Bagels, Bialys, Vermeers, and Pizza: My Manhattan
Written: Oct 26 '03 (Updated Apr 03 '09)
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Pros: Ahh, the culture, the food, the culture, the books, the food, the culture, the culture...
Cons: Cons? Yes, there are cons (and pickpockets, etc.). Also, lots of noise and crowding.
The Bottom Line: New York City has pretty much everything. Herewith, a guide to why I love it as much as I do, even while I hate it at times.
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| trust12345's Full Review: New York City |
I’ve spent the better part of my 33 years in my hometown, Manhattan. Every time I spend a significant period away, I realize anew what I really love about the place. Conversely, when I am stuck in the city for too long, I am convinced of its many drawbacks and outright annoyances: perpetual noise, honking cars, overcrowded sectors, gridlock, an out-of-date subway system, insane taxi drivers, and so on. Meanwhile, I realize that three of the most popular conceptions of my city— that it is dangerous, rude, and dirty— are gradually becoming outdated: the city has definitely improved on all three counts during my lifetime. Despite my apparent ambivalence about the place, I love it like family: dare insult it, and I will defend it passionately.
So, while I could enumerate further reasons my hometown also stinks, I will write this as though I were far, far away— the suburbs, or the countryside, or mall-town America. Organized roughly by neighborhood (though also by association), here is what I would miss the most. The main categories that will come up again and again are food, museums, book stores, music (concert halls, retailers), and outdoor recreation. This is a personal guide to New York City.
My Neighborhood: The Upper West Side
Vast as New York City is, any first time visitor will quickly realize that it is comprised of highly distinctive and diverse neighborhoods, some of which spill over and blend with adjacent ones, others that seem strangely carved out in the clearest of borders. I grew up on what is known as the Upper West Side, though that term has been used for anywhere on the west side of Manhattan from Lincoln Center (in the 60s) to Columbia University (at Broadway and 116th) three miles north. My family’s apartment overlooks the
Museum of Natural History (Central Park West, 77-81st streets), with a gorgeous view of the new Rose Center For Earth and Space, a stunning sphere encased in a transparent cube that replaced the old Hayden Planetarium. The museum houses numerous (somewhat dowdy) exhibits on mankind’s and the earth’s development, with favorite attractions such as the dinosaurs. The show in the planetarium is overcrowded, overpriced, too brief (for the long wait), and rudimentary, though it might be worthwhile for kids. But the Rose Center contains other, excellent exhibits and is beautiful simply to look at from numerous angles. A new garden area with fountains beside the museum is intermittently open to visitors, and is a wonderful (and quiet) place to take a book and picnic.
New York is justifiably famous for its incredible variety and quality of restaurants. From my neighborhood, my enduring (all budget to mid-range) favorites are:
Lenny’s (Columbus b/n 83rd and 84th, east side of the street). A fabulous deli with some of the best sandwiches in the city. Try the chicken tonkatsu hero— a variation on a Japanese standard. Vegetarians tell me they love the place, too.
Monsoon (Southeast corner of 81st and Amsterdam). Excellent (albeit westernized) Vietnamese food. Try the mien ga soup (a chicken and rice noodle soup) for $2.50, one of the best remedies and comfort soups ever concocted. Also, the string beans entrée and chicken (or beef/shrimp/vegetable) bahn hoi are phenomenal. Update: Closed for business!
Popover’s Café (Amsterdam b/n 87th and 88th, East side of the street). Some items get a bit pricey, and the wait for a table on weekend brunch hours can be stultifying, but the titular items— a basket of popovers— make it all worth it. Order them with preserves and their fabulous strawberry butter. The décor is homey and welcoming, the longtime staff extremely friendly.
Columbus Bakery (Columbus b/n 82nd and 83rd, west side of street). European and American fare served buffet style, the ingredients are always fresh. At night, try the very authentic dinner and dessert crepes. This is a popular café to read (or write) books in. The only drawback: acoustics make it possible to hear every conversation. Update: Closed for business!
H and H Bagels (Southwest corner of Broadway and 80th). Some of the best bagels in New York (and therefore, the world). Overpriced: yes. Done to perfection: yes. Next door, stroll over to the famous emporium and Jewish heaven on earth,
Zabars (Broadway b/n 80th and 81st). Compete with teeming masses for the world delicacies: the famous lox and white fish, hundreds of cheeses, ground coffees, gourmet mustards and salsas (and much more). I love the bread counter with its fresh pain au chocolat (chocolate croissant), muffins, baguettes and bialys.
Connected to the Upper West Side, and sprawling much further in all directions is my back yard,
Central Park. Sculpted to appear natural, with numerous ambling paths, rolling greens, dense forestation in spots and fields in others, this is the gift to the city that keeps on giving. How much can you fit in one park? A zoo, a theater, a castle, children’s playgrounds, numerous large ponds (including one for turtles), a six-mile drive that doubles as a path for bicyclists, in-line skaters, joggers and unicyclists (I’m there practically every day), botanical gardens, performance spaces, baseball diamonds, tennis and basketball courts, sculptures, boat rental, free concerts, and on and on. The views are ingeniously calculated to make you fall in love with everything around you, including the skyline that looms in the distance. Near the entrance at 72nd Street is Strawberry Fields (with its commemorative ‘Imagine’ circle), a tribute to John Lennon who lived (and was killed) across the street outside his Dakota apartment. Post-Woodstock 2 and all the commercialism attached to the current rehashing of the 60s and 70s, this is still a place to feel “connected” to your inner hippy.
Across Central Park from my home is the Louvre of America,
The Metropolitan Museum of Art (5th Avenue b/n 82nd and 83rd). For tourists, it would be folly to attack this behemoth in a single outing. Even four days would be pushing it. There are enormous collections devoted to everything in the arts and crafts from all of recorded time. (Well, no, there are no cave paintings.) My personal favorites: the Egyptian Wing, Ancient Greek sculptures and vases, French Medieval tapestries, the Japanese garden, Frank Llyod Wright’s home, the Modern Art wing, Impressionists, Monet room, and photography collection. Avoid museum ennui: pick a few of your own favorite periods/rooms and enjoy them fully.
The Met is the grand daddy of the Museum Mile. Very close by, you’ll find a number of incredible spaces that you can savor in a day or half-day.
The Frick Collection (5th Avenue and 70th). Housed in a former residential mansion, the exterior façade, interior décor, and interior garden are worth a visit. But the real treats are the Old Masters’ canvases— masterpieces by Vermeer (represented by three paintings), Titian, Rembrandt, El Greco, Bellini, and Holbein (among others), as well as those of later artists such as Turner, Constable, Goya, Degas and Whistler. There are frequent chamber music concerts at the Frick (as there are at the Met), and the acoustics are sublime.
The Neue Galerie New York (86th Street b/n 5th Avenue and Madison, south side of the street). A relatively new addition to the Museum Mile, this exquisite gallery is devoted to turn of the century Austrian and German art, with rooms devoted to the work of Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimpt, Paul Klee, Wasily Kandinsky, Oskar Kokoschka, George Grosz, and other members of the Jugendstil and Bauhaus movements. The gallery has just as impressive a collection of the period’s wonderful design, jewelry, and furniture, including works by Joseph Hoffman, Koloman Moser, Otto Wagner, Adolf Loos, and Joseph Urban. A fantastic book store and café complete the experience.
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (5th Avenue and 88th). The museum’s frame itself is one Frank Lloyd Wright’s masterpieces, an arresting trio of white ledges with an interior that spirals down to the lobby, exhibition rooms shooting off from the sides. The frequently rotating exhibits showcase choice selections of modern art (e.g. works of Picasso, Klee, Miro, Cezanne, and Kandinsky).
One of my favorite things to do in the city (or anywhere) is ride my unicycle. With its large wheel and short cranks, I can actually get around very fast, and I use it for basic transportation when the weather isn’t too awful (though I do ride it in rain and snow on occasion). Riding in the city isn’t much fun— the pedestrian and vehicle traffic can get heinous— but there are more and more dedicated bike paths as the city becomes more cycle friendly. By far, the nicest such route is
The Hudson River Bike Path, an 11-mile long flat strip that runs from the base of Manhattan to the George Washington Bridge. Actually, the upper part of the path is still under construction, and cyclists (joggers, etc.) are forced to make some wicked detours. But there are still miles and miles of uninterrupted, traffic-free bike path with breathtaking views of the Hudson, passing by the battleship Intrepid along the way. In the west 60s, you can view three weathered piers (they are called piers, but they more like the steel skeletons of boat houses) that are some of my favorite landmarks in the city. Heading downtown, you pass by the World Trade Center site (slightly off the bike path). Though the actual site has now become something of a tourist circus, try to ignore the crowds, put away your camera or camcorder, and pay your respects in your own way and time. Heading further downtown on the path, you reach Battery Park, a lovely area with old boats, piers, gardens and long narrow fields. Proceed to the very tip of Manhattan, and you can easily view the Statue of Liberty off in the distance. Get a closer look via the Staten Island Ferry, a free ride that passes close to the statue, or the Statue Ferry that will take you right to her. The food and drinks are expensive and not plentiful around Battery Park, so make sure to pack your own.
Heading up on the east side of Manhattan (or crossing from the bike path at Chambers Street), you eventually reach one of the wonders of the city,
The Brooklyn Bridge. The poets Walt Whitman and Hart Crane rhapsodized about it, movies, paintings and posters have memorialized it, but it remains ever a fresh and inspiring structure each time you behold it. Massive, twin stone arches suspend a delicate latticework of cables, and a wooden boardwalk gives cyclists and pedestrians a perfect way to take it in slowly. From its center, the view of Manhattan is stunning. North of the bridge on the Manhattan side, you’ll find yourself in the city’s district of court houses. My association with jury duty makes this not one of my favorite sites, but the buildings are grand (in their neoclassical splendor).
Further north, you encounter
The Lower East Side, the latest trendy locale for hip young New Yorkers (hence, not me), and a fascinating blend of cultures including Chinese in the vast and labyrinthine Chinatown, and Orthodox Jews. This is old New York, and the history of the brown stones is wonderfully captured in the Lower East Side Tenement Museum (66 Allen Street). When I’m in the area, I never pass up an opportunity to stock up on the city’s best pickles (at Guss’ Pickles, 87 Orchard Street), and bialys (at Kossar’s Bialys, 367 Grand Street). The onion discs and bialys at Kossar’s are miracles of bread creation— watery, dusty, smoky, fluffy: yes, they are the culinary four elements.
Greenwich Village (also known as the west village) is always an easy place to get lost in. Its streets are named and diagonal, some ending suddenly, others curving. But you always wind up finding new treats— a charming restaurant, gallery, bakery, or “marital aids” shop. On weekends, the place overflows with people long into the night. N.Y.U. seems to be making a manifest destiny expansion into its charming center, with perennial construction of new buildings, but there is plenty left to enjoy as it is and was.
The East Village is its west side counterpart’s grungier sibling. The famous St. Mark’s Street is a showcase of kinks, tattoo parlors, fetish shops, and basement restaurants.
In this final section, I will list some of my favorite shops and theaters according to genre rather than neighborhood.
Books: Manhattan is one of the best cities for bibliophiles and bibliomanes. Being both, I am never at a loss for a good book store, though my wallet suffers whenever I get close to
Labyrinth Books (536 West 112th Street, b/n Broadway and Amsterdam). Located near Columbia University, this is the best pace in the city for scholarly and university press books, featuring lavish sections in all the fields of any good university curriculum. There are always amazing books on sale on the ground floor and winding up the staircase toward the main floor. The clerks are friendly and very helpful, bending over backward to come up with that hard-to-find book you need tomorrow. The store is around the corner from the largest cathedral in the world, the gorgeous but unfinished Cathedral of St. John the Divine (Amsterdam and 112).
Applause Books (211 West 71st Street) is dedicated mainly to theater books (plays and theater criticism and biography), with great sections devoted to film and acting.
The Strand Book Store (828 Broadway, at 12th) is one of the world’s largest second-hand book sellers, though they also have a huge inventory of new books in every category imaginable. Finding just what you want may be difficult, though when you find an out of print book here, it is generally low-priced. It is very easy to get lost in the stacks, and equally difficult to leave without your own stack of books.
Kinokuniya (10 West 49th Street) is located across the street from Rockefeller Center. This wonderfully maintained and run store sells Japanese books in original and translation, as well as Japanese manga, videos and DVDs, and stationery supplies. The bilingual clerks are very helpful, though it is always fun to browse in this amazing boutique of all books Japanese.
St. Mark’s Books (31 Third Avenue, corner of 9th Street) has one of the sexiest collections of books on philosophy, photography, political science, avant-garde, gay and lesbian, Eastern studies, art history, cult, and beat culture in the city. In the back, rows of high quality remaindered books whelp for a new home.
Shakespeare & Co. (716 Broadway, near N.Y.U.) is similar to St. Mark’s Books in its incredible collection of sexy (defined broadly) books. Great staff, too.
Film: Along with Paris, Tokyo, Berlin, Austin, and London, New York City is one of the world’s great centers of film arts. Films are frequently shot here, but I am referring to their screening, and to the diversity of art, independent, retrospective and avant-garde genres available.
Anthology Film Archives (2nd Avenue and 2nd Street) is a godsend to a cinephile, a center devoted to the upkeep, restoration and screening of independent art films. Jonas Mekas (founder) and his staff come up with unbelievable goodies year-round. Students pay $5.
Other excellent places to catch films in the city are: The Walter Reade Theater, Sunshine Cinemas, Film Forum, Angelika Film Center, Lincoln Plaza Cinemas, Cinema Village, The Quad and The Screening Room.
Music: My hometown is a thriving place for music. Being a classical music buff (and composer), I am fortunate to have been stationed here (or perhaps, looking at it the other way, growing up here helped shape me into the composer I am).
Lincoln Center has two main halls (Alice Tully and Avery Fisher) dedicated to concert music. The New York Philharmonic is a world class orchestra, and hearing them is always a treat. The Metropolitan Opera House resides here, though tickets are phenomenally expensive. I prefer the more intimate space (and better acoustics) of
Carnegie Hall (57th and 7th Avenue). What can be said? One of the best places to hear some of the best musicians strut their stuff. Memorable events of recent years have been the all-Bach cycle performed by Andras Schiff.
Tower Music and Videos (Broadway at 67th street) is the best retailer of classical music I have ever found in the world (and O, how I have looked). The inventory is spellbinding and wallet-threatening, every time I stop by. The store is also excellent for all other genres (e.g. jazz, world music, rock, etc.) but a great classical section is always hardest to find. Tower does it for me. Update: Closed for business!
Academy Records and CDs (12 West 18th Street b/n 5th and 6th) is the best place I’ve yet encountered for used classical CDs. Other good sections are jazz and international. The prices are ridiculous (as in cheap), and you usually find amazing items for between $3 and $10. This is probably my very favorite store in all of New York City.
The Juilliard Book Store (mezzanine of 66th and Broadway), attached as it is to the great conservatory of music, is a great place to find scholarly books on music as well as scores. Patelson’s near Carnegie Hall is comparable.
Sam Ash and Manny’s (48th street b/n 6th and 7th Avenues) are excellent places to find music equipment from acoustic instruments (guitars, etc.) to electronic gear (MIDI, hard disk recorders, samplers, keyboards, synthesizers, computer software, cables, microphones, and so on). The clerks at Sam Ash are bit useless, often, though every now and then you can find someone who will listen to you and actually answer a few questions honestly.
Pizza: Even when I go to Italy, I long for the pizza of New York City. Here are just a few of the spots that exert tremendous gravitational pull on me:
Joe’s Pizza (Corner of Bleeker and 6th Avenue) serves some of the best by-the-slice pizzas in the city: the ingredients are mixed to perfection and the dough is outstanding. The staff may just as soon spit on you as serve you and the ambiance is one step above a toilet stall, but the pizza makes it easily worth it. Better yet, take your slices across the street to one of the benches in the charming park.
Arturo’s Restaurant (106 West Houston) is a Greenwich Village treasure. Dinners here always include free jazz concerts and some of the most delicious pizza pies in the city. All the toppings are fresh, and the basics perfect.
Koronet Pizza (Broadway and 112th Street) serves hilariously gigantic and tasty slices for great prices. Located near Columbia University, this greasy spoon is a favorite of students and locals. O, and of myself.
Modern dance: After accompanying modern dance and ballet classes for a decade and a half, I have befriended many a dancer and choreographer and gotten to know the New York dance scene pretty well. I also compose music for numerous choreographers, and I am always grateful to live in a city that supports dance as passionately as New York. Below is a partial listing of some of the best locales to take in modern dance (while Lincoln Center of course houses the American Ballet Theater and City Ballet as for classical and Balanchine-choreographed dance).
Here, Dance Theater Workshop, The Construction Company, Joyce SoHo, The Kitchen, P.S. 122, St. Mark’s Church, Judson Memorial Church, The Joyce, The Merce Cunningham Studio, The Mary Anthony Dance Theatre studio, Symphony Space, and Brooklyn Academy of Music.
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Notably absent: Times Square and the musicals and theater that make it famous. It’s there (and I live 5 blocks from this white-hot epicenter, tourist Mecca), but I loathe the place. It is garish and tacky and noisy and impossible to move through either on foot, unicycle, or car. The musicals are generally not what they used to be: now, they are spectacles emulating the trickery and bedazzlement of movies (though I have never been much of a fan of the genre). For better theater, head downtown to one of the more experimental, intimate or serious theaters than those found on Broadway. Better yet, just go to London.
This personal Manhattan guide is an entry in the My Hometown Write-Off hosted by proxam. The w/o is open; click for details, other participants and the simplest of rules.
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Best Time to Travel Here: Anytime
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Member: John Stone
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