NEW YORK: A Six-Day Weekend

Looking out toward Madison Square, Manhattan

"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN. ALL NEW YORKERS ARE VICTIMS OF MANIC DEPRESSION -- MAINLY BECAUSE OF RENT. THANK YOU VERY MUCH."
-- Unidentified subway rider, New York City, this past Saturday

I ONLY CHECKED MY E-MAIL three times during my vacation to New York. I guess I could have blogged about my travels while on the road, but that's not what retreats are for. Instead of reading Gawker, I picked up the print edition of the New York Post for Page Six. (It greeted me every morning as I left the borrowed apartment I was staying in.) It was all quite strange.

INSTEAD OF PUTTING TOGETHER a detailed travelogue, I'll give you a summary instead.

ACCOMPLISHED:
- Was a spectator at a public pillow fight in Union Square.
- Took a peek inside the new Balducci's at Eighth Avenue and 14th Street: a grocery store inside a highly decorated Greek temple, f.k.a. the 1897 New York Savings Bank.
- Per Information Leafblower's suggestion, saw D.C.'s Nethers at the Knitting Factory.
- Made it to three of the five boroughs (so sorry ... Bronx, Staten Island)
- Used the C, F, G, L, N, Q, R, W, 6 and 7 trains, plus the 42nd Street shuttle and the No. 23 bus in Manhattan
- Ventured out to 106th Street, Manhattan; Jackson Heights, Queens; Newkirk Avenue, Brooklyn
- After taxis were not cooperative in bringing me out to an area of Brooklyn well past Prospect Park, hired a car service, which is a cheaper, much better way to travel between Brooklyn and Manhattan.
- Consumed a burrito on Myrtle Avenue, Brooklyn, that was the size of a football.
- Visited the Brandy Library on North Moore Street at Varick Street.

SOUVENIERS:
- Numerous $7 1-Day Fun Pass MetroCards
- A strip of photobooth photos (at right), taken from inside a photobooth in someone's apartment. Where can I get a nifty in-home photobooth?

WITNESSED OR NOTICED:
- Andy Borowitz (sometime CNN "American Morning" humor pundit and editor of BorowitzReport.com), or someone who looked very much like him, was splashed by a taxi cab on Broadway near 10th Street.
- The bottom riser of the glass staircase at the Prince Street Apple Store had embedded cracks in it.
- Holden Caufield-wannabes reside in greater Williamsburg area: On two different occasions of riding the G train over this past weekend, I saw two distinctly different disaffected hipsters reading "Catcher in the Rye."
- It is increasingly difficult to hear the first three notes of "Somewhere" from "West Side Story" from the newer subway cars delivered in 2002. Those three notes could be heard as electrical current from the third rail is converted to power the train car. Has the tonal quirk faded with age? (Background: "New York Subway Postcard" NPR, May 25, 2002)
- Current D.C. Jail resident John Tsombikos likes to hang out in SoHo. Borf graffiti tags can be seen on various streets off Broadway below Houston Street. He must have been saddened by last month's fire at 575 Broadway, which damaged Prada and American Eagle! The tragedy!

'TIL NEXT TIME:
- Uygur food in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn
- Revisit Red Hook, Brooklyn (at left) via B61 bus