Tag Archives: Manhattan

The City Harvest lunch at Le Bernardin is still a good deal


One of the best meals I’ve had around 7 years ago this month was also one of the greatest value meals I’ve ever had. It was the lunch in the lounge at Le Bernardin and back then it was $55, with $5 of that going to the charity City Harvest. Even four years later, Eater NY said it was only $60. Still a steal.

So I was somewhat shocked when I heard it was now $127! That’s quite a jump from $55. Alas, I got that wrong. $127 is for the lunch. The City Harvest lunch in the lounge is $94, of which $5 still goes to the charity.

I still think it is worthwhile at that price. I know between 2019 and now the restaurant was dealing with the pandemic like everyone else and spent a lot on upgrades to keep the place going. And going it still is. You should go, too.

For more information to help you to decide, here’s the Lounge Menu (and more). The wines by the glass are also good value. To get a lunch at one of the best restaurants in New York with 3 Michelin stars for under $100 is still worth stopping for, I believe.

Back to New York – a tale of eating and walking

After being away for awhile, I recently spent a long weekend in New York. Not surprising, it was great! I stayed in the Lower East Side and as usual, I went and ate at a number of good places. If that sounds like your idea of a good time, this is a good intro to eating well in the Lower East Side (LES). P.S. I would add Wildair to this list.

I had gone to many of the places on that list, so this time I branched out. I went to Freeman’s Alley, Lafayette, and Claud. All good. But the best place I went to was Libertine. More on it here. (Photo of it, above.)

But hey, that’s just me. If you would prefer to know where others dine in NY…for example…Taylor Swift…then you want to read this.

It wasn’t all just eating. I got to walk around a fair bit because Manhattan in particular is good for that. While I walked all over, on one walk downtown, I crossed over Great Jones Street to where Basquiat lived in the 80s. Since then, Angelina Jolie has taken it over. You can read about all that, here.

I’ve loved so many parts of this great city over the years, but the Lower East Side has always been one of my favorite parts. This is a fascinating story on how the city and that area has changed over the years. It has everything, as they used to say on SNL.

Speaking of good NY stories, this is a good one of how working for a dog shelter did a world of good for one New Yorker. Another good story, this time on old New York, is this: The Luncheonette Serving New York’s Best Egg Creams. Finally, this is a fascinating story on the Crown Heights Tunnels at the Tzfat Chabad Lubavitch synagogue. I’ve seen a number of stories on it, but this one in the Guardian was the best.

In NYC news, Flaco the owl has died after the year of freedom in Central Park and elsewhere. Sad. More on Flaco here. Also, this was no surprise: after a brief tour of duty, the NYPD subway robot has retired. It’s spring now, but this winter the city tried to have a remote school snow day at short notice. It did not go well, according to this.

Finally, how is the mayor of NYC doing? Not great, according to this. People in the city are not doing well either, according to this. That’s too bad. New York has made great strides to recover since it was hammered by COVID at the start of the decade. I hope it can pick its chin up, soon.

 

 

New York City is full of stories. Here’s 15 of them.

New York City is full of stories. Here’s 15 I’ve collected over the last few months that I thought were really good. I hope you like them too:

  1. Here’s a good story on the Louis Armstrong house museum in Queens. I love that museum. I love the fact that Armstrong lived in Queens, too.
  2. This is a sad story of an 82 year old man and a Stewart hotel long term resident who is facing eviction after living there for decades.
  3. Here’s a fascinating story of the brooklyn seltzer boys who still make seltzer the old fashion way.
  4. Here’s a story for book lovers:  five enchanting art bookstores in NYC they should visit.
  5. Here’s 10 Movies that tell the story of New York and capture its essence.
  6. Here’s a cool story on how Brooklyn Public Library is offering free eCards to teens nationwide who are dealing with book bans in local communities.
  7. This is a story to follow up on: How New York’s MTA is using AI scanning software to stop fare evasion.
  8. Another story to follow up on: how the Mayor plans to convert midtown Manhattan buildings into housing.
  9. No one can tell a story like Anthony Bourdain. Here he is in 2000 writing in the New Yorker and describing a day in the life of working in his kitchen at Les Halles in NYC. Bourdain is a romantic and it comes across in that piece.
  10. A practical story: how to  find a public restroom in New York.
  11. This is a fascinating story on how Korean fine dining has taken over the New York restaurant scene.
  12. Times Square is full of stories. This web cam proves it.
  13. Here’s how three vastly different subway signs can tell a story of three eras in NYC.
  14. This is a scary story of how New York is not ready for climate change flooding storms
  15. Finally, I love this story on the the improbable resurrection of an all night kebab place in the Lower East Side.

New York stories and snippets (April 2023)

Here’s some bits and snippets on the New York I’ve been collecting over time. I hope you like them.

A great source of such snippets of life in New York can be found here, in the New York Times section called Metropolitan diary. Just little bits of life in the Big Apple, with wonderful grease pencil drawings to go with them. (See one such drawing below).

Speaking of the Times, noted conservative David French is joining them as an Opinion Columnist. I have to say, these conservatives often start out there with great praise but then become awful. Let’s see how French does.  I’m not optimistic.

Yesterday I wrote of a landmark of the city closing down: the Pennsylvania Hotel. Here’s a story on a smaller landmark also leaving: Alleva Dairy in NYC Will Close. I am sure that place contains many stories itself.


Manhattan is a region of extremes when it comes to rich and poor. On the rich side, here’s a Look Inside the NYC Apartment of MALIN GOETZ Founders. Pretty posh. Also, what’s it like surviving as a staff member of the high end store, Bergdorf Goodman? Well not as tough as being Flaco the owl, but tough nonetheless. To see what I mean, see this: Surviving 10 Hours and 32 Minutes at Bergdorf Goodman. If nothing else, you can see what providing exemplary service is all about.

If you want more stories on the rich and famous of New York: here’s something on the gatekeepers of New York’s most coveted tables.

For stories on the flip side, here’s a story on how Hell’s Kitchen got its rough and ready name. Also downtown based is this piece on someone coming of age in LES before it was gentrified: Watching a Girl’s Life Change on the Lower East Side. And here’s a tough piece on NYC’s jails.

People often hate the mayor of New York, and the current one is no exception. Here’s what he is working on: Mayor Adams Focuses Agenda on the ‘Working People’ of New York. You be the judge. Speaking of people more and more people hate, here’s something on Robert Moses: Robert Moses Is A Racist Whatever.

Finally, here’s a worthy piece on the Central Central Park Conservancy. Here’s a piece on another Robert of NYC who is praiseworthy: Robert Caro Wonders What New York Is Going To Become. Don’t we all wonder?

(Top image: Christopher O’Keeffe, the director of loss prevention, locks the door at the end of the shopping day of Bergdorf. Credit…Landon Nordeman for The New York Times)

If something cost $1 in the 1980s, what does it cost now?


If something cost $1 in the 1980s — or the 1990s, or 2000, etc — what does it cost now?

I used to use a calculate this by using a rough 1:3 ratio in terms of 1980s dollars:today’s dollars, but there is a better way. You can go to the site in2013dollars.com and enter your information and it will spit out an answer. For example, what cost $1 in 1980 would cost $3.62 today, according to this: $1 in 1980 → 2023 | Inflation Calculator

I used that site because I was reading that in the early 80s Jim Jarmusch had an apartment in Manhattan that cost $170 a month. I wondered: what would that cost now? Well according to the site above, in 2023 that same place should cost $615. Of course the idea that ANYPLACE in Manhattan cost $615/month is hilarious. But you get the idea. 🙂

On restaurants loved and lost: Brasserie in midtown Manhattan

It was fairly nondescript from the outside: a simple awning, some signs stating its name, and a revolving door. You might not think much of it walking along East 53rd.

Once you walked in, though, your impression immediately changed. Especially if you were there early in the morning, the way I often was in the 80s and 90s. You would be at the top of the stairs looking over the whole place, and it was packed with people there for power breakfasts. The sound of people talking just washed over you, and if you managed to find a seat, you would hear what was on the mind of Manhattan men and women of that era.

It could be intimidating, especially walking down those stairs into the middle of it all. Everyone seemed so confident, so polished, so put together. The fact Mike Bloomberg would often dine here to start his day gives you an idea of what it was like. While I felt shy on my first visit,  I quickly found the place thrilling and energizing. No doubt the other diners did too.

Among other things, it was a convenient place to go. I would be in the city for business and the offices we worked in and the hotels we stayed in were nearby. I could wander over to the Brasserie and have delicious croissants or a proper egg and sausage breakfast before I went to work. The coffee and orange juice? Also great. As was the service.  Convenient yes, but excellent too.

I don’t ever recall it changing that much over the years, which is one of the things about it that appealed to me. It gave me that constant connection to midtown Manhattan over the decades. It was my spot. After a long period of not visiting, I went back to NYC around 2018 and I wanted to hit it up, only to discover it had closed. Sad.

I’m glad I got to go all those years. If you visit a city often, I hope you can find such a place that allows you to fit in and belong and be part of something. It won’t be Brasserie, but I hope you find the next best thing.

For more on it, see this piece in Eater on it’s closing. Looks like they went out with a bang. Nice. More on it, here. (Images from those two places.) Finally this piece is in Japanese but you can get Google to translate it and there are some good images of Brasserie in it too. One thing I like about the Japanese post is you can see some of the food but you can also get a sense for what the stairs were like.

I’m in a New York state of mind…

…So I decided to share these links I’ve been collecting that all relate to that great city:

  • The 212 is all about “revisiting New York institutions that have defined cool for decades, from time-honored restaurants to unsung dives.” New York is always NEW, but old New York is great and continues to be for good reason.
  • Finally a fashion legend passed away recently. RIP Andre Leon Talley. Here he is photographed through the years by another fashion legend, Bill Cunningham:  Andre by Bill

New New York: the plan to expand Manhattan

One thing I like about Americans is their desire to dream big. This is easily demonstrated in this New York Times piece about expanding Manhattan.

It’s a smart idea. Is it doable? I don’t know. I do know that the cost of shoring up Manhattan to deal with global warming is going to be a big one. Why not use real estate and additional taxes to do that? Read the article and see what you think.

1980s me would have laughed at the idea of expanding Manhattan, since so much of the existing island was unlivable. Amazing how much has changed.

Three interiors of New York

Not sure what the purpose of this post is, other than offer up a snapshot of how people live in NYC in all extremes, from this 400-Square-Foot Brooklyn Studio  with a weird layout: 

To this somewhat bigger One-Bedroom in Brooklyn with a Smart Layout:

To this lifestyle of the rich and famous home of  director Paul Feig’s on Madison Avenue:

They are all very New York in their own way. Nothing is big though they try to look it. Brooklyn is now the place for the young to live: once affordable Manhattan rarely is. It’s all fascinating, at least to me.

P.S. Not NYC related, but I also found this fascinating: The dingy apartment of my 20s left an indelible mark on me. Many of us start out living not in places like above, but in crappy little dives. It leaves a mark on us and shapes us in a way. Recommended

It’s time to travel again. It’s also time to ditch Airbnb and get a hotel instead

Why is that? Well according to Reddit (fwiw), the fees are making Airbnb unattractive: Why Airbnb Isn’t Worth All Those Fees, According to Reddit

If you are convinced and need a hotel to stay in NYC, I recommend this: Best hotels in New York | Telegraph Travel.

Lots of information on hotels over at The Telegraph. Well worth a look. You can find places at all different price points, at all different parts of the city.

On restaurants loved and lost: Florent (and Odeon)

Here are a number of pieces on two great downtown Manhattan restaurants: Florent and Odeon. Florent has been closed for a number of years. But Odeon lives on, happily. What I love about both restaurants is how the embodied that era and how they both set a stage. You can see that in the pieces below about them. Florent in particular was a radical place that was like no other, right down to their menus and promotional material (like the one above).

When they both opened the lower part of Manhattan had nothing like them. There was no gentrification down there like there is now. They were an oasis of good food, good design, and good times.

To really get a sense of that, read Restaurant Florent Takes Its Final Bows – The New York Times.

For more on the design ideas around Florent, see: Restaurant Florent | Restaurant Design in New York, NY — Memo Productions

A short history of the space Florent occupied is written about here: What remains of a Gansevoort Street restaurant | Ephemeral New York

Lastly, here is it’s Wikipedia write-up: Florent (restaurant). It’s a good source of other links on the place.

Before I forget, this is a fun piece on The Odeon: A Retro Haven That Defined New York 1980s Nightlife | Vanity Fair.

Also worth reading. Now go and eat at The Odeon.

 

On restaurants loved and lost

The pandemic has been hard on people and hard on businesses. One type of business it has been especially hard on is the restaurant business. So many has closed that it is hard to recall them all. Partially to remedy this, the Times did a piece on them: Remembering the Restaurants America Lost in 2020 – The New York Times

If you read it, you will likely see some you loved. One I always wanted to go to but never got to and now never will was Lucky Strike. Here’s how Julia Moskin recalled it:

Lucky Strike was for us. That’s how it felt in the early 1990s, when I lived in downtown Manhattan and my restaurant priorities were cheap red wine, good lighting and a potent steak au poivre. Lucky Strike was Keith McNally’s first restaurant of his own, and a looser, more fun sibling of the polished, magnetic Odeon in TriBeCa, which he had opened with partners in 1980.

At the time, Lucky Strike’s location was most accurately described not as “in SoHo,” but “near the mouth of the Holland Tunnel,” and its strip of Grand Street was desolate at night. The warmth and noise that it spilled onto the street made it a beacon for locals. We liked that the food was never quite good enough to draw a crowd. We liked that the rough floors and wine tumblers repelled the people who came looking for lychee martinis and tuna tartare. Mr. McNally went on to open bigger, glossier joints that are still with us — like Balthazar, Minetta Tavern and Pastis — and has closed almost as many, but Lucky Strike was the only one that was a neighborhood restaurant, and the only one I’ll mourn.

I was going to NYC a fair bit in the 80s and 90s, and I remember the buzz around Lucky Strike. I thought: that’s my kinda place. That’s the kind of place I want to hit when I get to Manhattan. But while I went to New York a fair bit, the times there were always short, and I never made it.

There are many great restaurants  I have gone to in my lifetime. Some like Lucky Strike were killed off in the pandemic, some closed long before that. Some of them are still on some form of life support, hoping to make it through to the bright side of this dreadful era. I want to write about those places before I forget them, for my own sake if nothing else. Although perhaps you will have the same thoughts reading them that I had when reading about Lucky Strike. If so, that will be good too.

Restaurant reside in the best parts of my better memories. It’s a good time to recall them, write about them here, and group them with the tag #restoslovedandlost

(Images from the New York Times article)

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Is New York dead yet?

Predictions are hard. Predictions about New York City especially so. This one was written a few years ago, and talks about how gentrification is killing NY: The Death of a Once Great City | Harper’s Magazine.

Now in the midst of the pandemic, that economic costs of that will take a bite out of gentrification, which will be nothing compared to the closures that will occur as this disease hangs over the city and the rest of the world.

Whatever happens to New York, be it 9/11 or gentrification or the pandemic, I think the best and safest prediction is to never count it out. Perhaps some far off day New York will no longer be one of the world’s great cities. Perhaps some day it will die off, like many other great cities have. I think we can predict that day is far away still.

So whenever you read about New York dying of one thing or another, take it with a grain of salt.

(Photo via malteesimo)

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Invisible cities: the eruv of Manhattan

What’s the eruv of Manhattan? Well according to the article below:

The eruv encircles much of Manhattan, acting as a symbolic boundary that turns the very public streets of the city into a private space, much like one’s own home. This allows people to freely communicate and socialize on the Sabbath—and carry whatever they please—without having to worry about breaking Jewish law.

Here’s a map of it:

You might think that it is hard to believe such a thing could last for long, but as this piece shows, it is diligently maintained.

I found this fascinating. There’s many interesting aspects of New York, but this is one of the better ones. For more on this, read: There’s a Wire Above Manhattan That You’ve Probably Never Noticed

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Friday night cocktails: the Bronx

What is a Bronx cocktail? David Lebovitz explains:

Not as famous as its “other borough” cousin, the Manhattan, the Bronx is a fruitier, lighter alternative to the rough-and-tumbler whiskey-based cocktail. However one sip and you may find yourself visiting the Bronx a little more often!

I’ve had one recently and it’s delicious. Get your ingredient list, here: Bronx Cocktail – David Lebovitz Bronx Cocktail recipe.

 

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It’s winter in New York. You don’t want to be outside. So go see these places.

Yesterday I showed you how to cry in New York. Today I want to show you how to enjoy New York when the weather is less than ideal. The best way to do that is to be indoors. And the best way to enjoy the indoors in New York is to visit the most beautiful interiors in New York City

P.S. If you are a fan of New York like I am, then ny.curbed.com might be for you too.

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What are the best places in New York City’s to cry in public?

Yes, it is an odd list. And yes, you might not find it useful. But read it. Make notes. You will find some wonderful places in NYC as a result. Even if you never plan to cry in public: New York City’s best places to cry in public, mapped

(And if you do plan to cry in public in New York, you are now all set!)

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A bold maximalism


Meanwhile a bold maximalism is achieved here, not so much by the amount of items as by the amount of bold colours and prints used throughout the place. It’s still not a big place, but it feels right. I guess that is all relative, but I love this.

For more, see This Manhattan Home Feels Like a Jewel Box | A Cup of Jo

(Image a link from the above article in A Cup of Jo)

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On the super tall and skinny buildings popping up all over New York City

New York City has had skyscrapers for a long time. A new twist on the skyscraper is the super skinny ones popping up all over Manhattan. There’s plenty of reasons for that, and the Guardian well documents that, here: Super-tall, super-skinny, super-expensive: the ‘pencil towers’ of New York’s super-rich | Cities | The Guardian.

I don’t particularly like them, but like all buildings, I am sure they will grow on me over time. They seem too featureless. Their main feature seems to be the thinness. That hardly puts them in the same class as the Chrysler Building or the Empire State Building.

Regardless of your thoughts on them, the article in the Guardian is good.

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How to travel back in time in NYC


One way would be to go to this place: Barbetta. The New York Times has a fine story on it, here: The Elegant Relic of Restaurant Row. Even if you don’t intend to go, you’d be rewarded just reading the piece.

Love that photo by Dina Litovsky for The New York Times. The sign is “made of opal glass. A forerunner of neon, it is the last of its kind in the city…”.  Fantastic.

Two portraits of a great writer: Robert Caro

Robert Caro

I find Caro a fascinating person and this portrait of him in this Paris Review interview is well worth reading: Paris Review – Robert Caro, The Art of Biography No. 5.

It’s worth comparing it to this piece on him in the New York Times that talks about his routine, including how he goes to a separate office in Manhattan just to work and that he wears formal business attire to do so. A rare life writing about another rare life.

The history of a great collaboration: Philippe Starck, Ian Schrager and the rise of the NYC designer hotel

It seems commonplace now, but the idea of hotels having the same cachet as a nightclub seem to me to come about in the 1980s with the rise of Ian Schrager as a hotelier. While he collaborated with others, the partnership he formed with Philippe Starck resulted in some really fantastic hotels, as can be seen in this post: The 21st Century Interior – Case studies – Philippe Starck/Ian Schrager: Designer Hotels – Blog – APID.

Nowadays many of these hotels have changed, but in the latter part of the 20th century they were opening with all the excitement of a new nightclub, which in some ways they resembled.  I remember hanging out in the lobby of The Royalton as it was just getting ready to open, talking to the staff in their Hugo Boss suits, marvelling over the designs of Starck, thinking of how the blue carpet made one feel as glamorous as anyone in the city. Later on I stayed at the Paramount and Morgan’s, each visit made Manhattan that much better.

Recently the hotels have been changing as they have been upgraded. Only The Hudson seems to have retained that earlier quality, it seems. Soon even that will transform into whatever brings in the guests. I haven’t been to The Hudson yet: I must get their before it is too late.

I am not sure if there is a history of great hotels, but if there ever is, I expect some of these places will find their place in it. Meanwhile, read the post on these hotels, and check out The Hudson in NYC while you can.

(Top photo of the Royalton, bedroom photo from the Paramount. Both linked to from the post, which has more great photos.)

 

It’s not that Brooklyn is getting more expensive: it’s that Manhattan is expanding. Why?

Home prices in some of the city’s neighborhoods have not just climbed over the last decade, they’ve blasted off, landed on Mars and found water.

Why? Well, look at where the growth is, and then look at this map of the NYC Subway:

More than other factors, the price of real estate seems  is tied to how easy it is to get back and forth from Manhattan.

That said, I’d be interested to know the story behind the areas of Manhattan that are stagnating.

NYC is never boring.

Source: New York Home Prices | New York Real Estate Price History

On living in Manhattan, by Zadie Smith (a most wonderful piece of writing)

There is so much good about this piece by Zadie Smith that if I started pulling in quotes from it, I would essentially replicate it.  It’s an effortless read, and yet even as I was reading it, I could feel how great it is. I had the feeling of racing down a high mountain on skis, exhilarated and impressed by the beauty and amazed how fast I am going and then it is done.

So, yes, I recommend you read: Find Your Beach by Zadie Smith | The New York Review of Books.

 

NYC has a good problem to have (some thoughts and observations)


New York City has a good problem to have: it’s getting increasingly more expensive to live there. In the second half of the 20th century, it had the opposite problem and the question was would anyone want to live in all but small parts of it. Those days are gone, so much so that Manhattan became too expensive for most, which partially led to people moving to Brooklyn. Now even Brooklyn is getting too expensive, according to this: Moving Out of Brooklyn Because of High Prices – NYTimes.com.

It’s not surprising to me: NYC is more desirable than ever to move to. Yet the parts of Manhattan and now Brooklyn that people find too pricey are not the whole city. I expect in a few years from now people will be talking about great spots in Queens and the Bronx and how they too are becoming more expensive.

Globally populations are leaving small towns and rural areas and moving to cities. Cities like New York will be the beneficiaries of this, and will grow accordingly.  Assuming they are well run cities, they will find ways to accomodate newcomers, and the parts that were cheaper will rise in value.

I don’t see NYC getting cheaper any time soon. It will be more what parts of it people live in, and what the housing will look like. I expect you will see more high rises built in places where none were before, and more and more neighborhoods being gentrified.

Here’s to a growing New York.

(Creative commons image from picsbyfreyja)

First bookstores, now restaurants being driven out of Manhattan

This Village Voice article has a run down of a number of great restaurants being forced to close due to the price of rent in Manhattan. Restaurants are following bookstores,  which are also suffering from the cost of doing business in this part of NYC.

I suspect low margin businesses like this will move to the other parts of NYC and away from the big rent/big money sections. It will be interesting to see the migration both of the businesses and the people. Compared to the way Manhattan used to be in the later part of the 20th century, this is a better problem for them to have.

For more on the bookstores closing, see this piece in the New York Times.