I spent a fabulous Thanksgiving weekend in New York City as a guest of my friends Jerry and Don in their new apartment in "lower Harlem." Honored to be their first houseguest, I arrived in typical wintery NYC weather - chilly and rainy in the 40s on the Vamoose bus, a terrific bargain and a pleasant trip. The next day the weather turned balmy and sunny. Couldn’t have ordered better.
Jerry made preparations for our Thanksgiving feast with several additional guests coming late Thursday afternoon.
Don polished the silver and set the table.
Then we went for a walk to whet our appetites.
It was a great meal in lovely company and I hope yours was as congenial too.
Friday we joined another friend, Lynn, to see War Horse at Lincoln Center. That was an amazing and emotional production and probably one of the best pieces of theater I’ve ever seen. Of course, no pictures allowed but perhaps you can find some on the web. The lifesize puppet horses by a South African company and operated by three puppeteers each, were astoundingly alive.
On Saturday Don had snagged us free tickets for a "Foods of the Lower East Side" tour sponsored by the Tenement Museum. This was great fun with little tastes all along the way and we discovered a number of places even us die hard New Yorkers never knew about - like the Essex Street Market in existence since 1940 and
Economy Candy, a "penny candy" store. One of the highlights was this
Panade bakery where just to demonstrate the ethnic mix of the Lower East Side we sampled
puff pastries stuffed with green tea cream (not my favorite). We also had bits of 1/4 sour pickles from the last kosher pickle stand in the area (closed because it was Saturday - but our guide had thought ahead), pretzels w/mustard, and my personal favorite
dumplings from Angela’s Dumplings which has a Zagat rating and rave reviews plastered all over the storefront.
Sprinkled among the old tenement buildings and shops were some lovely old synagogues
.
We walked up through SoHo after our tour which was packed with holiday shoppers and tourists.
We spotted this lovely old building which was the Singer Sewing Machine headquarters years ago.
It’s still a lovely building.
Another item of interest for me was this men’s hat shop that appears to have something for every gentleman who wants a topper. I also liked this cool looking bar
.
Sunday I was on my own and walked over to the Bard Graduate Center on W. 86th Street to see the Stephen Jones exhibit "Hats an Anthology." No pictures allowed, I’m afraid, but I did buy the book. This exhibit was held at the V&A in London a couple of years ago and I was thrilled to see it come so close to home. It’s many hats are spread across three floors of this brownstone building off Central Park West and I will go back in the Spring with my Houston Hat Net buddies. (I just couldn’t WAIT!) Then I walked down Amsterdam to find my favorite old dumpling place in my old neighborhood, The Cottage on Amsterdam at 77th. I am pleased to report their Szechuan Dumplings in Peanut Sauce are still delicious and cheap. After lunch I headed down to the TKTS booth where I got half price tickets to see Kim Catrall and Paul Gross in Noel Coward’s Private Lives, another delightful theater experience.
On the way home we had a minor mishap, a flat tire, which delayed us just long enough for us to hit Washington, DC during Monday Rush Hour. The pain was eased by the coupon Vamoose sent each one of us for a free ride. All in all a great weekend! Thank you, Jerry and Don!
What a wonderful respite for you. I know you love New York . and such good friends. We still miss you here in Houston.
Posted by: Marie | December 05, 2011 at 01:22 PM
I can so picture Kim C. in Private Lives!
Posted by: jill | December 21, 2011 at 08:48 PM