Saturday
TriBeCa & SoHo
TriBeCa & SoHo
We started the day in TriBeCa on Canal Street. The tourist groups had arrived and it was impossible to get around them. This touristy part of Canal Street is overcrowded with immigrants selling cheap wares. Just like the cliche, a man with a long trench coat offered me some Rolex watches.
We turned up Broadway and headed toward SoHo. Most of the trendy little boutique shops had been pushed out by chain stores. One expensive shop called Allsaints (which has now made it to Seattle), had row upon rows of black antique Singer sewing machines. Other bits of antique or (psuedo-antique?) machinery was used for shelving and display. Instead of store catalogs, they had iPads sprinkled throughout the store.
Ryan bought a raccoon hat at Urban Outfitters to keep his head warm, and we visited a cool store called SuperDry, which I guess is a UK brand that features fake Japanese typography (however at $42 a t-shirt, it was a little out of my price range. This year, we found the same shirts in Turkey for about $12).
The cast-iron architecture in Soho is beautiful, however nothing was more striking than the Little Singer Building. It had frilly Parisian-inspired cast-iron balconies with red accents.
NoHo and Greenwich Village
We stepped out of the cold into Dean and Deluca to get some warm drinks before continuing on through NoHo to Greenwich Village. Because I love When Harry Met Sally, we had to go to Washington Square Park with its imposing white marble arch that is featured in the movie. Inside the arch was a yet-to-be-decorated Christmas tree. The fountain was dry so some street performers were turning it into a makeshift amphitheater by hauling a piano. A concerned artist making designs with colored sand watched nervously from across the other side of the fountain. We peeked at the bookstore from When Harry Met Sally, and headed toward the East Village.
Back on Broadway stepped into the WIRED magazine shop. It was full of the latest gadgets, from fancy refrigerators to 3D HDTV. All the gadgets were real and available on the market, not conceptual. Refrigerators held free drinks and everything was mean to be played with.
In the back corner, there were some art displays, which included a giant electronically actuated “piano” that some 15 year-old put together in his parent’s garage in 3 days, and a post card maker and music video maker from the band “Arcade Fire”. Another displays consisted of a flock of electronic birds that would fly down towards your shadow if you moved. Downstairs there was a “Geek Dad” event, where fathers and their kids were making digital comic strips from Lego action figures, playing foosball and ping pong, and generally having a good time.
East Village
We walked along Houston and passed the graffiti wall, which is painted by celebrity graffiti artists. The current image, brightly spray-painted globs of crazy faces all mashed together, had just been finished the previous week by Kenny Scharf.
A few blocks farther was Katz’s Delicatessen, another famous location from the movie “When Harry Met Sally”. Unfortunately, we were starving and the line was around the block. Instead, we opted for a quirky Turkish place next door. Evidently it’s a favorite hangout for cops, as there was a traffic police officer there, and the counter was covered with police and detective business cards. The food was delicious, even if the presentation didn’t exactly match the pictures shown on the menu.
Top of the Rock
We took the subway directly to Rockefeller center, and surfaced inside 30 Rock. The line seemed long, but it didn’t take long to tickets. The tickets had a time stamped on them for 30 minutes later…evidently they want you to spend some time in the gift shop first. Instead we went to Anthropology, and looked around. One poor husband sat on the steps outside the store, staring unresponsively under a Christmas display with strands of paper icicles lying on his mostly bald head.
Back in line at Top-of-the-Rock, we took the elevator up 1 floor before being shuttled to an escalator that led to another room with some historical displays. After that, we were forced to watch two 4min. movies about Rockefeller Center and Swarovski crystals before being allowed to go in the elevators to the observation deck. The elevator had a transparent ceiling with lights that lit up the passageway as we zoomed up 60-some stories to the 70th floor.
The Top-of-the-Rock arguably has better views of the city than the Empire State Building because the Rockefeller building lets you actually look at the iconic Empire State Building. The three viewing levels had no protective iron bars to block the view and allowed people to spread out more.
We arrived right around twilight. The temperature had dropped with the sun and it was very windy, but the views were fantastic. The first and second levels had protective glass, which although good for blocking the wind, were bad for taking pictures. Fortunately there were gaps between the panes of glass just wide enough to fit a DSLR camera lens. The third level was set back, and did not have anything blocking the view (or wind) at all.
Menorah Lighting and Chanukah Mitzvah Parade
It was still early (6pm) so we decided to walk around 5th Ave again. We went back to the Anthropology store and bought a few things from the sale section (the sale section itself was almost as big as some of the Anthro stores in the Seattle area).The poor, bald husband was still there under the paper icicles, despondent. We passed Cartier, with its building wrapped in a giant red Christmas bow to Grand Army Plaza.
A small crowd had gathered here, most of them dressed in black. A huge menorah (the largest permitted by the Torah…according to the presiding Rabbi) was being lit. A cherry picker lifted the Rabbi to the top of the menorah, where he gave a small speech (the most memorable line being, “We will not negotiate with terrorists”) and lit the menorah.
A steady stream of vehicles streamed passed the menorah, and then turned down 5th Avenue. Small RVs cruised with open doors handing out donuts. People blared music from their stock speakers and danced in the street. They all had homemade light-up menorahs - PVC pipe and 1x4s held bulbs tied to the top of minivans and passenger cars. Many of them had their window rolled-down…asking “Are you Jewish?” to everyone. We were asked, said “no” and were told, “Oh well. Happy Hanukkah, anyway!”
Comments