Wall Street

My issues last week were it being too damn hot, and now this week it’s attack of the allergies. But by waiting to post my Wall Street entry until I went back there today I was able to take some more pictures.

Last Wednesday after cruising around on Staten Island, I walked around the Wall Street area as that’s where the ferry is. It made me want to watch National Treasure again after seeing some of the buildings that I recall from the movie. Also, Trinity Church was featured in the movie and isn’t too far down from the train station I take. So I had to check that out.

I can’t remember what these were, but the architecture was interesting.

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Trinity Church

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A couple shots of the inside. Normally I use my phone to take “no flash” pictures but my battery was low. The left is a phone one the right is my camera. It’s kind of crazy that for no flash my phone takes far better pictures.

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If you keep walking past this building it’ll take you down to Trinity Church. There’s a sign on the side designating this building as a national monument… and I’m drawing a total blank on what it’s called or who the statue is of outside.

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I walked around inside and got some more pictures. It had a couple room that was full of brochures and different history panels about the area and the people. I thought this room was the most interesting of all: the former federal reserve. Quite the serious looking door.

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And today I was back in the Wall Street area to get a haircut. About 3 weeks ago I was desperate for something and got a groupon for a haircut. I look horrible right now as I’m terribly congested and my left eye is red and itchy but I’ll take a proper photo tomorrow. Once I washed all the mousse and crap out of my hair and got it into my normal style, it looked much better. My hairdresser happened to be a Japanese lady from Okinawa so I used that chance to speak some Japanese which made her really happy.

After the haircut I wandered around a bit more to hit up a couple spots I’d missed out on last time. One was the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Plaza with a giant wall in the park. Also picked up a brochure. The park was a popular lunch spot as I saw a ton of people out sitting around with their lunch.

Not really related to the history of Wall Street or anything, but this shop (Hermes — it looked expensive and had some French outside so I didn’t bother going in. Just admired their adorable window displays.) Look at this stylish octopus! The shop was also right down the corner and across the street from the New York Stock Exchange. Thankfully I’d taken a picture last time as this time around you could barely see the building under the gigantic flag.

Left is last week. Right is from today

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And that was today/last Wednesday’s adventure.

Staten Island

Wednesday was horrifically hot and was the first adventure into 90 degree heat. My plan was to get the hell out of dodge and check out the (free) Staten Island Ferry in the hopes that the island would be cooler. It wasn’t but the ride over was refreshing, provided an amazing view of the city and the Statue of Liberty, and was best of all: free.

The Staten Island Ferry starts in lower Manhattan. It’s a few blocks away from Wall Street. So I was able to check out some parts of Wall Street after getting off the ferry. Those will follow in a separate entry.

Here’s what the ferry looks like. I was on that top deck against the railing.

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The Governor’s Island Ferry for Dad. Bring back memories?

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Obligatory selfie. (Yes, Mom, I wore sunblock. I didn’t want to go from ghostly white to tomato red)

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Views from the ferry

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Crossing didn’t take very long. About half an hour I think. It docks in the Saint George terminal and there are some restaurants and chintzy gift shops where you can get your Statue of Liberty or I heart NYC shirts. When it’s this hot I desperately crave ice cream so I got a Cookie Dough blizzard from the Dairy Queen in the terminal and a side of fries because I felt like I should eat something more besides ice cream. My waistline was crying for me to stop, but both were tasty and it tided me over.While hanging out in Dairy Queen I pulled up my maps to figure out how to get to the places I’d wanted to check out. In the morning, I’d made a list of the attractions I wanted to hit on Staten Island. The lighthouse museum, the beach boardwalk, the historic village, an actual lighthouse (which, strangely, was in the middle of the island and not on the coast at all), and get some of the pizza that Staten Island is famous for. It didn’t want to give me directions so I left the terminal to do a bit of walking around.

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It was godawful hot outside. I didn’t make it too far down the street but got some pictures of the buildings before I went back inside. From there I decided to take the 51 Bus down to the beach boardwalk. Got some neat views from the window and a snap of the Narrows Bridge. I forgot where this one leads. Queens maybe? The boardwalk was I believe 2.5 miles but I’d barely walked 5 minutes on the boardwalk before getting a sharp, stabbing headache that had everything to do with the heat. I wanted to explore the island more but decided it wasn’t worth straining myself for. So I walked a little further then headed over to wait for the 51 bus that would take me back to the ferry. I got a slice of pizza in the terminal and it was okay. Not something I’d do it again but it was something and I felt like I should have some more food before I left.

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I made sure to be on the opposite side of the ferry this time so I could get the closer view of the Statue of Liberty.

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Too Hot

The last two days have been painfully hot. Around 90 degrees as the high, plus humidity, and the concrete traps heat making it that much hotter. So by the time I get done with my outings the last couple days I haven’t had the energy to blog or do much of anything. So entries will be a bit slower but I will be posting stuff.

Greenwich Village

I wandered into Greenwich Village a couple weeks ago purely by accident. At the time, it was dark and I was running on 5% battery so obviously I wasn’t able to linger and take pictures. I made a goal to come back during the day so that was what I did today. I’d considered hitting up Times Square again afterwards but I wasn’t feeling it.

Took the M in to the Washington Square station (which, ironically, is a few blocks from the park) and walked towards the park. This is the huge arch that marks the main entrance to the park.

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The buildings behind the arch are a part of NYU campus. I walked around the park and down a couple side streets to explore then started searching for Bleecker Street because that was the one that led me right to the heart of Greenwich Village last time. I’d looked up things to do in the village but wound up doing my own thing and just walking around, snapping pictures of interesting sights and architecture. I also walked into not one but two Catholic churches. The outside was pretty and then inside was gorgeous with all the stained glass and varying statues.

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Passed several different restaurants that looked tasty, but I had my heart set on the $1 pizza slices that I saw several people walking past with. Turns out only the cheese pizza slices were $1 and since cheese pizza bores me, I paid an extra $1 to have one with pepperoni on it – not my favorite topping, but the pizza was delicious. And the owner was actually friendly which seems quite rare in New York. Continuing down Bleecker Street I passed a bakery with a window display of massive cookies. Naturally I couldn’t resist, but once I’d taken a bite I realized this wasn’t a cookie at all. It was basically a cookie shaped cake. So that was highly disappointing as I’m not much of a cake fan… it’s just too dry for me. The “cookie” was tasty at least despite being cake, but I wound up making myself kind of sick eating it.

So after eating I did some more exploring, checked out another church, then walked back to the station to head home. My original plan had been to go to either Soho or Times Square afterwards but I didn’t have the energy or desire for either. There’s always another day.

I’ll post the rest of my Greenwich Village pictures to Facebook sometime tomorrow.

 

 

Train Ads

The train/subway is the perfect place for advertisements. Millions of bored commuters are looking at the ads on a daily basis. Some are cute, some are stupid. Others are ignored. There’s a mattress company that always has really cute ads and I keep meaning to take pictures of them all.

This is their Frankenstein ad:

And I saw this one and thought it was perfect. Although it did make me crave pizza afterwards.

These were taken on the train after leaving the American Museum of Natural History.

Nitehawk Cinemas

Nitehawk is unlike any theater I’ve ever been to before. First of all, they typically play indie or already released movies rather than the latest Hollywood blockbusters. To see those, one must go to nearby Williamsburg Cinemas. It’s a glass and chrome building that has more of the typical theater vibe. It’s where I saw Deadpool and where I’ll see X-Men: Apocalypse once that comes out.

Secondly, Nitehawk serves a variety of food and drinks. Beer, tea, coffee (both types, however, were vetoed by Laura and Stephen), cocktails. Take your pick. Menus are seasonal, something I mourn after becoming addicted to the fall/winter seasonal popcorn: maple butter. Nitehawk also serves food and drinks themed around a particular film that’s playing.

One of my favorite features of Nitehawk is their monthly themes. February was Cabin Fever for late night shows (12 or 12:10 AM). March was Irish month. April brunch was When Nature Strikes Back, playing Twister and Princess Mononoke among others. Late night shows were werewolf themed.

A sense of glamor lingers at Nitehawk. Rather than buying a bucket of greasy popcorn and slurping down a pop, customers can instead have a meal and a drink. Each triangle-shaped table is assigned a waiter who takes your order before or during the movie. Payment is collected near the end- again, you need to spend at least $10 to be able to use a credit card. It isn’t difficult to spend that on food as the seasonal popcorn is $8.50 a bowl. It’s absolutely worth it though!

February

Because dutifully updating my blog twice a week was a little too much for me to handle what with the chaos of moving here in February and having a new job in March, I’m going to post segments about each month where I’ll gloss over what I did then.

So, February. I moved to New York City on February 7th and had to go through some major culture shock. This was my first time actually living in a large American city. I’ve spent two weeks in Tokyo hotels and thought I had a handle on big city life, but it’s a lot different in the US.

Most of February was spent adjusting to the differences between big city life vs. suburban life, dealing with personal issues, and jobhunting.

Some of my February highlights were going out for brunch, attending the Cabin Fever weekends at Nitehawk Cinema (which I will elaborate on in the next post), and finally: my birthday! To celebrate we went out for brunch at Le Barricou, which was absolutely delicious, then went into Williamsburg proper to see Deadpool at Williamsburg Cinema.

Brunch

Coming from the burbs, brunch isn’t something I have much experience with. It’s all the rage in the city. Brunch ads are posted in the train stations, on chalk signs outside of restaurants, and plastered across menus. Brunch is in, and the boozier the better seems to be the case.

I’m not much of a drinker and alcohol is more expensive than I prefer (especially in New York). At most, I’ll get a hot chocolate with my food. Laura and Stephen prefer to either get coffee or a couple Bloody Mary’s. We’ve sampled brunch at a few places in the city, vegan diner Champs, two French restaurants (Le Garage in Bushwick and Le Barricou which is in the outskirts of Williamsburg), and Sunrise Sunset in Bushwick.

Next on my brunch list: Hell Phone, the restaurant behind Ange Noir where I spend my Sunday afternoons with my writing meetup.

Updates

Updates are coming, just be patient. Life got away with me and my blog has been a nagging itch at the back of my mind. I’ll try to stick to the goal of two – three posts per week and I think I’ll schedule an alert on my calendar so I don’t forget to post content.

Stuck in the Past

For being such an important and seemingly modern city, aspects of New York are surprisingly old-fashioned. I, like most Americans, am accustomed to charging most things to my credit card and using cash sparingly. Living in New York has taught me to always have cash on hand as some stores and businesses require a $5 to $10 minimum charge to use a credit card. If I’m looking to get a hot chocolate or a bottle of water, I don’t want to have to spend additional money to buy something I don’t need for the sole purpose of using my card. Bodegas here are almost exclusively cash only. Some businesses, like vegan diner Champs and café chain Swallow, are cash only. Credit limits and cash only are understandable for small towns and small businesses, but it’s bizarre to find this is a normal part of New York life. If you’re short on cash, questionable ATMs are available inside and outside most businesses. (A word of warning: watch out for these. They charge around $3 per transaction, don’t always work, and ‘customer service’ from the ATM company is a joke. I used the ATM inside Ange Noir and the money was taken out of my account but I didn’t receive any from the ATM. Calling the ATM company was as useful as yelling at a wall as the man who answered was dismissively, extremely unhelpful, and told me to wait 24 hours. I contacted my bank next and they were far more professional and helpful—a big thank you to MSUFCU! I received ATM credit and won’t be touching a skeezy ATM again.)

Additionally, most of the grocery stores and bodegas I’ve been to in Bushwick don’t have price scanners. Each item is individually tagged with the price, which the cashier then punches into the register. I’ve also seen some using a calculator to figure out the total cost rather than using their cash register. How is a bunch of individual tags more convenient than scanning a barcode? And why have a cash register at all if the cashier is going to use a calculator instead?

Another New York oddity is being asked to bring a hard copy of a resume to an interview. I’ve never been asked to bring a paper resume with me before I moved to New York. Four interviewers have required a hard copy of my resume, despite me having submitted one electronically at the time of my application. I’ve become familiar with the library around the corner so that I am able to print off my resumes.

It’s strange that my small, suburban hometown is more progressive than parts of New York.