Morningside Heights

A recent outing found us in Morningside Heights, the neighborhood where Columbia University is located and where Greg attended law school.  Morningside Heights is located in Manhattan, north of the Upper West Side and west of Harlem.  It was once the home of Bloomingdale's, the Insane Asylum, not the department store.  No joke and somewhat fitting. 

Below are a few photos from the visit.

Columbia University, Low Library

Greg standing in front of his apartment building on West 112th in Morningside Heights. 

St John Divine Cathedral at the end of Greg's street.  Greg walked by the cathedral everyday going to and from classes, with occasional visits inside the cathedral, one of the largest in the world. 

The west window of St. John the Divine Cathedral

The nave and main altar of St. John the Divine Cathderal

Keith Haring artwork in a chapel of St. John the Divine Cathedral

Artwork by Tom Otterness in the nave of St. John the Divine Cathedral

As noted in the photo, Tom Otterness is the artist who decorated a NYC subway station with his bronze sculptures.  Click here to see the subway sculptures at 14th Street/Eighth Avenue.

During our visit, we stopped for lunch at Tom's Restaurant at 112th Street, place where Greg sometimes ate during law school when he wasn't saving his pennies and eating ramen noodles.  Tom's Restaurant is the diner in Morningside Heights made famous in Seinfeld.  According to Kenny Kramer (the real Kramer), the urban legend is that the show (which was produced on a soundstage in California) needed an exterior scene of a NYC diner.  A member of the production team living in NYC walked from her apartment over to Tom's Restaurant and took the photograph used during the Seinfeld series.  The myth of "Monk's" was born, making Tom's Restaurant a required stop on any Seinfeld pilgrimage.  (Comparative photos appear below.)

Tom's Restaurant, Broadway and 122th Street, NYC

As seen on Seinfeld

P.S.  Pop Quiz.  Where is the diner where Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David actually came up with the idea for a show about nothing?