Travelling: New York (4)

[liv]

Shopping

J and I spent a very pleasant day wandering the length of Broadway to get a feel for New York. After a miserable start to the week, the weather turned glorious the very day we'd earmarked for seeing the city on foot. Less happily, my camera managed to break just as we set out, so I have no real photos of New York (or of the wedding itself, for that matter!)

So we started from Manhattan ('uptown'), where there are lot of mostly old-ish and rather grand buildings, and continued on through the theatre-ish bit (ie the section of Broadway that is like the stereotypical image of Broadway); Time Square, which is full of big flashing lights, creating a rather striking impression; past a long string of electronics shops, and down to the edge of Soho. I'm not sure I've got that in the right order!

This expedition was made considerably more fun by redbird's excellent shopping recommendations, so many thanks to redbird. She wasn't responsible for the little dinky optical mouse for J's laptop; that was only in Staples, so in this case it was the item that was exciting, not the shop. But we followed her pointers to a very lovely bookshop called The Strand, which is enormous and full of delightful things like review copies and remainders as well as second hand books. And we left Broadway to look for Russ & Daughters to buy exceedingly exciting smoked fish for shabbat; this turned out to involve walking a little way into Brooklyn, which was interesting in itself. On the way back we went via a farmers' market in Union Square which sold us some very pretty and very tasty fruit.

Comments

[redbird]

How did you wind up even a little way into Brooklyn when going from the Strand to Russ and Daughters?

[lisekit.livejournal.com]

Starting in the middle, walking through Times Square and carrying on down to the south will indeed get you to SoHo (unlike the Soho in London, the SoHo in NYC is shorthand for South of Houston Street; so you know when you're in SoHo, that's where you are! Same principle applies to NoHo, and to TriBeCa, the Triangle Below Canal Street.)
This also means you were probably very near where I was (well, I guess depending upon where I was at the time....) I was staying on Washington Square, right by NYU.
I had a good proper look at Brooklyn this time - I'd only poked my nose in before. It is a noticably different experience to Manhattan. (If you watch Saturday Night Fever, which is set in Brooklyn, you'll see the female character rhapsodising about Manhattan as if it were another place entirely. It's only over the Brooklyn Bridge, but it *is* quite a different place).
Did you find lots of great food? I've developed a minor obsession with knish and split-pea soup.

[liv]

This probably has a lot to do with the fact that I'm notoriously stupid at geography, and have very likely got all the place names muddled up. I will check up on my facts and correct the entry as soon as I get things straight. *sigh*

[liv]

It's true that NYC struck me as remarkably easy to navigate (and I'm not a person who usually puts easy to navigate anywhere in close proximity to strange city). This probably has quite a lot to do with redbird's most excellent directions. But I know at one point I managed to follow a large chunk of Mr J's directions to Queens when I was supposed to be following redbird's directions to JFK, and I was able to recover and get back on track once I realized. Helpful public transport, reasonably intuitive and transparent layout of town, etc etc.

Did you find lots of great food?
Yes indeed; a post entitled 'food' is in the pipeline, only I'm horribly busy just now. And I know in my heart of hearts that bringing my LJ up to date is not a priority over urgent thesis-related deadlines or planning the services I've promised to run in the next few days.

[lisekit.livejournal.com]

Helpful public transport

Now, I've always felt that this was the case, but it seems to be beyond my father. He warned me about the complexity of the Subway before I went the first time, and I wondered what in Hudson's name he was talking about! He still seems to be struggling with the difference between an Express and a Local train, which I think is generally a mistake you make once and once only (I made a trip to Harlem accidentally once by getting the wrong one on the blue line!) Pa seems to be stuck with the error permanently, though. Guess we can't all be geniuses.....! ;-)

bringing my LJ up to date is not a priority over urgent thesis-related deadlines

[guilt]
Ahem....funny how you seem to have that thesis-work ethic going on, and I just spent 2 and a half hours updating my LJ!
[/guilt]
Screw it....

[lisekit.livejournal.com]

Maybe you mean the East Village? That's a possibility from where you were going.
Were you heading to the Lower East Side? Think that might all make sense.
(Brooklyn is across the water, so you'd have wandered across a bridge to get there if you did!)

[liv]

OK, I had got things confused, not very surprisingly. I spoke to J, who understands geography (she claims her a "spiritual penis" is responsible for her excellent navigational abilities...) and she says:

It was the Lower
East Side. You're thinking the lower eastern part of the city as a whole - that's Brooklyn - and you should have been thinking the lower eastern part of Manhattan.

So both you and lisekit had successfully deciphered my foolish mistake.