For my first post, I wrote a review of the Cherry Bombe magazine Jubilee that happened last month in New York City. Since I live in Boston, I had to travel to New York for the Jubilee and of course I wasn't going to waste a minute so I made sure I (and my friend Jeanne, whom I coerced into traveling with me) crammed as much as possible into a 36-hour visit. Those adventures are presented here as a tiny little travel guide to just a teensy fraction of the things you can do in the Big City.
When we first got in, we went to meet some of my college friends at Chelsea Market, which was a fun and interesting space to wander around in but holy cats was it crowded. We made our way to the back, where the sea of people subsided a bit, and had some nice tea at Sarabeth's. We also explored Bowery Kitchen Supply and Posman Books, where I found a copy of the first America's Test Kitchen Book I worked on. (See photo above—my name is in that book!)
After Chelsea Market, we walked over to our hotel to drop off our bags. We stayed at the Chelsea GEM Hotel mostly for price and location. The room was tiny but clean and cute. The hotel was completely serviceable as a place to leave our stuff, sleep, and shower (actually, the showers were really great, if that's a thing that matters to you). It was nice and quiet at night and very convenient. Recommended, as long as you're not planning to spend too much time in your hotel room.
Next, we headed out to Queens on the subway—which was easier to do than it looked like it would be—to visit The Museum of the Moving Image, which is an institution dedicated to "advanc[ing] the understanding, enjoyment, and appreciation of the art, history, technique, and technology of film, television, and digital media," and a very cool place to visit. The thing that brought us there, specifically, was their exhibit on Mad Men, a shared favorite of mine and Jeanne's. Okay, yes, it was INSANELY popular and crowded, but it was totally worth it. The exhibit is running until June 14, 2015, so if you're reading this before then and you have a chance to get to New York, I highly recommend you see it (and the museum is also full of other really fascinating things like Elizabeth Taylor's wig from Cleopatra and hands-on ways to learn about the elements of moviemaking, so it's worth the trip even if you miss the exhibit). They have costumes, props, and even whole sets from the series, as well as notes and commentary from showrunner Matthew Weiner. I took some surreptitious photos to send to my mom (and post here, of course).
Our Saturday evening plans were a bit of a misadventure--we were getting super hungry, so we headed back to Manhattan to a place where Jeanne promised me there would be delicious arepas, but our plans were foiled by the location being closed due to a crazy explosion that had happened just a few days beforehand in the East Village. We started to head back toward our hotel, but not before I dragged Jeanne to the East Village Momfuku Milk Bar so I could finally try their famous Crack Pie.
We made the trek back to the hotel, looking for a dinner option the whole way and ended up eating at the restaurant that was literally next door to where we were staying: Foragers City Table. We had a delicious meal that started with three fantastic cheeses (and some life-changing bread, which I have tracked down in Boston and bought almost every week since) and also included curry cauliflower soup, a hearty winter pot-au-feu, and trumpet pasta with lamb bolognese. I also had some very delicious bourbon drinks. We sat at the bar and the bartender was lovely and friendly and very welcoming. I thoroughly recommend this place. And then of course there was Crack Pie eaten with a plastic fork while watching SNL at the hotel. Delicious.
You can read about most of what I did the next day in that first post on the Jubilee (Jeanne explored the city on her own, and I must say I kind of envy her that, considering how my day turned out), but we did manage to take a quick stroll on the High Line before heading back to Boston.
I haven't spent that much time in New York as an adult. Although I've been living in a city for almost eight years now, New York still kind of intimidates me. But I had a very nice time this visit and actually have two more planned trips coming up in May, so hopefully I'll be able to expand upon this mini travel guide and get a little bit more comfortable with that city of cities. In the meantime, I hope this helps some of you out there who are looking for a very limited, opinionated collection of advice, and if you have any suggestions for my next NYC adventure, please leave them in the comments!
Recommended Reading:
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (even though I didn't make it to Brooklyn on this trip, this is one of my favorite NYC stories, and it's responsible for much of my romantic/hopelessly out-of-date mental picture of the city)
Anything on the Mad Men reading list from the NYPL
Recommended Viewing:
Mad Men season 7, of course