Champ the Wonder Dog

Today was our bed bug inspection. This has become routine in New York over the last few years and is a good thing. The inspection was supposed to have taken place before we moved in but that didn’t happen. If it had I would have missed meeting Champ and seeing him in action. Champ is a Beagle-Pointer mix and has been trained and certified to sniff out bed bugs and their eggs. He is much faster and more accurate than human inspectors. He and his partner, Danny, were here less than five minutes and we got the all clear as did the other apartments being inspected today.

It was very interesting to see the two at work. Champ had been at work for a few hours before arriving here and was having a little trouble staying on course. The command for him to get set to start was, “Get to work”. Then he would put his nose down the floor and sniff away. The command to keep him on track was, “Find the beast, find the beast”. So I was staying still and quiet off to the side while this chant was repeated a hundred times.

Once Champ was finished he just plopped on the floor exhausted. After Champ had his rest and posed for a couple of photos he was off to another apartment. See more about Champ HERE.

There Is No Santa

….at least until November 26th.

Macy’s is probably not on most people’s must see list when they visit New York but I found it very interesting. Most of us know exactly where it is in Manhattan, 34th Street and Broadway. It is just one avenue west of the Empire State Building so it is very easy to incorporate into your tour schedule. It takes up a full block and nine full floors. The sign outside boasts that it is the largest store in the world. I don’t know about that but it is a lot of store.

Inside and out you see the results of multiple remodels that makes the store look like any Macy’s anywhere in the country. What is different here are the odd spots that have escaped dozens of renovations over the years. One thing that really stands out is the old totally wooden escalators. I had no idea such a thing existed. Another is the large bank of elevators . On a Saturday you can see people standing six or eight deep impatiently waiting for a door to open pinning their hopes on the one they are standing in front of will be next. They watch the lighted numbers as they go up and down as if it were a horse race and then their hopes are dashed as it suddenly stalls two floors away. Four doors over an elevator opens and the whole group rushes over knowing that only a fraction will be able to fit in the compartment. This goes on and on all day. Fortunately we were tipped off to an express elevator that is located off to a corner of the store far from the madding crowd.

Also hard to miss is the Santa Claus booth. Of course it is empty for eleven months of the year but it is maintained year round since the store is more associated with Christmas than any other. A sign next to it tells a bit of the story including the fact that eighty percent of “Miracle On 34th Street” was actually filmed inside the store. I also found out that the Thanksgiving Day Parade route was changed just last year and now goes down Seventh Avenue right outside our apartment windows!

Our view of Seventh Avenue:

There is more to see in the area around Macy’s. Right outside the front doors is Herald Square which has been blocked to car traffic and is now a pedestrian mall area. There is a proposal to convert 34th Street into a pedestrian mall from Seventh Avenue to Sixth Avenue, from Macy's to the Empire State Building. Also 34th Street has tons of shopping and will really take you back to the days when downtown department store shopping thrived in every city. Most of the stores and storefronts have changed to names familiar today like Old Navy but the footprints are still the same and it doesn’t take much imagination to see how it once was.

Updates

I have been too busy to post much this week. I am sure everyone wants to know about the strike and the story probably didn't make the Kansas City Star. You loyal readers may remember that the strike was set to start at midnight on Tuesday. A deal was struck at the very last minute and the strike was averted and we no longer have to worry about getting our deliveries interrupted by picket lines.

Tuesday evening the strike possibility was still looming during the eleven o'clock news and it was the one of the lead off stories. They showed a reporter in front of the hotel where the talks were taking place. It was the Sheraton New York. This hotel is right outside our window. We went over to look down on the street and sure enough there were a half dozen vans with satellite dishes parked right in front of the hotel. We tried our best to stay up to see the results but we just couldn't make it. We kept nodding off like we waiting on election nights' returns. We had to wait until the morning for the news.

So the deliveries are still coming. More groceries, another couple of boxes from Bed Bath and Beyond, a case of wine.

You may remember my buddy, Isaac, the owner/operator of the little Italian restaurant from an earlier post, his part is towards the end of the post. I was tooling past his place the other day and I thought I would get a picture of his store front for a visual aid. Well, he noticed somebody out there and he had to investigate. He popped out of the door with a disturbed look on his face until he saw it was me. Then he smiled and gave me a warm handshake and being the ham that he is he promptly gave me this pose. So now you can see for yourself.

Isaac showing off his antipasto window display.

D Day In Manhattan

D for delivery.

This week we took delivery of our purchases from the week before. We had shopping sprees at IKEA, Macy’s, Bed Bath And Beyond, and a few things from Best Buy. All this had to funneled through the service elevator at our apartment which had been readied with padding for the day’s events, along with a $1,000 damage deposit.

Monday morning Toni was at the apartment waiting for the deliveries to begin while I worked still at the hotel. The hourly updates were fine at first. Best Buy and Macy’s were straightforward drop offs. IKEA was more complex as the items were large and required assembly. As the debris started to clear and the items took shape Toni came to realize there was no mattress. It turned out that the one we picked out did not get ordered. Panic. She called me to see about getting one delivered the next day. This call came at 3:00 PM. A quick search turned up a half dozen places offering exactly that service. Unbelievable. In about an hour I had lined up just the mattress we wanted at a good price with free overnight delivery.

On Tuesday we were both at the apartment to get ready for the cable installer, TV, phone, and internet. I quickly unpacked and assembled the TV while Toni got the phone plugged in to start charging. Meanwhile the mattress arrived and was put in place as promised. The cable guy was busy spreading his spaghetti of wires around. The TV was on but without sound, he got the phone up and finally the internet. He then told us the TV was bad and seeing our disbelief gave us a quick demonstration. Great. So Toni scrambled around to find the receipt and got Best Buy on the phone. She got off the phone and told me to box it back up. They came over in an hour to pick it up and another hour later they were back with a new one.


So now that we had the necessities it was decided we were not going to go back to the hotel tonight. Bed, TV, internet, but no food. I had found a great site that gives you all kinds of search options for Manhattan restaurants. So I find 500 in our neighborhood, 200 with free delivery, 13 with Mexican. We picked one based on four stars and one dollar sign, scoped the menu quickly and made the call. Less than 15 minutes later we were eating.

We still needed food for the morning. Again we are on the phone with a grocery store at 8:00 PM. Toni only ordered a few things and asked if there was a minimum order for delivery and the guy said they will do a six pack of Coke if that is all we want. A half hour later a kid is at our door with four bags in hand, Toni signed the ticket and we are good.



It is almost as if you can wish for anything you want and it will magically appear.

Doorman Strike Looms

When we signed our lease we arranged to start it April 20th in order to have some overlap with our hotel stay and make the transition simpler. However, a few days later we learned that the Doorman's union had voted to strike at midnight April 20th! What are the odds we would pick this date? This strike may sound sort of frivolous and of little consequence but if no settlement is made and they do follow through with a walkout the delivery men will not cross the picket lines.

As you may recall we had plans to order all new furnishings from IKEA and Macy's, all to be delivered after we take possession of the apartment. So, Toni got on the phone and tracked down the leasing agent, Frank (with the last name no one can pronounce) and got permission to have access to the apartment early. She only had to make arrangements with the head concierge, Luis. Everytime we ask about anything at all we are told to go through Luis. But when she called Luis she found that he was on vacation all this week. Luckily she got the name of the super and he gave us the okay to do the deliveries on Monday the 19th. Disaster averted.

Just another example of everyday things in New York that never come up in Kansas City.

Carrie Rodriguez

Tuesday evening we went to a nice venue in the Village called Joe's Pub. It is a small 160 seat room that is a work of art. It is known for its great acoustics and for booking a very eclectic mix of acts from artists early in their careers, Amy Winehouse's first US appearance, as well as many past masters, Dion, Lesley Gore. The setting was more like a private party in a swanky cabaret.

I had managed to secure complimentary tickets from Carrie Rodriguez's manager. This show was significant as her new CD, Love And Circumstance, was released that day and is considered to be a potential breakthrough album for her. She is far from a household name but she is very well known in some circles especially in her native Austin. Carrie most recently has been opening shows for Lucinda Williams and her music is in the same genre. This is her third solo studio album following four studio albums with Chip Taylor. Some of her lyrics tackle some dark topics and this was partly explained at the show when she talked of her father giving her a Leonard Cohen cassette for her ninth birthday.

Visitor One

We had our first visitor from Kansas City this week. My cousin, Brent Boydston, was here on business. He has a great job, he had to go to two Yankees games. We got to hook up for a leisurely breakfast. We were feeling brave and planned on a Mexican breakfast at an untried hole in the wall. We were right at the door but chickened out at the last minute and opted for Hot & Crusty backtracking a half block. It is one of those places where you order at the counter and have a really large menu on the wall behind that warrants several minutes but we both ordered quickly not wanting to recreate a scene from Seinfeld.

Long Day's Journey Into Night

Monday was IKEA day and we knew it was going to be a long one. Little did we know. We hailed a cab on 9th Ave and we were on our way to Pier 11. Once we got on the FDR we were flying. You get nice views of the Hudson River, Battery Park, and the Statue of Liberty all at sixty miles per hour. It all abruptly goes to slow motion, however, when Ground Zero comes into focus. I am sure something is happening there but it looks essentially unchanged, a huge construction site, an open sore. I really wanted the cab to speed up and on to our destination.

We settled up with the cab driver and went to the ticket window with time to spare to get the first IKEA ferry of the day. There were about twenty other passengers on the Water Taxi ride with us. It was great weather for this, blue skies and a little crisp. We were treated to wonderful views of the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan skyline. You really can’t see what it looks like when you are in it so this was a treat.

In minutes we were pulling up to the dock and everyone scrambled off the boat for a mad dash to the entrance. I noticed four more IKEA ferry boats were docked for the high traffic days. You really don’t want to try this on a weekend. We went straight to their café for a quick lunch of Swedish Meatballs. It is a good thing we did too as it wound up being a much longer process than we anticipated. We felt pretty well prepared as we had scoured their website a few days earlier and knew what styles and lines we wanted. But even with all of our prep work it still took us six hours to get our order picked out, pulled, paid for, and to arrange for storage and delivery. It was a real marathon.

By the time we were finished the last return Water Taxi was long gone. It was about 9:00 PM when stepped out into the Brooklyn night sky. There were a couple of shuttle buses waiting in front but neither of them went to Manhattan. This area is totally industrial and there were not any familiar Yellow Cabs in sight, in fact there wasn’t any traffic at all. This big guy in a black sport coat asked where we were wanting to go and directed us to a cluster of men near the street. Another well dressed man emerged from the group and with some heavy indistinct accent said, “Forty-nine ninety-five”. With few options I didn’t really feel like haggling. We agreed and were motioned over towards a group of cars on a side street. One pulled up, got us loaded and again, we were off.

This was a “gypsy cab” operation. They operate outside of the New York commission that heavily regulates the Yellow Cabs and limos that are registered. These guys don’t need no stinking medallions. They don’t have meters either. They fill a void that the Yellows won’t serve as they are not lucrative enough, mostly in outlying areas or areas and hours that are considered less safe. Sort of black market cabs if you will. The driver was on his cell the entire trip speaking a Middle Eastern language, but I wasn’t going to say anything about it.

We got back to our corner safe and sound but now we were starving. We were starving as we had not eaten since the Swedish Meatballs. We jumped into the first place we saw. It was an Italian ristorante that we had passed by everyday but took no notice of. But tonight it was close and that is all that mattered. It was very dimly lit and there were three or four groups already dining. We were greeted and seated by the waiter.

The place was very small, no more that twelve feet wide with a row of two chair tables on one wall and tables of four and six on the other side divided by an aisle no wider than what you have on an airplane. The waiter scurried up and down this narrow passage every ten seconds, taking orders, bringing orders, bussing tables, dropping spoons without taking notice. He was a short, portly man sporting a pompadour . He was the only visible help and I began to wonder if he was also the chef. We found out later that his name is Isaac and he is the owner. There were Italian songs playing in the background and as Isaac worked he was humming along and at times nearly singing along under his breath. All the while a flat screen TV was showing some ancient Engelbert Humperdinck concert with the sound off.

Out of the blue Isaac started a little singalong at another table. He was leading the group in Elvis Presley’s “Can’t Help Falling In Love” with a big dramatic solo finish. We were doing our best to pretend to be oblivious to all of this. We just wanted to eat our meals and get back as it was really late. The Humperdinck concert finally ended and after a brief respite our host replaced the DVD with Celine Dion Live In Las Vegas. Ughh. We declined the dessert menu but suddenly Isaac reappeared with a couple of glasses of wine gratis. Our long weird day went on a little longer and we had a few toasts with Isaac and couple of other patrons. We got to our room around eleven and the ferry ride was a distant memory.

New York City's Newest Trattoria

Across the street from our Hell's Kitchen hotel a new authentic Italian restaurant opened just last Monday. When I say authentic, I mean the owner/chef grew up in a small town in Italy. The decor is a cement floor, brick walls, rough-hewn tables, and shelving sprinkled with pottery from the chef/owner's childhood. Soft lights and candles complete the setting and you swear you were in somebody's European country house.

We went there last Thursday night and had a great time. With no liquor license yet, our friendly, young waiter told us to go ahead and walk around the corner and buy a bottle of wine and he would serve it to us. To go with my purchase, I had spaghetti with fresh tomato, garlic and basil with a side of broccoli rabe with roasted garlic. Bill had the meat lasagna. All were made with fresh vegetables, homemade pasta and sauce, and excellent.

Our waiter, Don Carlo, invited us to the restaurant's grand opening party on Sunday evening, from which we have just returned. Free for the taking was wine and hearty appetizers. We each had a plate consisting of: Caponata (Sicilian eggplant ratatouille), the best pasta salad I ever ate, brochettas with white bean, pesto, and garlic mayo toppings, and fried gnocchi. After we ate enjoying our wine, we met up with our waiter from Thursday where he was sitting with his parents and grandmother to whom he promptly introduced us, followed by some friendly conversation.

Yea, folks, that is the real NYC too, it is not all callous people working the streets. Just stay away from Times Square and go for 9th Ave, the Village, and other little nooks away from the tourists traps and you will be feeling good.

So next time you are looking for a great little comfortable place with wonderful food at decent prices in NYC, go to Mercato on 39th Street between 8th and 9th Avenues. Hopefully when you visit, it will sport signage and liquor license and be so busy you will have to wait just a bit at the bar.

Treasure Map

As soon as we decided to abandon our notions of renting a furnished apartment we figured that we would be using IKEA to get reasonably priced yet attractive and functional furnishings. When we looked into it we found that the closest location is in Brooklyn. We are perfectly comfortable getting around Manhattan but not at all with Brooklyn and right away I thought this is going to be a hurdle. Buses or subways? How many transfers?


So I was pleased to see a link for "Get Directions". On that page there are tabs for the usual modes of transportation but there was one other, Water Taxi. I clicked on it and had to laugh. There is a regularly scheduled ferry dedicated to IKEA. It takes you from Pier 11 in lower Manhattan, which is only a fifteen minute cab ride from our hotel, right to the waterside dock of IKEA....and back.



We will head out Monday afternoon.


Click on the map to enlarge it.

No Turning Back

Wednesday finally came…lease signing day. We headed out for the one mile trek across town. We were told to meet the leasing agent at the apartment. Just ask for Frank, don’t worry about his last name, no one knows how to pronounce it. We let the concierge, Luis, know we are there and he waves us through. We arrive at the apartment and Frank waves us in. Our leasing agent is wearing a tee shirt, baggy shorts, and flip-flops. I guess it is casual day at the office. These guys manage fifty properties.

He shows us two copies of the lease to read and says, “Read this over, take all the time you need”, in a slight Brooklyn accent. Toni reads a bit, asks a question, Frank says, “Shore, we can do that, take all the time you need”. Toni reads some more, asks another question, Frank, “Shore, we can do that”. Most of the lease is straightforward then there is a couple of pages of non-standard stuff. We question a couple of the items and Frank just says, “Don’t worry about that, don’t worry about that, we want the customer to be happy”. “If you get in a jam we’ll give you time to pay”. We have a short punch list for him and again he is undaunted, “We can do that”. He makes a call on his cell and a maintenance man appears within seconds to assure Frank that he can get it all done on time. Toni wants some photos taken and later some measurements all met with “Take all the time you need”. Frank, whatever his last name is, is a very accommodating guy.

We are set to take possession on the 20th but we probably won’t move in for a week after that. We still need to get furniture purchased and delivered and cable/internet/phone installed. Fortunately all the other utilities are included with the rent.

So as of last Wednesday we officially graduated from tourists to residents. We have fallen down the rabbit hole and gone through the looking glass. I can definitely tell you that we are not in Kansas anymore.

The building was erected in 1968 and is located just blocks from Central Park, the Museum of Modern Art, the Ed Sullivan Theatre, Rockefeller Center, and Times Square. There are 214 apartments, 39 floors, a rooftop terrace, 24 hour doorman, and full time concierge. The apartment view is average but the location is great. You can click on the map to enlarge it slightly.

Fire And Rain

As you may recall from an earlier post our first few days in NYC broke records for rainfall here. Yesterday we had record heat for the day, beating the old 1929 record by three degrees. It actually hit 92 degrees. We were out in the middle of it as we had to go sign our lease in the early afternoon, but it didn't feel bad at all because the humidity was so low. All the restaurants had their windows and garage doors wide open. It made for a beautiful evening.

But I hope that is enough record breaking for awhile.

Celebrity Sighting

He is not a huge star but recognizable. G.W. Bailey. He was coming out of our hotel as we were going in. I even had to look up his name as I only know him from his roles on M.A.S.H. and the Closer. The Closer is a great show if you haven't caught it and his character, Lt. Provenza, is pretty good. He really looked like he was in character as he walked away and pulled out his cell phone.

Oh yeah, we signed our lease today.

New York Apartment Hunting 101

Tomorrow we go to sign our lease on our New York apartment. But I am not ready to write about that yet. Instead I am going to rewind a little bit to a little more than a week ago when we got a crash course on how different things are in Manhattan.

We had been in touch with an agent here for about a month before we left Kansas City, Liz Dworkin, Sam's cousin. She has been selling real estate here for many years and offered to help us find a furnished rental. We spent parts of three days with her with a wide range of properties that we had culled from dozens of listings she sent us beforehand.

This is not unlike house hunting where you quickly become disillusioned and accept the fact that your tastes don't match your budget and keep nudging that upper limit a little bit higher with every viewing. We felt a bit like Goldilocks in that everything had some fatal flaw. It was too small, too shabby, too far from this or that, the furniture was not our style. We came to realize that going furnished was not going to work out this time around. The furnished rentals in our budget have just been abused. They are sublet to uncaring renters or kids who turn them into flop houses.

So we looked at some condos. Condos here are a different animal. Each building is like a gated community and a distinct neighborhood. They have boards that have to approve you to keep up the quality of the tenants/owners and the values of the homes. The application fees are outrageous. We found one that we liked and were ready to make an offer on until we found the application fees totaled $1700 that was non-refundable. Also, the owners wanted the renters to pay both commissions, the listing agent and the showing agent, which came to another $6300 up front. Ummmm, no.

Some terms that we learned:

Windowed kitchen-we didn't get one.

Windowed bathroom-not that either.

Condo-got that but the owner paid the fee.

Board approval-didn't have to do that.

Application fee-$50 as opposed to the above.

Move in fee-none here but it is typical to pay $500 to move in and $500 again when you move out.

Southern exposure-didn't get this either, this can substantially raise your rent.

Street view-usually fifth floor or below and means no view.

City view-usually the sixth floor of above, we got the 15th floor.

River view-that will cost you too.

Roof top terrace-just like it sounds, a common area for the tenants only, we got one.

New York heating and cooling laws-complicated restrictions on when the building turns on the heating and cooling....don't ask.

Parquet floors-somebody made a bundle on this, every place we viewed that was more than five years old had this, including ours.

Terraced-includes a ledge less than three feet by six feet where you put two chairs to sit in and pretend you are not scared to death on the side of a building.

You can see more photos from our quest HERE. None of these are the one we wound up with.

Easter Parade On Fifth Avenue

Today I was relatively caught up with things and it was such a beautiful day here that I just had to get out and about. Toni was busy getting her hair done (that will probably be another post in a few days). So I headed over to Fifth Avenue to see for myself what the Easter Parade looked like.

It turns out that it is not really a parade at all but it is actually a teeming mass of people meandering around the street either getting photographed or taking photographs. The Avenue is closed to vehicles from 47th Street to 58th Street, basically from St. Patrick's Cathedral to Central Park. People cook up the largest and the most outlandish hats and bonnets and walk around not in any particular direction as strangers, who did not bother dressing up, ask them to stop and pose...to which they eagerly oblige. It is a perfect symbiotic relationship. Without one group the other group would disappear. By the way, this carries on from ten in the morning until four in the afternoon. MORE PHOTOS

It was amusing but a little of this goes a long way. I was happy to find myself on Central Park South and see all the flowering trees and all the people sitting on the grass and sunning on the large rock outcroppings in the park.

Reach Up And Touch The Sky

Saturday evening was a lot of fun. We went to B.B. King Blues Club to see Southside Johnny and The Asbury Jukes perform. The venue is only three blocks away from our hotel on the western edge of Times Square and all its hubbub. It was a great show if just a tad loud. It is set up with cabaret seating and really not a bad seat in the house. The room is very attractively decorated. You can tell it is not vintage but it still has an old and warm feel of a clubroom from years ago that you see in movies from the 30s and 40s.

You get there two hours before showtime and you get your pick of seats, no need to tip anyone for preferential seats. No hustling. They have a full dinner menu with prices that are midrange by even non-New York standards. They really have a nice system and they have it down.

Johnny had a full band, just like you see in this video. Four piece horn section in addition to the usual band setup. They did just about any Jukes song that readily came to mind and a few later ones that weren't as familiar and a rousing version of Stagger Lee. You could tell that Johnny was the band leader as the members were watching his every move for cues of what he wanted to do next. Not a fixed set list here. Four encores, mostly of two songs plus, indicated that Southside meant it when he sang, "and I don't want to go home".

I have always thought SSJ rode the coattails of Springsteen but now I wonder if Bruce didn't "borrow" more from Southside than just his guitarist. They have three more dates there this year..... June 5, Sept. 25 & Nov. 20.

First First Friday in NY

Tonight we took a cab down to the East Village and ate at a nice little place called the Life Cafe right at the corner of Tompkins Square Park. After that we went next door to Lakeside Lounge for Happy Hour which is simply buy one drink, get one free, any drink until eight o'clock. This is a tiny bar with two sides, one side for the bar and the other for the band. Each room is only about twenty feet square. They have a jukebox that seems to have the same music as the one at Harry's Country Club in the River Market. In addition to cheap drinks and the music their only other attractions are an old photo booth and a table version of the old Pac-Man game.

We got there just in time to snag the last two seats out of about twenty-five seats total-this place is really small-there were a few seats in front of us and few behind us. That was it. We were treated to a little over an hour of Mary Lee's Corvette, Mary Lee Kortes with her band, electric guitar, small drum kit, and accordion. Toni was not familiar with their music but she took right to it. Mary Lee's set was over by 8:30 and her husband, noted musician/producer Eric Ambel (he was the guitarist in Steve Earles band for awhile) was going on next but not until 11:00 and we knew we couldn't hang on that long and grabbed another cab and headed back to the hotel.