NYC Trip

I had the pleasure to visit the Big Apple this past week to work with a partner. It’s been a few years (almost eight) since I was there. Naturally, I had to visit my old haunts on the Upper East Side. Unhappily, most of them had closed, were being renovated or just plain gone.

Quick inventory:

• The Barbizon is being converted to condos.
• Chianti (terrific Italian food on 3rd and the mid-50s) is now a pizza joint.
• Circus (terrific Brazilian food on 63rd and Lex) is now a hoity-toity wine and olive bar.

The good news:

• Hot and Crusty (63rd and 2nd) is still there; no bread pudding, though.
• Mister Softee is EVERYWHERE, as are the Sabrett (“The Hot Dog New Yorkers Relish”) stands.
• Starbucks is EVERYWHERE; the last time I was there, the nearest to the office was two blocks away.

I took the MTA NYC Subway most places; there was a stop a half block from my Sheraton hotel.

The construction site formerly known as Ground Zero is solemn and stirring, at the same time. There was quite a crowd down there (take the E Train to the WTC stop, also known as Church Street). This temporary stop connects to the PATH trains to New Jersey and lets you off at the fence surrounding the excavation. A single wreath in this station reminds us of what happened here. If you’re not passing through to Jersey, you can walk most of the way around the site and read the signs describing the timeline of 9/11 and history of the site.