the subway for the first time, we took the E train uptown to 53rd and 5th and the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA). We bought the New York City Pass (which bundles a half-dozen different NY attractions) and started hoofing around the 6-storied building.

The special displays were interesting - three installations by Claes Oldenburg (the Store, with lots of art based on foods; the Street with burlap and newsprint visualisations of a streetscape; and a couple of collections of nick-nacks "Mouse" and "Ray Guns". There was a detailed study of the art, architecture and urban designs of Le Corbusier and his lifelong ambition to reshape Paris as a futuristic city.

The permanent collections on two floors (pre-war Modern and post-1940 Modern) are a fraction of the works available but there are many great paintings that are a surprise to see in real life. I've snapped a few pictures of some very well known ones:

This one is SymbioticA's "Pig Wings" as part of the art/technology floor. There are quite a lot of computer games on display for the innovation in design.

So much art. The museum has some interesting options at the gift shop - one can order a print of anything in their collection and have it posted worldwide, which is brilliant. I didn't check on the whole range, but I did miss the Dali paintings and sketches that weren't on display today and will have a look online later.

 

 

As is my wont, I subsidised the museum by lunching at the cafe. It was run like a military operation, places on long tables arranged by orderlies like a Tetris puzzle. I may have had an accent failure - I asked for a macchiato and was served a macaroni. The meatballs were quite nice, very Italian.

 

 

 

 

 

Walking up and down

Our first real excursion was a walk along the Hi Line - an old elevated railway used in the old days to move meat into the "meat packing district" near here. It was abandoned, poised for redevelopment and then saved as a very stylish long park a few metres wide. One end is just around the corner from the apartment, and it's a pleasant stroll above three neighbourhoods.

Sunday evening we ate Italian fish sausages with some mushroom pasta, washed down with a little too much wine. Watching True Blood and Mad Men on live TV was a novelty, but the adverts were very intrusive. We're well settled in, fresh food and fresh laundry and getting orientated. Hudson Street is one of the long N-S spines on the west side of Manhattan and goes through several neighbourhoods.

This morning I had some Uni work to do first up, so we got going about 10.00am for a walk to Washington Square in Greenwich Village. It's hot and humid - low 30's - so water vendors are doing a brisk trade. It reminded me very much of the water vendors in Istanbul - opportunity knocks in the same way worldwide.

From there, we went to Broadway and had coffee at an upmarket cafe/gourmet outlet and looked at the shops further downtown and towards Chinatown (which is apparently now on both sides of Cedar Street at the expense of Little Italy). Lots of naughtiness in stalls on the way - rude T-shirts and gas masks fitted on the end of glass pipes large or small, as Sir requires.
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Chinatown is very Chinese; and in Columbus Park there were lots of old people playing a card game and speaking loudly. A whole class of Chinese-looking kids turned up from a nearby school and I wonder how the locals felt about the statue of Sun Yat Sen there. It was interesting - we've seen the statue of Garibaldi in Washington Square and a statue of Kościuszko in Philadelphia.

Down to the business district, Wall Street and the various Masters of the Universe. The business types don't wear the tourist uniform of baseball hat and runners, so are quite out of place. The security around Wall Street is massive and perhaps the only outcome of Occupy New York.

The crowds were thick around the former Twin Towers site - apart from massive construction of several large buildings there is a 9/11 condolences centre and several other flag-waving opportunities. Most of the crowds were taking pictures and queuing up for the exhibits - as if it was the hottest ticket in town. There were about a dozen men walking up to people to sell them a glossy book about 9/11 and they seemed to be Arabs (as these things work out). Lots and lots of unionised construction workers on lunch break, eating from the food carts nearby. The union suit is now a yellow T-shirt.

We stopped for lunch at a Tintin-themed Belgian Beer House, which was pleasant. There were TVs tuned to the news, so I was able to hear the breaking news about the Fisher v University of Texas case (where the Supreme Court has had another conniption about university affirmative action policies). I had been listening to the uni's General Counsel talking about how meticulous they'd been to not only cover the existing Supreme Court rulings but also the dissenting opinion of Justice Kennedy (since he was going to be a continuing opponent on the Court). Sure enough, he wrote the majority opinion which said that affirmative action policies were ok to ensure diversity only after "strict scrutiny" - effectively that there is no other way to get minorities into university in sufficient numbers and limited to measures which achieve that and no more.

Fortified in food, wine and law, we walked past the NYC Law School with heads high and decided to go home via West Broadway and then to Hudson Street.

There are some classic NY buildings with fire escapes - obviously these are considered very important. There's a sign in the lobby of the apartment building reminding people not to put pot plants on the fire escapes as the building owner had received a violation notice. The Land of the Free really likes its permits - every store, apartment block or construction site is littered with permits of one sort or another sticky-taped to windows or permanently on signs. It seems you need a permit to do minor works and have to display it and all the conditions on the window.

We've been online looking up nearby venues for music and lols. There are of course a zillion options, including some boardgames-and-music bars and theatre sports. We're going to a dinner theatre musical around the corner based on a couple of pages from War and Peace called Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812, which won lots of awards as an off-Braodway show last year. It's at a pop-up theatre called the Kazino nearby which looks very like a tent in the middle of a construction site.

So, a little sorefooted from several hours' walking. We have provisions to cook again tonight, from the Chelsea Markets. Ooh, great delight - there is an Italian deli/gourmet shop there from which I was able to buy a guinea fowl, and which serves good coffee and Sicilian Cassata cake.

Arrived in Hudson Street

After a last breakfast at Di Bruno's in Philadelphia, we checked out of the Sofitel at 9.00am and after a short cab ride to the 30th Street Station immediately got the cheapest train ride to NYC that day (because there was no restaurant car) and arrived about 11.00am. The cabbie from Penn Station needed a bit of help to find the right part of Hudson Street, but when we arrived the owner's partner Rick was there to help us up the tiny stairs to the fifth floor.

Fifth floor, no lift. I will try to keep positive about the stairs!

Joe and Rick showed us around, and I filled him up with $20 notes - the rent had to be paid in advance in cash, but my only access to cash is via ATMs that dispense $20 notes. They "warned" us about the Gay Pride march next Sunday, and we confirmed that we were very happy to celebrate diversity and watch the fireworks. They suggested we check the newspaper over the 4th of July celebrations, which may include a boat and fireworks just a couple of blocks away.

Joe is a muscular, inked and macho-gay guy. He has a picture of younger Joe on the wall:

The apartment is snug, and oddly so. It's got all the mod cons apart from a clothes washer, but in an unusual layout. The lounge is pretty normal:

There's cable TV and wifi and all is good. However, the bathroom has the unusual feature that the toilet, sink and bath are all in a line and the bed is jammed into an alcove which is probably formed by the neighbour's closet.

There is a creepy, rusty fire escape that seems to me to be very New York. I can't presently figure how to get out the kitchen window to get onto it, nor what I'd have to do to descend. Let's not have a fire :-)

The street is busy, vibrant and under construction. Nearby, I was amused to see a petrol station opening with quite a bit of fanfare:

Just down the road is a Googleplex, across the road from the excellent Chelsea Markets. Lynda and I bought a lunch of lobster rolls (deem Homer Simpson drooling noise) and picked up some groceries. There are Faiveley burgundies on sale for $25, which is about the price I paid in 1977 in Perth. We chose exotica and interesting new things, and I was delighted to buy some fresh peas for my shelling pleasure.

 

We've dropped the washing off at (is this still correct?) a Chinese laundry. I have no idea what it will look like on return as we're paying by weight.