New York Report Part 3
Sunday February 12: I've heard of this... I think they call it 'snow.'
We arose on Sunday morning to a whiteout. Snow was piled on our balcony to a height of a foot, and flurries continued to drift throughout the morning. TV news shows gave us the pertinant details that you all know by now: 2-3 inches of snow per hour, flights cancelled, trains stopped, North Jersey buried, Long Island hammered, etc. We had a reservation for brunch at the Tavern on the Green, though, and so we couldn't dilly-dally! We bundled up heavily and braved the snow after first requesting a late check-out.
Our plan was to grab a cab on 8th Avenue, which leads right to 67th, where TotG is located (in Central Park). It's about 12 blocks, not a bad walk in good weather, but we were NOT doing it in 2 feet of snow. Trouble is, a lot of cab drivers get ornery in bad weather. A few didn't stop, one wanted to charge us $20 for 8 blocks, but one guy finally stopped for us and took us there for a cost of $4.80. We tipped well.
Tavern on the Green is kind of a campy place. I was under the impression it was more upscale, but it's really pretty kitschy. We decided that it's the kind of place that New Yorkers would rarely go except when visiting relatives were in town. The food was... okay. Sce had a fritatta that she liked, but my blueberry french toast was basically toasted slabs of inch-thick blueberry bread with blueberry compote. I'm not an expert, but French Toast usually has eggs involved as well, and no ouevres were present in my dish. Subpar for sure.
We had no trouble snagging a cab back to our hotel, and we drove down 5th Avenue past all the shwanky stores. People were out shopping in spite of the blizzard, and we laughed at them from the warm confines of our cab. We got back to the hotel, packed, paid, and then spent a half hour trying to get a cab. They were all occupied and/or wouldn't come down 45th from 6th AVe, which is one-way the wrong way. We finally snagged a guy and made our way to the other hotel. Why switch hotels? Well, Sce's work was paying for Sunday night - their Monday meeting was at this hotel - so we were pretty much beholden to go there. It was a bit of an adventure, but we made it down to the Hotel on Rivington, which happens to be in the heart of the Lower East Side, the stomping grounds of none other than one of my favorite musicians/writers/bloggers, Mike Doughty. Sadly, I didn't realize the latter until after I'd returned home.
Hotel on Rivington is pretty cool - if a little pretentious. You might think that QT was pretentious for having a pool / bar, but actually that was pretty neat. There was just something... snooty about Rivington. I dunno. The shower didn't have any curtains on the window, which was a little odd, and the toilet was black. Just not quite what I'm used to, I guess. The bed was that TempurPedic memory foam, which is actually less comfortable, IMO, than a well-made pillow-top mattress.
Finding ourselves to be hungry and in need of a pick-me-up, we went out looking for a place to cadge a snack. We walked a ways down Rivington and then turned south on Essex, heading to Delancey. We essentially went around the block and came back to a place on Rivington and Ludlow called Inoteca, where we had some italian cheeses and a delcious chocolate mousse-like pudding thing. I really found myself responding to the community aspect of the neighborhood.
One of the things you don't get in California's gawky suburban sprawl is the tight-knit community feeling. Sitting in that Lower East Side café, I watched people walk by the windows, waving happily to friends inside, watched people run into each other on the street, and slip and slide together down the street from restaurant to bar to apartment.It makes a certain kind of sense, too, based on the winter and the city environment. It's not practical to have a car in New York, so your goods and services need to be within walking or biking distance from your building, and the winter makes this doubly important because cab drivers (as previously noted) can get ornery in snowy conditions. It just makes sense that you would get to know the people in your neighborhood. In CA, everyone lives at least a 5 minute drive away from the grocery store or the dry cleaner or the pizza place. We commute solo in our cars instead of taking the bus or the subway, and we rarely meet our neighbors or even random strangers on public transit. Even downtown LA and San Diego are more spacious than New York; the streets are wider, the sidewalks expansive. There's so much space to avoid conversations, eye contact, or interaction of any kind. New York doesn't seem to have that spread-out feeling. Sure, you can isolate yourself if you choose to, but it seems so much easier to reach out to the community and join it in NY.
At any rate, we headed back to the hotel to nap / watch TV, which we did for an hour or so. I checked on my flight (Monday at 10 AM) and was alarmed to read that it had been cancelled. All flights prior to 12 noon on Monday were cancelled, leaving me somewhat distressed. After spending twenty minutes on hold with American Airlines, I decided to worry about calling them after dinner. We went to a small local restaurant for a late dinner (11 pm, I think), and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. It was a tiny hole-in-the-wall with really good Italian food. I have heard a lot of stereotypes of New Yorkers as brusque and rude, but I found this to be totally untrue. New Yorkers are outspoken and direct, but they are also friendly and open. I liked pretty much everyone I spoke to, and observed lots of small interactions that made me smile. People are different from what I'm used to, but that's hardly a bad thing.
After dinner, we made our snowy way back to the hotel, dodging past a gaggle of musicians on the sidewalk. There was some kind of utility work going on in a manhole - electrical, by the look - and I found myself marveling at how life went on even in the face of the Blizzard of '06. In fact, life went on because of the blizzard, in some sense; people have to shovel their walks, get food, run errands, go to work, snow or no snow. If two inches of snow fell on San Diego County, the entire region would come to a grinding halt. In New York, they were getting two to three inches of snow per hour, and the show went on. I loved it. I think, oddly, I would even enjoy shoveling the walk - that's the kind of mindless labor that I really enjoy. I know sweeney_o thinks I'm being naiive, but as long as I didn't have to dig the car out every day (and in NY, I'd be taking the subway anyway), I'd be okay with shoveling the walk in front of my building.
I got back on the horn with American Airlines and discovered to my horror that my 2/13 canceled reservation had been pushed to 2/14 at 6:45 PM. I just laughed when he told me that. The earliest he was able to get me on, he said, was 6:35 AM the same day, which was not great, but better than 12 hours later. The problem with redeeming miles is the limited number of flights you can get on. I decided I would go to the airport when Sce did on Monday and see what standby flights I could get. We went to sleep thereafter.
We arose on Sunday morning to a whiteout. Snow was piled on our balcony to a height of a foot, and flurries continued to drift throughout the morning. TV news shows gave us the pertinant details that you all know by now: 2-3 inches of snow per hour, flights cancelled, trains stopped, North Jersey buried, Long Island hammered, etc. We had a reservation for brunch at the Tavern on the Green, though, and so we couldn't dilly-dally! We bundled up heavily and braved the snow after first requesting a late check-out.
Our plan was to grab a cab on 8th Avenue, which leads right to 67th, where TotG is located (in Central Park). It's about 12 blocks, not a bad walk in good weather, but we were NOT doing it in 2 feet of snow. Trouble is, a lot of cab drivers get ornery in bad weather. A few didn't stop, one wanted to charge us $20 for 8 blocks, but one guy finally stopped for us and took us there for a cost of $4.80. We tipped well.
Tavern on the Green is kind of a campy place. I was under the impression it was more upscale, but it's really pretty kitschy. We decided that it's the kind of place that New Yorkers would rarely go except when visiting relatives were in town. The food was... okay. Sce had a fritatta that she liked, but my blueberry french toast was basically toasted slabs of inch-thick blueberry bread with blueberry compote. I'm not an expert, but French Toast usually has eggs involved as well, and no ouevres were present in my dish. Subpar for sure.
We had no trouble snagging a cab back to our hotel, and we drove down 5th Avenue past all the shwanky stores. People were out shopping in spite of the blizzard, and we laughed at them from the warm confines of our cab. We got back to the hotel, packed, paid, and then spent a half hour trying to get a cab. They were all occupied and/or wouldn't come down 45th from 6th AVe, which is one-way the wrong way. We finally snagged a guy and made our way to the other hotel. Why switch hotels? Well, Sce's work was paying for Sunday night - their Monday meeting was at this hotel - so we were pretty much beholden to go there. It was a bit of an adventure, but we made it down to the Hotel on Rivington, which happens to be in the heart of the Lower East Side, the stomping grounds of none other than one of my favorite musicians/writers/bloggers, Mike Doughty. Sadly, I didn't realize the latter until after I'd returned home.
Hotel on Rivington is pretty cool - if a little pretentious. You might think that QT was pretentious for having a pool / bar, but actually that was pretty neat. There was just something... snooty about Rivington. I dunno. The shower didn't have any curtains on the window, which was a little odd, and the toilet was black. Just not quite what I'm used to, I guess. The bed was that TempurPedic memory foam, which is actually less comfortable, IMO, than a well-made pillow-top mattress.
Finding ourselves to be hungry and in need of a pick-me-up, we went out looking for a place to cadge a snack. We walked a ways down Rivington and then turned south on Essex, heading to Delancey. We essentially went around the block and came back to a place on Rivington and Ludlow called Inoteca, where we had some italian cheeses and a delcious chocolate mousse-like pudding thing. I really found myself responding to the community aspect of the neighborhood.
One of the things you don't get in California's gawky suburban sprawl is the tight-knit community feeling. Sitting in that Lower East Side café, I watched people walk by the windows, waving happily to friends inside, watched people run into each other on the street, and slip and slide together down the street from restaurant to bar to apartment.It makes a certain kind of sense, too, based on the winter and the city environment. It's not practical to have a car in New York, so your goods and services need to be within walking or biking distance from your building, and the winter makes this doubly important because cab drivers (as previously noted) can get ornery in snowy conditions. It just makes sense that you would get to know the people in your neighborhood. In CA, everyone lives at least a 5 minute drive away from the grocery store or the dry cleaner or the pizza place. We commute solo in our cars instead of taking the bus or the subway, and we rarely meet our neighbors or even random strangers on public transit. Even downtown LA and San Diego are more spacious than New York; the streets are wider, the sidewalks expansive. There's so much space to avoid conversations, eye contact, or interaction of any kind. New York doesn't seem to have that spread-out feeling. Sure, you can isolate yourself if you choose to, but it seems so much easier to reach out to the community and join it in NY.
At any rate, we headed back to the hotel to nap / watch TV, which we did for an hour or so. I checked on my flight (Monday at 10 AM) and was alarmed to read that it had been cancelled. All flights prior to 12 noon on Monday were cancelled, leaving me somewhat distressed. After spending twenty minutes on hold with American Airlines, I decided to worry about calling them after dinner. We went to a small local restaurant for a late dinner (11 pm, I think), and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. It was a tiny hole-in-the-wall with really good Italian food. I have heard a lot of stereotypes of New Yorkers as brusque and rude, but I found this to be totally untrue. New Yorkers are outspoken and direct, but they are also friendly and open. I liked pretty much everyone I spoke to, and observed lots of small interactions that made me smile. People are different from what I'm used to, but that's hardly a bad thing.
After dinner, we made our snowy way back to the hotel, dodging past a gaggle of musicians on the sidewalk. There was some kind of utility work going on in a manhole - electrical, by the look - and I found myself marveling at how life went on even in the face of the Blizzard of '06. In fact, life went on because of the blizzard, in some sense; people have to shovel their walks, get food, run errands, go to work, snow or no snow. If two inches of snow fell on San Diego County, the entire region would come to a grinding halt. In New York, they were getting two to three inches of snow per hour, and the show went on. I loved it. I think, oddly, I would even enjoy shoveling the walk - that's the kind of mindless labor that I really enjoy. I know sweeney_o thinks I'm being naiive, but as long as I didn't have to dig the car out every day (and in NY, I'd be taking the subway anyway), I'd be okay with shoveling the walk in front of my building.
I got back on the horn with American Airlines and discovered to my horror that my 2/13 canceled reservation had been pushed to 2/14 at 6:45 PM. I just laughed when he told me that. The earliest he was able to get me on, he said, was 6:35 AM the same day, which was not great, but better than 12 hours later. The problem with redeeming miles is the limited number of flights you can get on. I decided I would go to the airport when Sce did on Monday and see what standby flights I could get. We went to sleep thereafter.