The 10 Year Plan: The End of Year 1

Well, its been a quiet year in Lake Wobegon.

Not really.  Year 1 here in NYC has flown by.  The year has been a whirlwind of activity.  We were never lacking for something fun or worthwhile to do.

A frequent question is what was a highlight during Year 1.  For Greg, one highlight was taking the frigid dip in the Atlantic Ocean during the annual Coney Island Polar Bear Club plunge on New Year's Day.  For Susan, one highlight was seeing a celebrity on the street.  Susan spotted an incognito Kevin Bacon not once, but twice:  first on Madison Avenue and a month later on West 54th Street.  Greg became a little suspicious after the second "coincidence".  (Just kidding.  Susan has so many highlights that it is hard to focus on one.)

We will miss New York and our longtime and new friends living here.  We will certainly return for a visit.  And perhaps we will modify the 10 Year Plan for a return stay here in NYC.  Year 5 in NYC?

Whatever the future holds, we are thankful for the opportunity to have lived in the Big Apple for a year.  It is a great city.  

Thanks for following this blog for the past year.  We hope a few posts made you smile.  We have certainly enjoyed blogging about our experience.     

We will now take a short break from the 10 Year Plan.  Not to worry.  The plan continues in October when we arrive in Italy.  We will spend 3 months in Florence and will use Florence as our base of operations as we travel around the country.  

So, please stay tuned.  We will be blogging again before you know it.  Time flies.

Goodbye for now and ciao.

The 10 Year Plan

10 different cities over 10 years, one city per year

New York
Florence (Italy, not S.C.)

Washington, D.C.

Paris

San Francisco

London

Chicago

Madrid

Seattle

Sydney

Los Angeles

Stockholm

Dublin

Shanghai

"Where do you live in New York?" (Part 11)

Where do we live in New York?

None of your business.

Random Things #18

Some final random things. 

In the East Village, the former home of gun club for local German-American residents. 

Astoria in Queens.  Once home to a large Greek immigrant population.  Athena keeps watch. 

We went on a walking tour and saw Zoltar hanging out in the East Village.  Tom Hanks was nowhere to be seen.

Movin' on Up!--Construction Update #6 (final update)

This construction update is the last one.  We are leaving NY on August 31 and wanted to make sure we capture the progress of construction one more time.

Since arriving in NYC last September, we have seen the old buildings on the site demolished, excavators dig deep into the Earth (about 30+ feet) and then the new building slowly rise skyward.  While progress has seemed slow, a 35-story tower should be built well.  So, caution over speed is a good idea.  

As of the end of August, the building has risen above ground level and the second floor is complete with the third floor being constructed.  Here are some recent photos of the building.

August 24, 2016:

Second story floor poured and cured.  Erecting forms for the walls adjacent to the neighboring buildings. 

August 29, 2016:

Pouring concrete to form the walls adjacent to buildings next store.  The third floor scaffolding is substantially complete.

When we visit New York in the future, we will stop by to see the finished product.  We are sure the building will gleam as it reaches high into the sky.  Below are some images of what we expect to see.  

From the website (200e59.com):  "Macklowe Properties and its partners have begun construction of 200 East 59th Street, a 35-story residential condominium development. The tower continues the Macklowe commitment to classic modernism, and is in the lineage of 432 Park Avenue and the Fifth Avenue Apple Cube.

200 East 59th Street has its own distinct features. To compliment the openness to the light, the palette is grounded in white oak plank flooring and precious white stone. Each home is bordered by a continuous terrace off the main living areas and the interiors are surrounded by column free walls of floor to ceiling glass.

The base of 200 East 59th Street is clad in a basket weave of metals that reflect light during the day and suffuse a glow at night."

Virtual images:  Entrance to 200 East 59th Street (left); the 35-story tower (right)

Virtual image:  Looking south from 200 East 59th Street

Virtual image:  Looking north

Virtual image:  Looking toward Central Park.  Now that's what we call a view!

"Where do you live in New York?" (Part 10)

Where do we live in NYC?

Near a Home Depot.  A very large Home Depot that stretches an entire city block underground.  

View of Home Depot from our terrace.  Convenient, to say the least. 

Only in NYC--Go Topless

In NYC, you can see a lot of things you might not see elsewhere.  Yesterday, that fact was proved true.

August 28, 2016, was Go Topless Day in NYC.  No joke.  The day was celebrated with a parade and rally.  The parade started at Columbus Circle on the West Side and then bounced its way along Broadway and 48th Street, ending at the United Nations on the East Side.  The parade, complete with police escort, was about a block long, with many participants going topless, male and female alike.

Why a Go Topless Day parade?  The marchers support gender equality in general and the right to be topless everywhere.  In NYC, women already have the right to go topless.  Who knew?  The marchers want similar rights elsewhere in the U.S. and the world.  

It turns out that the NYC parade was not the only event yesterday.  Parades and other events occurred around the U.S. and the globe--parades, rallies and the like.   

From the GoTopless.org website:  "'As long as men are allowed to be topless in public, women should have the same constitutional right. Or else, men should have to wear something to hide their chests' Rael, founder of GoTopless.org and spiritual leader of the Raelian Movement (rael.org)  FREE YOUR BREASTS! FREE YOUR MIND!"   (By the way, Joseph Smith seems normal compared to Rael.)

Below are some photos.  Caution:  There were no swimsuit models in the group--female or male.

P.S.  Don't worry.  Greg kept his top on.

Only in NYC (not exactly).

SoHo Living

What's it like living in SoHo?  It's all cast iron and Caddies.

Friends Bill and Dean gave us a wonderful taste of life there.  They are long-time residents of the neighborhood and live in a loft.with a cast iron facade  Check it out.

The loft is located on an upper floor of a classic SoHo iron front building, an architectural masterpiece from 1900.  The entire facade is painted iron and is non-structural, meaning it is decorative and not supporting anything but itself.  The top floor windows are the most intriguing portion of the facade.  The building is located in the SoHo-Cast Iron Historic District.and will therefore be preserved as is indefinitely.

An interior panoramic photo.  Only one side of the loft is captured.  The photo does no justice to the amazing decoration throughout.  Years of of hunting for the ideal pieces has resulted in a livable museum with eye-pleasing pieces wherever you turn.  The best story was the acquisition of the leather sofa (mid-frame).  A bargain but a large piece of furniture that defied transport via the smallish elevator, the narrow stairwell or the narrow windows.  So, how did they do it? 

What is the best part about living in SoHo?  That's right.  SoHo has a Nespresso shop.  Does it get any better?

Pop Quiz:  Where does Cadillac shoot many of its car commercials?  You guessed, on the streets of Soho.  The production team will clear an entire street, wet down the Belgian blocks (street bricks), roll in a gleaming Caddie and start filming.  Cadillac worldwide headquarters is located about 5 blocks away on Hudson Street.

On location in SoHo

A new Caddie in SoHo.  The car is so well polished that you can see the reflection of the building across the street.

 

Another new Caddie in SoHo. 

Touring NYC: The Flatiron District

At the start of Madison on 23rd Street, you will find the Flatiron District, the home of the Flatiron Building and Madison Square Park.   The 307 feet tall Flatiron Building is a triangular building pressed between Fifth Avenue and Broadway.  The building's original name was the Fuller Building.  Since the building rested on a triangular lot known as the flat iron and the building itself resembled a flat iron (photo below), it was dubbed the Flatiron Building early on.  The name stuck. 

The Flatiron Building, NYC

Nearby, at 200 Fifth Avenue, you can find a little slice of Italy in the heart of Manhattan.  Eataly is a genuinely Italian themed eatery and food emporium.  We lunched at Manzo on freshly made mozzarella and gnocchi.  It you are looking for authentic Italian cuisine and food items, Eataly is worth a visit.  

Some random hottie in Eataly.

To learn more about the Flatiron District, click here.

P.S.  Since Year 2 in Italy is around the corner, we thought it was a good idea to start conditioning our palettes to enjoy Italian cuisine.  Of course, we included some desserts.  Yum!

Mermaids in NYC?

Are there mermaids in NYC?  Yes.  Yes, there are.

One of their hangouts is the eatery The Mermaid Inn in the heart of the Upper West Side on Amsterdam Avenue at 86th Street.  Serving all the mermaids and families in the area, the restaurant is both kid-friendly and date-night friendly.  The fare is fit for mermaids and humans alike.  The menu boasts all sorts of seafood.  The lobster roll is to die for.  

We dined there recently with friends and their lovely daughter, a mermaid in training.  At the end of the meal, we were treated to dessert on the house.  Also, we received a Fortune Teller Fish.  Susan's fish had curling sides, indicated she was fickle.  (Smart fish.)

P.S.  Our friends shared the perfect gift with us--a Manhattan shaped cheeseboard.  It will remind us of our wonderful year in NYC and let us serve fine cheeses while living in Italy.

P.P.S.  On the way home on the subway, we spotted some subway art at the 86th Street Station on the IRT line.  The art depicted everyday life on the Upper West Side.  Surprisingly, no mermaids were evident.  Check it out.

Random Things #17

Still more random things. 

Panoramic photo of The Oculus, shot from the eastern end looking west. The Oculus, a new transit hub and luxury mall near 1 World Trade Center, was featured in an earlier post.   During August, most of the stores in The Oculus opened, including a 2-story Apple store, which was characteristically full when we visited on a recent weekday afternoon.

The cheese counter (Fromagerie) at the restaurant Artisanal. The upscale bistrot is relocating next month to a much larger space in midtown Manhattan.

Some random hottie with Greg's cousin Heather, enjoying lunch at Artisanal.

NOT the crazy person who scaled part of Trump Tower in August.  Annual window washing by a fearless, hardworking dude.

Two adjacent tenements on East 60th Street with updated facades.   Well done!

Touring NYC: Harlem

Many of us who are new to New York have preconceived ideas about Harlem, but those notions are simply untrue. For example, Susan thought that Harlem dwellings would be large, run-down tenement buildings covered with graffiti and boarded up with plywood. She wondered if the streets would be dangerous.  

Whatever Harlem's reputation was a few decades ago, things there in August 2016 appear to be different.   Susan, her sister Sally, and brother-in-law Rob went on a two-hour guided walking tour that started at 125th Street and Malcolm X Boulevard and they discovered a lot!

What they observed:  The main streets of Harlem are wide and clean.  Trees line the residential streets where lovely brownstones have been renovated.  A TV show ("The Plug") was being filmed on a quiet side street.  Sidewalk vendors sold artwork and jewelry to passersby.  A free concert was scheduled in a courtyard outside the Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. government building.  

Street vendors offered jewelry, clothing, and watermelon to those who thronged the busy sidewalks.

A mural of band leader Cab Calloway spans the side wall of the large hospital at 125th Street and Malcolm X Boulevard.

Abyssinia Baptist Church is a wealthy, historic church in Harlem.  Among its famous preachers were Adam Clayton Powell and, later, his son (Adam Junior) who was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.

Abyssinia's  Sunday Gospel service attracts crowds from all over the city, and it's said that those who wish to visit must plan to wait in line for at least an hour before the church service begins.

A street mural encourages citizens to know their rights.

Watermelon is a refreshing treat on a hot, humid day, and many street vendors sold slices of  juicy, ripe melon. We ate some, and it was very sweet and tasty!

Rob and Sally admire an historic residential street in Harlem.

Yes, this is a private alley in the residential area around 128th and 129th Streets.  It was constructed during the horse-and-carriage era and is one of the only private alleys that still exist anywhere in Manhattan.

Historic Harlem  townhouses have been renovated in the past fifteen years.  During the economic decline, most of these buildings were divided into multiple apartments or single room occupancy dwellings, but now they are sought after as single family homes.  The one on the end recently sold for almost $3 million.

Filming the TV show "The Plug" on a very hot day in Harlem

"Cut". . .   The crew rushes to the actors off-set.

Between scenes, a crew fanned the lead actress and freshened her makeup.

A typical Harlem residential street

Lovely carved wood artwork on the doors of a privately owned townhouse

A popular restaurant in Harlem

A hair-braiding salon advertises different styles of braids