I could write and talk about New York for ever, but I fear this is getting a little like an interminable slide night at your Auntie’s house, so I’ll finish with a few bits and pieces
Some random bits of NY style
This little cutie was so proud of the Obama hat he got for his birthday, he told me that his family and friends were still partying after the election, made me feel good after all the recent criticism!
Seasons
It was so lovely being in a city with real seasons. When we arrived, the trees were bare and the air frosty, this is our neighbourhood – Cobble Hill in Brooklyn, a block from our apartment.
Within a few days there were blossoms and flowers springing out everywhere and the sun was shining gloriously – window boxes appeared and little courtyards and stoops sported pots of tulips and blossoms.
Parks and places
Manhattan is full of wonderful community gardens – lovingly tended and each one with its own character, its something I remember from my first visit – amongst the burnt out tenements of Alphabet City, were little unofficial community plots of flowers and herbs. Now they seem to be official and organised .. lovely.
Spring of course is the ideal time to experience the beautiful parks and green spaces in NY, Central Park is without a doubt one of the most beautiful and expansive parks anywhere
The new Highline Park – developed from an old eyesore overhead road in Chelsea/Meatpackers District, has great views, art and lovely little patches of grass, a really beautiful place to walk and a great transformation.
Also new, in fact unfinished, is the Brooklyn Bridge Park – a beautiful stretch of green winding along the East River from Dumbo which will eventually stretch all the way to Cobble Hill. Its a beautiful walking park, with playgrounds and even little beaches on the river – and of course that view of Manhattan on the other side of the river.
Dumbo – under the Manhattan Bridgeon the Brooklyn side, is an old waterfront industrial/warehouse area which has been turned into a funky area full of art galleries, smart cafes and waterfront apartments that people bought for a pittance and are now worth millions. Its a great place for a walk and retains a few reminders of its industrial past which make it more interesting.
Red Hook – right up the end of the river, looking across to Jersey and the Statue of Liberty, is a more arty, hippyish area which is also developing from an industrial waterfront, its really lovely and peaceful and less aggressively groovy than Dumbo. It has a great supermarket which I raved about in the food post and a new Ikea, which is a source of much excitement to New Yorkers & their tiny apartments and even has its own ferry service to Manhattan.
Gentrification
Is proceeding at a galloping rate in New York, especially in Brooklyn possibly because Manhattan is pretty much done! Cobble Hill, where we stayed, is full of beautifully renovated brownstones, tree lined cobbled streets, nannies and small children. Its lovely, but there are precious few remnants of what was not so long ago a hard, working class, waterfront workers suburb. We went as far out as Flatbush, which although still pretty grim and drab, is showing signs of renovation, with cafes and bars springing up here and there. Like most people I’m ambivalent about gentrification, I deplore the fact that rising prices force the low income residents out and hate the corresponding lack of diversity – but at the same time, I’m happy to sit around the cafes & love the lifestyle. The NY tradition of rent control or rent stabilisation on a certain quota of buildings in each area is a great idea, and has protected Manhattan to some extent, although from many accounts the pace of property development and the greed for profits means that many of these residents are being forced out.
Shopping
We did very little shopping of the kind people normally associate with NY, mostly just browsing in vintage clothing shop, record shops and little boutiques. Bleecker Bob’s in the Village was a favourite haunt for slavering over thousands of record albums of all genres. I miss vinyl for its warm sound and especially for the wonderful cover art, liner notes and the way the packaging used to be so carefully designed and created to complement the music and the artist, looking through vintage records is like seeing frozen moments in time – the design, fonts, writing and photos all representative of their era. Oscar bought some great original jazz albums and I bought this
not in great shape, but original and worth it just for the cover art.
There were some great shops in the East Village& Brooklyn for one-off t-shirts, new and vintage shoes for the teenage shoe freak and many other such goodies, it was as much fun browsing as buying – well almost.
Williamsburg
Home of the hipster, was chock a block with vintage clothing shops and vintage everything else (by vintage in this case I mean 1980s). Being vintage myself, and from the 1980s, I have to say the revival of 80s fashion and music leaves me pretty unimpressed. It was mostly crap then and its crap now, and no amount of irony or beardy bicycle riding will make it good. Williamsburg has great bars, cafes and restaurants and some fantastic shops, its buzzy and crowded and very very hip – but it does get a bit tired and tiring after a couple of days, its all just a bit try-hard. I imagine living there would be exhausting, what with the constant pressure to be wearing, riding and listening to the latest thing of the moment.
Lovely cafe in Williamsburg, on Bedford, sadly the expresso machine was broken and we had the worst excuse for Chai I’ve ever tasted! Like milky water with a few spices waved at it.
Vintage shopping in Williamsburg – Beacons Closet – nearly made Oscar buy this rather wonderful suede number!
In Williamsburg, even the trucks are hip and vintage.
There’s a great post which pretty much sums it up, at the excellent ‘Less This More That’ blog. Having said all that though, its a pretty great place -all that Surry Hills wants to be but somehow so much more!
So that’s it, my thoughts on wonderful wonderful New York, it certainly won’t be another 20 years until I return.