While we chose April and May for our trip due to the historically good weather, this week has been cold and windy, with periodic rain. The weather has been bearable, and we have had a chance to wear our scarves and see the benefit of layering our clothing. Even with the wind and cold, we were able to get around fairly easily.
On Tuesday we went back down to the Lower East Side to the Eldridge Street Synagogue which was founded and built in 1887. http://www.eldridgestreet.org/ The tour guide made a point that the immigrants who built it were the first immigrants to the US who had no place to go back to as a lot of their homeland had been taken over by other countries or the pograms had forced them away from their homeland. It was a spectacular building and we enjoyed to tour. We found that they were a poor congregation (like most) and a lot of the walls which look like marble were actually painted to look like marble. We then walked to the Essex Street Market, http://www.essexstreetmarket.com/ a market with a large grocery area and lots of small independent retail stores. It has been around for many years. We then looked for an old furniture market called Ridley's Furniture Market, but it was gone. We then went to the Nah Wah Tea Parlor http://nomwah.com/ on recommendation from Uncle Stu and the dim sum was very good. We did our laundry and took a nice walk in Central Park to cap our day. We walked about 4.75 miles, mostly in the Lower East Side where I continue to look for my roots.
Wednesday was a day for going to art galleries on 57th Street, which we did by simply taking a subway to 59th Street and Columbus Circle and heading cross town to 1st Avenue. This may be the first trip Felice and I do that we don't come back with a piece of art because the things we like are about 4 times the price we are accustom to. We will see. After walking to 1st Avenue, we went up the other side of the street. In one art gallery we actually worked our way up 5 floors with a saleswoman who pulled stock from the back showing us everything from Calder to Miro. Yes the Freeds could buy a Miro. Ah, no we can't. We took the subway to the Broadway District to pick up tickets to a show and then took another subway home to relax. After dinner in the apartment, we met up with Lauren and went to Clybourne Park, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clybourne_Park a straight play which starts where A Raisin in the Sun ends. It dealt with race issues and was very thought provoking. I heartily recommend it. After that, Lauren, Felice and I grabbed a snack in Times Square with about a million of our best friends and then home for the night. We totalled 5.5 miles of walking today.
Thursday got us to our third borough of New York, Brooklyn. We took a subway to the New York Transit Museum. http://www.mta.info/mta/museum/ As we were walking there after a long subway ride, I said to Felice that it would be neat if the entry to the museum was through subway steps. Sure enough, it was. It was very interesting, starting with the construction of the whole system. Imagine the enormity of the system and how hard it was to tunnel as deep as 300 feet in certain places or into areas that were waterlogged. Then we learned about the use of electricity and the third rail. Then there were samples of various buses to climb aboard or be the driver (yes I sat in the driver's seat and played Ralph Kramden) and there were samples of turnstiles and fare boxes over the years. We then went down to the 2nd floor, which was an entire subway platform, which is very, very long. On the tracks (both sides) were different models of subway cars with an explanation of the years of production and use. While you can see the modernization, in reality, the cars really changed very little. From there we took a subway to Grand Central Terminal and took a one-hour audio tour of the whole place. http://www.grandcentralterminal.com/info/walkingtour.cfm It is a spectacular place and we have Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis to thank for its preservation as a historic site. There is so much to see in the old buildings in New York, it is incredible. We did a little grocery shopping and had a quiet evening at home after walking 3.5 miles.
Friday was a day we got to play grandparents to our grand-dog, Ella. We met Lauren at her office and picked up Ella and then we were off and running. First we went to Union Square to hit the local Bed, Bath and Beyond and then we walked around the green market at Union Square. It was cold so mostly we carried Ella, but she did get a little exercise. Then we made our regular pilgrimage to Zabar's (and Fairway Market) on Broadway by subway. Once done, it was our intention to take the 1-line subway uptown to 96th Street and walk crosstown to Central Park West. So we got into the subway station only to find that we went into the station that was for downtown only. Since our Metro Cards don't allow multiple entries in a short period of time, we couldn't go out and go to the other (uptown) station. So we took the train downtown and stopped at the 59th Street station, changed subway lines to the B-line and actually got home with no extra walking. So here was a case where a subway mistake worked to our benefit and saved us a walk in the cold windy atmosphere. We relaxed and napped after playing with Ella. She actually napped more than we did as she was plain tuckered out. After dinner, Lauren and her co-worker Andrew came by to pick up Ella and drop off our tickets to the straight-play, Seminar. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seminar_(play) It starred Jeff Goldblum, Jerry O'Connell and Justin Long and was thought provoking, intense and funny at times. Home to rest up for our most ambitious day after walking 4.5 miles.
Saturday had been reserved for the opening day of the Hester Street Fair http://www.hesterstreetfair.com/ which we so looked forward to. We have been looking for street fairs like the Mill Avenue Street Festival (Tempe), 4th Avenue Street Fair (Tucson), Laguna Saw Dust Festival, etc. Up to this point, we found that most street festivals/art fairs were just swap meets. From the publicity, we came to expect a huge fair. Au contrare. It was two aisles long, was wall-to-wall people and had about 40 vendors. That was a major downer. On a good side, normally to get to this area of the Lower East Side, we would have had to change from a C-line train to an F-line train, but due to construction, our C-line train, started running on the F-line tracks, so no line changes. After our disappointment on Hester Street, we decided to go find Little Italy. We headed up through Chinatown on Mulberry Street and found that Chinatown suddenly ends at Holt Street and becomes Little Italy. What a difference one block makes. The streets of both areas were filled with people. Chinatown had lots of open air markets with foods and vegetables we were not acquainted with like dragon fruit, for example. In Little Italy, we were implored to have lunch at dozens of restaurants, after all they said that they had been waiting for us. We wound up on Grand Street, which we took to Canal Street. On Canal Street there were so many people and so many offers of watches, purses and other knock-offs. It was close, almost like hand-to-hand combat. We finally got to 6th Avenue, where we took a 1-line train to the NYU area. We walked to Washington Square Park and saw the arch, thinking of Corrine and her NYU days. We were in for a treat as Saturday was the semi-annual Dachshund Days at Washington Square Park. http://washingtonsquareparkblog.com/2011/10/03/annual-dachshund-day-happened-saturday/ There were hundreds of them, guiding there owners all over. Some were dressed, had shoes on, hats, and so much more. There was music and we even witnessed a flash mob. After a snack, we walked to a C-line train and back home to rest. After recharging our batteries, we went back to the C-line train to 59th Street and changed to a 1-line train to go to Bed, Bath and Beyond at Lincoln Center to return our purchase from the prior day. We figured we would walk uptown to Shake Shack, http://shakeshack.com/ a burger place that has a cult-like following like In and Out Burger. It was before 5:00 and the line was out the door and down the street so we decided that we would have to find a better day and time to eat there. We wandered up Columbus Avenue and actually found a nice area that had a street fair on it. http://craftsoncolumbus.com/ It was much nicer than Hester Street and allowed us to amble up the avenue for awhile longer. We finally found an organic restaurant called Spring Natural Kitchen http://springnaturalkitchen.com/ and had a lovely dinner. We walked home with stops at drugstores and found we had walked 6.25 miles. No wonder we are so tired.
We are up to about 82 miles walked and have seen 6 plays or musicals so far with tickets in hand for 5 more. I feel like a kid in a candy store as those remaining tickets only bring us to May 5th. We are looking forward to Tuesday's announcement of the Tony Award nominees which will not only create a buzz in the theater community, but might cause certain shows that are not Tony-nominated to have their tickets discounted, thus making them more affordable.
Have a great week and we will keep in touch.
Gary and Felice
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