NYC - April 2009
NYC - April 2009
Saturday 11 April
After b'fast at McDonalds, we headed out of Boston about 9am. Mike was intent to beat Tim Burns "record time." We crossed into Manhattan about 12:30 after besting Tim's 3 hour 20 minute trip to NYC by about 10 minutes -- we made it in 3:09. Ha!
The room at the Kimpton at 70 Park Avenue wasn't ready, so we valeted the car, dumped our bags and went to wander. We ended taking a cab and going over to the Whitney to see the Jenny Holzer exhibit "Protect Protect" which combined several very neat installations of her LED signs with her "Redaction" paintings. The latter were large scale paintings over enlarged letters from Bush's Irag war with large portions of them redacted (blacked out) -- the ones of Abu Graib coroner reports of prison deaths were chilling.
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 Jenny Holzer "Thorax" LED installation |
The LED installations were pretty awesome too .... One with 10 large LED signs laying across the floor, all running text up or down with effects.
Then LED signs mounted in a corner going wall to wall (below, left)In the same gallery, a column of half round LED signs with her "Aphorisms" running on every other one with a newer series of texts. And another columnar one with text of emails about Iraq prisoners (above, right) Very cool stuff.
Jenny Holzer - work from "Protect, Protect" at the Whitney (L), Barbara Kruger's most famous work - the original B&W was in the show(R)
After that, we headed to a nearby gallery for a small show of Barbara Kruger's work. She'd be familiar to some people as the "Your Body is a Battleground" posters (above, right) from the early 90s. Very influential on ACT UP and Queer Nation as far as graphic style. I remember cribbing from her for some signs I'd made for both. Her work in this show was interesting because it was the original 8 1/2 x 11 mechanicals from which they printed the larger scale works. All in black and white. All cut and pasted manually (this was pre-digital, remember). All very cool and a wonderful companion to the Jenny Holzer exhibit.
My cultural need sated, we walked to the Guggenheim store, but they wouldn't let us in with out standing in the long (rainy) line for admission. We headed to the MoMA store instead and tolerated in-the-way foreigners and their kids.
After that we headed back to the hotel -- Kimpton-run 70 Park Avenue -- and checked in to find a really lovely corner room with tons of light, great views, and just overall very nice (YAY Kimpton "friends and family" rates!)
Our room, and views across and up Park Avenue from the room
After settling into our room, swilling down some "eh" wine at the manager's reception, and taking a quick nap, in the early evening, we cabbed over to Hell's Kitchen, and had a couple drinks at the fabulous (why isn't a place like this in Boston?) gay bar Therapy. Nice staff, nice patrons, really REALLY nice interior. We then walked over to Bobby Flay's brasserie Bar Americain for dinner. Say what you will about Bobby -- he's cocky, he's overrated, he does the "I'm a Noo Yawker" shtick too heavily, and he has man-boobs -- I've said them all. But the FOOD WAS FANTASTIC, the room is beautiful, and the service was impeccable. Our server was adorable, and had me thinking he was gay. Mike pointed out "No, he's got a wedding band, I think he's just good at his job." Food opinions offered, napkins refolded when you went to the restroom, water refilled without asking. Just perfect service. And the food: I had a starter of Mussel and corn chowder, and Mike had French Onion Soup. My main was a huge pork chop, perfectly cooked wit bourbon sauce and amazing almost creamed corn, but not as gloppy, Just lovely. Mike had a filet mignon as big as his head almost and that was perfect as well. We also got yummy asparagus, and home made potato chips with blue cheese sauce. It was pretty much a perfect meal. But we were stuffed, so we waddled back to the hotel, stopping to play with the video wall that you controlled with your cell phone (so random!) and then collapsed back at the room. Yeah, we didn't make it out to ny bars that night.
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Sun 12 April
Got up and checked out of hotel and drive up to Greenwich Village, parked at meter (yay for free Sunday parking!) Ate at a really cute restaurant called Good in the Village. Reminded me of M. Henri, a fave, in Chicago. Checking on the iPhone Yelp app for Yelp! reviews during the short wait for a table turned up multiple raves for the a) green-chili mac 'n' cheese and b) freshly mad donuts. So we got that, and can't agree more. Deeeeeelicious. A must try if you are in NYC! Cute interior, good food, friendly and efficient service. Loved it!
We then walked down to the Greenwich Village section of Hudson River Park and along he recently redone park there. Very nice, then walked up through Greenwich Village to Soho.
Hudson River Park, Greenwich Village part - Walkway and pier (left), Sluggo on the Gay Pier (45?) (center, and looking across the Hudson to Hoboken, NJ (right)
We ended up in Soho, as my main objective on Sunday was to shop at the newly opened Fred Perry store. We wandered around and stopped in a few other stores, including the incredibly well-curated collection of modern furniture at Desiron. Across the street there was a a cool DWR/Tools for Living store focusing on pretty much every gadget and small tools you can think of from desk accessories to gardening tools and mailboxes. Very fun. Finally we found the Fred Perry store, and to my horror, it was closed, despite Sunday hours on the website. I was PISSED (as you can tell from the photo below) So we wandered around Soho some more and down to the Ben Sherman store. I had a 25% coupon in my pocket, so Mike got two shirts and I got a Gray with pink and yellow tipping polo, and a cute Ben Sherman hat. After trying the Ben Sherman "two tone" cologne and kinda liking it, we left the store. On the sidewalk, I said "I have to have this, I'll kick myself if I don't get it", so out came the coupon again and I also had the cologne. |
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I emailed the Fred Perry store, making sure they knew I spent all of the money i would have spent in their store at arch-rival Ben Sherman instead. (BTW - Happy 100th Birthday to Fred Perry!)
We wandered back up to the car and headed home. We got stuck in heavy traffic along the Mass Pike, so got home at about 10. Longer trip home, but still a really fun, if short, trip.
And some random images from the trip:
Only in NYC - BolgogiDogs (left), Mike on a plinth (was the named after defrocked?) (center), Father Demo Park with Empire State in Background (right)
