To live there

New York is sweet.

After a mere three days in New Haven--one trip to the beach and 16 hours in the archives--we returned to the city of many monikers to have another go at it. Now that we're back in the have', everything we did in NYC has gotten muddled together in my mind and, rather unhelpfully, on our camera. Thus, there is no real narrative to be salvaged from what follows. Where there is one, I may have taken some artistic liberties in splicing together mornings and afternoons that never met, pasting orphaned events wherever I find room. I'm sure you don't mind.

The Columbia archives were beautiful, so much so that we forgot to take any pictures of the library or the campus. I assure you, though, the buildings were breathtaking--take a look at someone else's rendering here.


We stayed in three different hotels in four days. I wish it was because we were on the run from the authorities or something equally illicit, but alas it's only because we kept extending our length of stay and grabbing the best hotel deal we could find. The first two nights were spent at the Belnord Hotel. One travel review described it as "laughably small", and I can't think of a better descriptor for this:







Brian's fingertips are about a foot away from the wall on either side, and the room is a square. The bathroom door was about two feet wide, to the point that we weren't even certain we had a bathroom when we first arrived. I found it by opening what appeared to be the closet. Inside, one could brush one's teeth on the toilet and spit into the sink without getting up. One could. If one was so inclined. In any case, no complaints here. The room was cheap, the location was terrific and things were spotlessly clean and reasonably comfortable. We weren't in New York to hang around in a hotel room anyway.


We discovered a great deli / cafe called Zabar's down the street from us, and had our breakfast (bagel and cream cheese, where the bagel to cream cheese ratio is roughly 1:1) and delicious coffee each morning before the archives. Patrons sit at a big, communal table and listen to each other's conversations. At least, that's what we did.


After working--which only took a day and a half--we shopped and gawked up and down Broadway and 5th Avenue. We saw lots of this:





And this:







We saw about one quarter of Central Park. It was both astonishing and depressing: astonishing for all of the expected reasons (lush, bustling, alive in every sense, HUGE) and depressing because all I wanted to do was rollerblade for hours there, but then I'd have to live there, and to do that I'd have to win the lottery or exploit other people and we don't buy lottery tickets and we haven't figured out how best to exploit other people without feeling guilty.

After the first two days, we gave in and started riding the subway if we needed to traverse an area we'd already seen. We really like subways. We really don't understand why it's $2 to ride the subway in New York and $3 to ride the bus in Ottawa.

We also like the fact that the Times Square area has been taken over by pedestrians and lawn chairs. A few sections of the main thoroughfares are closed to cars and (affronted) cabdrivers, and are instead lined with rubber lawn chairs for people to use as they see fit. You can read about it here, or just have a look at our picture and make up your own news story.

We did a lot of vintage shopping (not to be confused with vintage buying), and the best to be had was in Williamsburg (or "Billyburg"), the "hipster capital of the world" according to my dear brother.

We also went to the UN Plaza to check it out. Surprise! We didn't pay to get in. We just milled around the free parts and complained to ourselves about the fact that it costs money to see the UN. Are you tired of us yet? The old "we were too cheap" theme must be getting a bit boring by now, but perhaps these neato pictures of the UN building will buy us some more of your patience:

We checked out the super-trendy Meatpacking District one evening, and as luck would have it our visit followed the much-anticipated opening of High Line Park, an elevated railway-turned-greenspace.

We walked the romantic, lit-up garden paths, tummies grumbling, and descended into the Meatpacking District for dinner. Finding the choices in that area too expensive, too hoity-toity and frankly too packed (it's really trendy), we walked a bit further to Wilfie & Nell's, a new pub recently reviewed in New York Magazine, and were rewarded for doing so. I had a grilled cheese sandwich with some far-out cheese I can't remember the name of and some grainy mustard, Brian had a plate of pork sliders, and we shared a plate of pickles and a basket of dark, handcut fries with malt vinegar. I wish I could eat that food again, and if I could, I'd share it with you. I wouldn't share the Brooklyn Reserve beer we fell in love with, especially now that we found out it's only available in bars, on tap.

We went to a stand-up comedy open mic one evening. We got picked on the whole time. New Yorkers associate one thing in particular with Nova Scotia: Salmon. That is, the salmon they slap on top of bagel lox.

Friday night was turning into a bit of a bust when things took a sudden twist. We'd spent part of the day in Williamsburg, but it was getting a bit rainy and dull, and we were losing energy. We ate a rather early dinner at a pizza place boasting a "best pizza in NYC" article from City Search in its front window, and headed back to our hotel room with half-baked plans to see a movie. While checking movie times, we peeked at the prices and schedules of broadway plays. The 39 Steps was playing in an hour, and there was a little notice that said the theatre offered Student Rush tickets for $26 two hours before the show. We got spiffed up and raced out the door and around the block. The ticket guy explained that students had to show up two hours prior to the show and that the student rush tickets were gone; we'd have to pay $114 like everyone else. But in the end, I worked my magic and snagged us two cheap seats. The play was a riot, and I don't even really like plays.

We went back to Williamsburg on Saturday. That place is so annoyingly cool. Its main street was shut down for a street sale, part of the first annual Northside Festival, and it was busy with big people and baby people and four-legged people, on foot, on wheels and in various states of hygiene. It's cool because this is what a mall looks like:

It's cool because people take time to do stuff like this:

We did more--there was window shopping and afternoon pints in Brooklyn and Dragon Bowls in the East Village; there was real shopping in Greenwich and Chelsea; there was a LOT more walking; there were candied pecans at Max Brenner, the Chocolate Man; there were 4" thick, $14 sandwiches at Katz's deli; there were huge, chewy ginger cookies at Union Square Market; there was a guy playing a theremin somewhere near the ballet; there was cart food and huddling under scaffolding to get out of the rain. There was a sign that needed to be photographed and shared with all of you shvartz-heads:

Shvartz! The name of a bum/poo doctor! Somebody up there likes me. The weather was fantastic half of the time, and miserably drizzly the rest, but it hardly mattered except toward the end. We usually left our room at 9 and returned at midnight, falling into bed and sleeping like big, well-fed, money-spendin', city-lovin' babies.

That's all I can remember for now, but come back in a few days to see all of our pictures, sans story. Until then, here's the view from last night's hotel room: