Category Archives: explore

explore: a weekend in Philadelphia

Posted on February 23, 2013 | Leave a comment

Inspired (as so often) by Sam, who recently took a why-not? trip there, and spurred by the news that a WWI-themed opera would be playing for two weeks only, I decided to look into the feasibility of a mid-February weekend in Philly. For its balmy climate. The stars aligned: we could catch a Sunday matinee at the opera, go out for dinner at a BYOB–giving us an excuse to drink the *outstanding* wine we were given for Christmas–and since it was President’s Day weekend, catch the “American Spirits” Prohibition exhibition at the Constitution Center for free. I found a $99 deal at the city center Sheraton, roundtrip Bolt Bus tickets for about $30 each, and managed to book us into the incredible Matyson for a late-ish Saturday night dinner (not an easy feat, as I’d forgotten that this was the closest Saturday to Valentine’s Day, and shit was BOOKED UP. Urgh.)

Pictures! (and highlights, after the jump.)

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explore: fridays at the noguchi museum

Posted on July 13, 2012 | Leave a comment

On the first Friday of the month, the Noguchi Museum, just across the street from Socrates Sculpture Park, is open late, is free to get in, and serves beer and wine for $5. You can wander throughout the museum, which was originally Noguchi’s workshop, and admire the huge range of sculptures and designs he produced. If you only know him as a designer of lamps and infamous coffee tables, there’s a whole rough-hewn, monumental, granite-and-metal world to discover. Plus, the shaded gardens are one of the most peaceful places in the city:

Noguchi Museum. 9-01 33rd Road, LIC (at Vernon Boulevard). Weds-Fri 10-5, Saturday & Sunday 11-6. General admission, $10.

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explore: office space

Posted on July 13, 2012 | Leave a comment

One of the things I love about living in a densely populated and wildly expensive city – seriously – is seeing creative solutions to the problems that that density and expense create. Specifically, the problem of space for creativity. Whatever the many flaws of Starbucks, it’s always struck me as one of the most convenient places in New York to park a laptop and get to work, mostly because it’s anonymous enough that I don’t feel guilty for mooching off the electricity and the bathroom facilities on the strength of one black coffee per two hours.

The quest for the perfect coffee shop to work in is one I take seriously – when I lived in Williamsburg, Atlas Cafe on the corner of Havemeyer and Grand, a couple of blocks from my apartment, came close to the Platonic ideal of the working cafe, where the food was good and cheap, the coffee generous, and the clientele earnestly hunched over MacBooks under a wall-sized map of the world made you feel a little guilty if you weren’t.

But sometimes you don’t want to traipse around for the perfect spot, or it’s Saturday afternoon and too noisy to set up your private-in-public desk, which is where the whole industry of workspaces to rent comes in. One day, I’d love to afford to work somewhere as gorgeous as the Oracle Club, in LIC, or Paragraph, or the Writers Room (which pointedly compares its daily rate to the cost of a double latte), but even those rates feel indulgent for now, like joining a gym which just makes me think that I should run outside for free, and admit that the problem is motivation, not space.

So I’ve been hunting around in the NYPL for a spot that’s not too windswept with AC and loud with tourists, and doing my best to make my desk at home workable. Then suddenly something new shows up. How about an office in a tree?

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explore: high line extension

Posted on July 17, 2011 | Leave a comment

End of the line

Hot day to be walking the length of the High Line, now it stretches all the way from Gansevoort to 30th. The park is so much lusher and fuller than I’ve seen it, bordering on overgrown in some places. Beautiful flowers, sculptures and architecture all the way up – the new section isn’t as wide, and the lawn area is tiny, so it feels more like a promenade than a park. But who doesn’t love a good promenade? The views, people watching, and now food options are great – I had an absurd, but delicious rhubarb and chai-flavored ice lolly for $3.50 (sorry, People’s Pops, but where I’m from that’s not an ice pop. They are long and thin and bright blue and come in a plastic wrapper. They are decidedly not gourmet.)

People's Pop

The 30th street end is great, because you can see where the line extends, and what it looked like when it was genuinely overgrown, not landscaped and polished.

New & old High Line

It’s definitely grittier this end, since you’re getting down into the Lincoln Tunnel entrance rather than the swanky-pants meatpacking district.

30th & 10th Ave

But enterprise is enterprise, and under the tracks, proving again that New Yorkers will eat and drink pretty much anywhere, there’s a new beer garden and food-truck-stop, Tom Colicchio’s The Lot on Tap.

Food trucks under the tracks

And hey, they have rosé on draft. Can’t really argue with that.

Beer & wine on tap

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explore: astoria & lic

Posted on July 10, 2011 | 2 Comments

[Despite wandering into LIC, this post is participating in the Astoria Blog Carnival, at We Heart Astoria. If that's how you found me - hi! I have more Astoria posts here, here, here and here.

It has been a gluttonous 36 hours in this neck of the woods. Last night, dinner at:

We counted TX, MS, AZ, AK and ... Ontario? plates

our new local New Orleans-themed restaurant, which served a refreshing Pimm’s, a salty fried catfish, and a decadent side of mac & cheese. The half po’boys were ample and great, and there’s a Sazerac to sample and a whole slew of fried and broiled oysters to explore. The interior has a corrugated-tin-roof, vintage diner tables and lots of floral fabric and service couldn’t be smilier. Didn’t have room for dessert, which is a bit of a shame, given the name.

Then today, brunch at El Ay Si on Vernon Boulevard, which was thoroughly charming, cheap, delicious and comfortable enough that we hung out for nearly three hours. We walked over in the blazing sun to Gantry Plaza State Park, which is expanding rapidly and is a beautifully landscaped, peaceful little enclave with a killer view of Manhattan. There are wooden sunloungers and a row of bright orange hammocks woven out of what looked like repurposed seatbelts. To the girl in her bikini lying there reading House of Leaves, I salute you.

Lawn Guyland gantries. Ignore the damn trash can in the foreground.

The green outpost of the mostly wood-decked waterfront park

I'm always a sucker for a well-placed Adirondack chair

We wandered back inland and happened upon LIC bar, (watch out, music at the link) which had live music in the back yard and was a very nice place to while away a Sunday afternoon. Oh, and there was this:

White tiger & cub, red Buick and co-ordinating laundry bag.

And under the train tracks near Queensboro Plaza, this boarded-up, bricked-up, and beautiful building:

This was clearly a showcase for what they could do. 1892 and crumbling.

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explore: a new york weekend

Posted on July 4, 2011 | 2 Comments

It’s Fourth of July weekend, which means a lot more to Americans and especially Americans with office jobs that it does to me, but nevertheless, there’s an extra holiday feel in the air, and without really intending to, I had a pretty great weekend exploring Astoria and beyond.

Friday evening we took a walk at the end of a sunny day spent mostly inside working, and treated ourselves to beers and panini in the lovely garden at Bambino on 31st Ave. For my money this is the nicest restaurant garden in the ‘hood, all reclaimed wood and metal, which glows beautifully in the evening light. I realize I don’t usually post pictures of myself or of Tony, but I’m practicing portrait photography in my online class with the brilliant Nicole Gerulat, and I’m trying to work out what makes a good photograph of a person, even if not technically a portrait. So a few more faces might pop up around here.

Back garden at Bambino

Lagunitas. Might just be my beer of the summer

Beer and panini at Bambino

On Saturday I went to the new farmer’s market in Socrates Sculpture Park on Vernon Blvd., which is a little park by the water that I love anyway – it feels oddly remote and peaceful, even when there are lots of people there and even group yoga going on under the trees. The market was small, with mostly vegetables and one or two other stalls – cheeses, honey, bread, Long Island wines.

Pilates canceled!!?!!

Manhattan, from Socrates Sculpture Park

Cool power-line sculpture

Warehouse on Vernon Blvd.These ladies were serious about their produceBasking veggies

On Saturday afternoon I went down to Brooklyn to welcome my dear, dear friend Sarah and her family back to town, after a six-month stint in Ottawa. We took some quick pictures on the rooftop of their new apartment (Statue of Liberty!!) and ducked downstairs out of the blazing sun.

The view from a Brooklyn rooftop

Sarah and baby Juniper on the roof. How awesome are her glasses?

Today, Sunday, was drizzly and grey all day, after about five days of uninterrupted sunshine. Nevertheless, we were determined to take the bikes out – part of my plan to get comfortable and confident on wheels. I will probably never use my bike to commute or as naturally and unthinkingly and fearlessly at T does, having worked as a bike courier. But I do want to be able to get out and explore. So to that end we rode over to Roosevelt Island, an odd little outpost in the east river, which used to be known as Welfare Island and was the site of a famous mental asylum (which I first learned about in a Caribbean Lit class last year, in the poem Farewell From Welfare Island by the Nuyorican poet Julia de Burgos. The hospital is still there, although in a different incarnation, as well as lots of social housing and newer luxury condos (surprise!) I wondered as we were riding what it must be like to grow up there, an island off an island. Does Manhattan become ‘the mainland’? Does it feel particularly out of reach?

Bike ride to Roosevelt Island

To the Lighthouse! (at the end of the island)

Views from the island

The bridge to the 'mainland'?