Five Trips in Five Years...NYC May / June 2016 - Day 7: Downtown, The Village and Bubby's High Line

[moosha]

Day 7 -Friday 3rd June 2016



Today didn't really work out as planned, but we ended up having a good day anyway. It was also the only dodgy day weather-wise, which is why some of our plans fell apart.

We had booked to go up to the observatory at the top of One World Trade Center this morning after some recommendations. We were booked in at 9am. The plan was to have a 'proper' breakfast before we went and we had decided on Fresh & Co on Broadway which we had walked past on our evening stroll the night before.

A couple of things: firstly, we were running late. Secondly, it was raining. Both of these things will individually put my husband in a bad mood, so combined he was most definitely a bear with a sore head .



We legged it up to Fresh & Co and ordered create-your-own omelettes for Freya and I which came with breakfast potatoes, and Seren had a lox cream cheese bagel. For some reason there is nothing for Mat on the receipt but I know he ate. I think he may have forgotten to order his and had to go back, just to add to the stress and lateness. So not sure what he had.

I may be unfairly judging Fresh & Co as it could be that we didn't enjoy our breakfast because of the black cloud hanging over us (Mat's mood), the stress of being late and the bad weather, but we felt the place was a little grim compared to other similar delis / cafes (e.g. Pax). The food was disappointing too; our omelettes weren't great and the portions were small.



We left pretty quickly because we were in a hurry and headed towards One World Trade Center. It was still raining and I think we were aware at this point that we were unlikely to get up to the observatory this morning due to poor visibility caused by the weather. Therefore all this stressful rushing was likely to be pointless. However, we needed to actually go there to know for sure and to be able to re-book if necessary. To add a little more 'fun' to the situation, we were heading in the direction of the Trade Center (that was easy as you can't exactly miss seeing it in Lower Manhattan), but we weren't sure of exactly how to get to the entrance. We kept getting closer and then having to cross a busy road or it would disappear behind another building and seem to get further and further away.

We were booked onto the first slot and when we finally arrived at the building and saw nobody else around we already knew it was a no go. We went through the doors and were met by staff who advised the observatory was indeed closed due to zero visibility. They directed us to the ticket windows behind them where we could re-book or get a refund.

We really wanted to 'do' One World Observatory but as the next day was our last day in New York we were a bit concerned that we wouldn't be able to. The staff member said she could book us in for the following morning. I was a bit reluctant because without wifi we couldn't check the weather forecast and she wasn't very helpful with helping us out with the weather. ('the forecast can change...'). We went for it anyway and hoped for the best.

The panicked / miserable weather / grumpy Daddy / disappointment at plans going awry start to the day had left us all feeling a bit down and we didn't really have a plan as to what to do now. We were at that point in the trip where you know it's coming to an end and you don't want to waste any time. But with the weather finally turning against us, we weren't sure what we should do with ourselves right now.

We decided to pop to Financier Patisserie on Stone Street for a coffee and a macaron as it's an old favourite of ours and we thought it might cheer us up a bit (plus keep us warm and dry). There are a few Financier Patisseries around Downtown Manhattan and I would recommend them if you're in the area. They're like little French cafes / tea rooms, very popular with City workers, so there are usually a couple of little business meetings going on inside. Not sure what we ordered but I assume the girls and I each had a macaron as I'm sure we would have done. The girls clearly did judging by the photos. The macarons here are very nice and they have a good choice of flavours. I think Mat may have had a madeleine and we both definitely had a coffee (nice but strong). We all visited the pretty clean restroom and then had a mooch along Stone Street.





Stone Street is a pretty cobbled street which is a bit of a foodie destination in Lower Manhattan. I read the other day that it used to be referred to as 'crack alley' before New York was cleaned up by Mayor Guiliani but you would never know that now as it's lovely. Unfortunately with it being early and the weather being so poor, Stone Street was not looking its best when we passed through. There were lots of restaurant staff busy getting outdoor tables and canopies set up which gave us an indication of the scene expected to take place along the street later.













Still at a bit of a loose end, we decided to have a quick look at Fraunces Tavern on the corner of Pearl Street and Broad Street which I'd noted down after spotting it in my trusty Rough Guide to NYC. The current building was built in 1719 so is reportedly the oldest building in Manhattan, and it's a landmark because it played an important part in American History and the American Revolution. George Washington used to have his offices there. Mat and Seren are both history fans so they were very interested in taking photos and reading the information signs.









Next, Mat had a little place he wanted to take us to: the Elevated Acre at 55 Water Street. It's basically a sky garden, a full acre, between all the office towers and with lovely views over the river. It's a really cute little park and we spent a few minutes chilling up there and enjoying the views.









I would recommend popping up there if anyone is looking for a place to chill out downtown, especially if the weather is good. I think they may have a little bar kiosk up there in the summer months too.

By this point I think it had stopped raining but it was still cooler than it had been every other day, and hadn't yet brightened up. The plan now was to visit the Broadway discounted tickets booth at the corner of Front and John Streets (South Street Seaport) as we were hoping to get tickets for a matinee performance the following day. We'd read that this TKTS outlet was a lot quieter than the one in Times Square (and since we can't bear Times Square we were much more keen to do it down here anyway.)

The kiosk (well it's actually a few counters just inside a proper building) opened at 11 and we arrived about 10.45 am if I remember correctly. There was already a fair number of people lining up. We were hoping to get discounted tickets to Wicked but that dream was soon knocked on the head by the guy walking the queue to talk to people about the shows available / the process. He said that Wicked and the Disney shows (and obviously Hamilton) don't discount as 'they don't need to' so we wouldn't be able to buy tickets to any of those shows. Our second choice was School of Rock which had just opened and definitely had tickets available for the following day, so we weren't too disappointed. We like to watch a show that hasn't yet opened in the West End, in 2015 it was Aladdin (although all of us except Mat slept through a lot of that as we were still jetlagged ).

Just as the kiosks were opening, I decided to walk round the corner to the Duane Reed we had passed on our way here to get some water. Leaving Mat in charge of the tickets was a decision I would come to regret a few minutes later. Freya came to the shop with me, and knowing they would be waiting a while to get the tickets, I decided to hang around in the shop for a few minutes looking at the make-up. I bought a couple of Maybelline Colour Tattoo eyeshadows which unfortunately didn't seem any cheaper than at home, but I like some of the colours they have in the US that we can't get in the UK. They tend to dry up quicker than I can use them so I feel like I'm replacing them quite often.

When we got back around the corner to TKTS, I could see that Mat and Seren were being served at one of the counters so we waited for them to come out with the tickets. As Mat was walking towards us I could see he looked a bit shocked and stressed. He said he'd got the School of Rock tickets, and they had cost about $400 . I tried not to fall over or shout at him, but I couldn't believe it. I thought these were discounted tickets? It turns out the tickets he'd booked were in the stalls, only about ten rows back so they were excellent seats, but this was supposed to be a cheap holiday and I thought we were getting cheap tickets for the performance. We've never bought tickets from one of these outlets before, but I assume that if they offer you tickets that are too expensive, you can ask for less good seats at a lower price? That's certainly what I would have been asking for. Those can't have been the only four seats left for the entire performance. He'd just sheepishly got the credit card out thinking he couldn't say no to those tickets, bless him. In the end, we had a fantastic time at School of Rock (in fact it was the first time I'd not fallen asleep watching a Broadway show as I'd still been suffering with jet lag on both of the other two attempts) and the seats were great. I can laugh about it now but it was just ridiculous that we had gone to all the trouble of changing hotels a few weeks before the trip to a less nice hotel in order to avoid paying so much, and then in one fell swoop he had wiped out all of that money saving for a two hour theatre show.

Anyway, moving on...we had a quick mooch around South Street Seaport and went in a little stationers but didn't hang about too long. We walked back to the hotel to drop off the rain jackets etc as it wasn't expected to rain anymore now, and the girls had a quick play with their American Girl dolls.





We were heading up to Midtown for the afternoon and I think we walked the whole way up Broadway for a bit and then Fifth Avenue. Mat stopped at Essen to get a tuna melt for lunch. I had my eye on something from somewhere further on our walk but he'd been to an Essen deli on a work trip a few months before and had really liked it. I must say, I'd never been in one before but I was really impressed. They had a really good selection at the salad bar, some lovely already made up salads and lots of sandwiches and things you could get made up for you. The place was really busy so they must be doing something right. While Mat was sorting out the sandwiches, I was hovering by the salad bar and couldn't resist getting a couple of pots of fruit for the girls and I to share as they looked so good. I think I got one mango and one strawberries but it could have been more of a fruit salad-y thing, I can't recall and don't have a receipt, sorry (bad Dibber).

We carried on our walk and I think we stopped at Chelsea Markets to visit Amy's Bread. There's a possibility we went to the Bleecker Street one instead but I seem to recall it was Chelsea. Both are well worth a visit if you're in the market for a sweet treat. I think the girls got a bag of crisps and a cookie (what a healthy lunch and after a mid-morning macaron too...well we were on holiday I suppose). I know exactly what I had: Amy's Bread's fantastic chocolate brownie. Now I am not usually a brownie person, and as I've said before, in the few months or so leading up to the holiday I'd gone off cakes and desserts in general, but my word this brownie is good. I've had one every year since 2013 and they never disappoint. The flavour and texture is just spot on; rich but not sickly, the perfect amount of softness and chewiness without being dry...it's just so good and I would recommend it to anyone .

I think we took all of our food to the Hudson River Parkway and sat on a bench overlooking the water to eat it. Unfortunately it was still pretty overcast but the weather was much better than it had been earlier in the day. I'm sure we took some photos here but they seem to have disappeared.

Our actual route all goes a bit astray here as I'm sure we didn't double back on ourselves at all, but the order we did things doesn't seem to tally up with the geography. So this may not exactly be the order in which things actually happened.

At some point I got myself my favourite green juice from my favourite juice bar, Liquiteria, a couple of streets from Chelsea Market on the corner of 8th Avenue and 15th Street. I was hoping to get something like Marmite and avocado on gluten free toast from a little health food cafe I'd read about, but when we got there it was a) packed and b) waiter service and it was only me that needed to eat, so we sacked that and I was grateful I'd chosen to get the juice before in Chelsea.





In the Village (there's an Amy's Bread on Bleecker Street in the Village too which is why I'm not sure which one we went to) we took the obligatory 'Monica's apartment from Friends' photo. The girls had actually started watching Friends leading up to the trip for the first time so this was the first year they were actually interested.



We also took photos of the wooden house across the street (17 Grove Street, one of the oldest houses in Manhattan, built in 1822) as we always seem to do, but this year we didn't take any of the really narrow house at 75 and a half Bedford Street, also just across from the Friends building, not sure why as we usually have photos of all three.





Onwards towards Midtown and we passed 11th Street Cafe in the Far West Village. This had been 'on our list' after we watched the Philip Seymour Hoffman 'Autopsy' programme as it was his favourite coffee shop and he visited it practically daily. If you've read our 2013 trip report, you'll know that we passed Philip Seymour Hoffman on the street in the Village during that trip, less than a year before he died. Anyway, Mat was keen to try the coffee seeing as PSH rated it so highly, so he went in to get one. I thought it was a bit late in the day for a strong coffee so I passed.



While we were waiting outside for him, an older couple walked past who were obviously dog walkers. They had a variety of shapes and sizes of dogs with them; a couple on a lead and a little trailer with a few more having a little ride. This amused the girls and I as we waited and watched them. They bumped into a few people they knew and we enjoyed watching their interactions.

Mat enjoyed the (strong) coffee, I think he had a double espresso, and then we carried on walking north (and slightly east). We were going to visit the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) on W 27th Street which was something we were keen to do as firstly, it was free, and secondly, Freya loves looking at nice outfits (especially dresses). We'd researched this before we'd come away and we knew it was very small and that they usually have one or two exhibitions running at any one time but that they change every couple of months. We'd just missed one that Freya would have loved, something to do with pretty dresses I'm sure. The one that was on while we were there was uniforms and their influence on fashion.

We all enjoyed looking at the exhibition, it only took about 20 minutes to look around (looking at everything in detail) but it was a nice pit-stop. They had a little video of a catwalk / documentary on the subject running too so we sat (aah, a seat) and watched that for a few minutes too. Plus there were (pretty clean) restrooms in there which is always a bonus when you're pounding the pavements of NYC. I would recommend it if you have even a passing interest in fashion as it doesn't take long and is free but would recommend checking their website to see what's on, and also to check opening times as it's not open every day of the week.

Our next destination was our beloved Bryant Park hotel as we were popping in on our friend Sarah who was at work there today. It was lovely to catch up with her, we had a good chat and the girls had a photo taken with her.

Mat and I were keen to get a salad from Beyond Sushi for dinner again tonight, so next it was a walk back to Chelsea. On the way we had our only celebrity spot of the trip, but for us it was a good one. We'd been pretty obsessed with both 'Impractical Jokers' and 'Billy on the Street' on Comedy Central before the trip and kept saying 'imagine if we saw them filming when we're there!' Well as we were walking through Chelsea, a group of people were walking towards us and just as they got really close, we both clapped eyes on the guy at the front and it was Billy Eichner (Billy on the Street). He was obviously in the middle of filming as he had his crew all around him with cameras and mics, and he was wearing his usual 'uniform' of a plain bright t-shirt (it was either green or purple). When he was right in front of us, Mat whispered 'It's Billy on the Street'. It then registered that it was him, he had a really grumpy face on, and then he had passed us and it was too late to even get my phone out and grab a photo as they were moving at quite some speed. We were both really happy and surprised that we'd seen him but disappointed not to have seen him actually filming or to have even got a photo.

Chilling in Chelsea Markets:



We got our salads from Beyond Sushi (the same as we'd had on Sunday, still as ridiculously delicious). We got some hot food for the girls from Whole Foods (7th Avenue at 24th Street) with the plan being to take it all up onto the High Line as we had before. With the weather not being great, the tables up there were pretty much empty and there weren't many people about. It was about 6.30 pm on a Friday night but the stalls opposite the picnic tables were all closing up for the day (I think because of the lack of custom due to the weather) so there wasn't much of an atmosphere but we all still enjoyed our dinner.

We had one more stop to make tonight which was dessert and drinks at Bubby's High Line. Having enjoyed our breakfast at Bubby's TriBeCa a few days before, we (especially Seren) were keen to have some more of their apple pie. Mat hadn't been with us when we'd visited Ample Hills inside Bubby's High Line on Tuesday so I wanted to show him how nice it was inside. Plus we'd never been out for dessert before which seems to be a very American thing to do, so when in Rome...

The outdoor tables were quite busy so we were a little concerned that they wouldn't squeeze us in, but inside was pretty quiet and the hostess welcomed us warmly even when we said we were only after drinks and dessert.

Everyone knew what they wanted so we ordered pretty quickly. I had a glass of merlot, Mat had a Manhattan and we shared a slice of apple pie (although sharing apple pie with me means accepting I'm going to steal most of the fruit and leave all the pastry, but he knew what he was getting into.) The girls had tap water, Seren had a slice of apple pie (of course) and Freya had some vanilla ice cream (the ice cream at Bubby's High Line comes from Ample Hills Creamery of course). The pie was pretty good, the wine went down even better after another long day of walking.

Tucking in:



While we were sat there, there was a young couple at the table behind with a really cute little girl of around 18 months who kept looking over at us, smiling and staring, and then she would get all shy and hide behind her daddy. The girls were loving smiling and waving at her, and even Mat seemed to be enjoying getting in on the act. At one point I even thought he was getting a bit broody which is very unlike him, he only likes our children . She was very cute though.



We paid up at 7.50 pm and then took what I think was our last walk of the holiday down the Hudson River Parkway and back to our very much needed beds in TriBeCa.

[sheluk]

Such a shame about your viewing in the morning. I have absolutely no doubt that would have been me in that mood you mention - lateness, rain, off plan... has all the markings of a sulk for sure. Lol.

Sounds like a fun day, you guys do so much walking. I know it's inevitable there of course but I'm still really impressed. Mmmmm apple pie and macaroons in one day - yum!

Thanks for sharing xx

[RachelM]

What a shame about the rain in the morning. Still a busy day again though.

[Buggles94]

Thanks so much for this trip report! We are heading off to NYC with our teenagers soon and you have reminded me how much there is to do. We plan to walk the Brooklyn Bridge this time as haven't done this before! Very excited now about returning

[Guest]

Forgive me - but I laughed about your DH and the SOR tickets. My DH is exactly the same - I think men never want to look "cheap".

As a woman I have absolutely no compunction about opening my eyes real wide and saying, "Oh, dear - my husband would be very cross with me if I spent that much money without checking with him first..." A complete lie - but it works every time.

[WileyCoyote]

Oh bit of a gloomy start to the day there, the rain and things not going to plan. Ouch at the tix prices too ! But still some lovely sightseeing off the normal tourist routes, love your pics of the buildings , so many I've not seen before. Fingers crossed for a smoother and drier day tomorrow !