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2002-04-10 - 11:20 p.m. red eyes and tears
You'd think from the writer's block I've had regarding finishing up my NYC travelogue that I hadn't had a very good time. In fact, that's far from the truth. I've settled in with a nice cup of vanilla tea and shall get started...
As previously noted, I left my hotel and walked up Lexington to take a peak inside the Chrysler building. I would have loved to go inside and check out the lovely deco/streamline modern details, but the half dozen security guards inside did not seem to want my company. Thus, I trekked onward, stopping first for a coffee and then to catch a cab to whisk myself away to ABC Carpet and Home. There�s no way to tackle 6 floors of home furnishings on an empty stomach � so I had even more coffee and a brioche at the ground floor country French bakery, then climbed up the stairs and walked around. Since I didn�t have an extra thousand dollars to spend on linens or towels (despite how pretty such things were), I hightailed it out of there pretty quickly, and jumped into a cab to head for the village and some vintage clothes shopping. I asked the cab driver to take me to 4th and Broadway�and he inexplicably took me to Union Square, just a few blocks away, then yelled at me when I clarified for him that I still wanted to go to 4th and Broadway. Grrr. I was disappointed by most of the well-known vintage shops I visited overall. Many had a focus on 70s or western wear, and neither cowboy boots nor polyester anything is on my must-buy list. The place where I found the most potential items to purchase was Stella Dallas, a charming shop I�d frequent if I lived in NYC. They had a bunch of lovely black dresses, but none were quite perfect fit-wise, so I left empty-handed. I continued wandering through the village, stopping in some record stores, and eventually winding my way to Dean and DeLuca on Broadway at Prince. This is where the shopping actually happened. The tea I am currently sipping, as well as a fruity vanilla almond tea, and a Moroccan mint and bergamot tea all came home with me from there. They were joined by chocolates which scarcely made it home (how can you resist such temptation in light of the horrors of airline food???) The rest of the afternoon was a blur, roaming up and down the streets, popping in to Moss, Anthropologie, and about a million clothing and shoe stores. Lunch at the Spring Street Natural Caf� was a super tasty tuna melt on a pita, accompanied by mushy french fries. I also stopped in a few galleries�since I didn�t have that extra quarter million dollars in hand, I wasn�t able to snap up one of the Francis Bacon paintings I saw for sale. Bummer. I suppose I wouldn�t have a big enough wall in this place to hang it on anyway�but if I had the cash for the painting, I suppose I could just go out and *buy* a bigger apartment to house the painting, so never mind. ;-) I stopped in the "here is new york" photography project storefront, and spent a good amount of time with the photos there. Unlike the heavy silence these photos provoked at MOMA, which I had to get away from, this space actually drew genuine emotions, including tears of loss or empathy, from people, which somehow made it much easier to digest. After hours of wandering through SOHO, I returned to my hotel, wanting nothing more than to go to sleep. Instead, as planned, I met up with my coworkers for what turned out to be a perfectly fine dinner, followed by a trek to the Hudson Hotel�s bar (which had an L.A. vibe that didn�t impress me), and a brisk walk back to the hotel around midnight. I could have walked around for hours looking up at the illuminated windows that shone in the sky where the stars would normally be� That concludes my NYC travelogue. If you�ve missed an installation, here�s the scoop: I can�t wait to go back.
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