August 10, 201311 yr The Wife just informed me that we will mostly be shopping on Sunday before our late flight home. Last time this happened MTS was grasping his pearls because of the stores she went to, so I am thinking I(she) will need some advice as to what is in the area. Especially since it is Sunday, always a day of strange hours. BTW, I love you guys. Where do you want to shop? What's your budget? Not too sure, but she has been on a banana republic kick recently. Didn't have much of a problem dropping $400 a few weeks ago. We are going to cole haan as she loves their shoes and I need to return a pair as well. Banana Republic? Cole Haan? Oh laaaaaaaaaawd! Shop at a store not in Cleveland. Step up your game!
August 10, 201311 yr ^ and that is the first thing i have absolutely agreed with mts on in this thread lol - a nyc trip is not the time for her to shop at cleveland area stores. have a look at this list: http://www.sohonyc.com/boutiques.html and here are nolita shoppes: http://nymag.com/srch?t=business_shopping&N=266+209&No=0
August 10, 201311 yr ^ and that is the first thing i have absolutely agreed with mts on in this thread lol - a nyc trip is not the time for her to shop at cleveland area stores. have a look at this list: http://www.sohonyc.com/boutiques.html and here are nolita shoppes: http://nymag.com/srch?t=business_shopping&N=266+209&No=0 Apparently you've come to your senses! I love shopping in SOHO, but NOT on a weekend when it feels as though every late teen & early 20-something in the tri state area has descended upon it. Say it with me, "MADISON AVENUE"! Barney's Bloomingdale's! Walk in stores, try on everything ... then walk out. It's about the experience.
August 10, 201311 yr ^ yeah, soho is crowded with tourists and locals off work on the weekends exactly because they like that. nolita is less crowded. plus there is much more price range variety around soho than uptown, where everything is expensive everywhere. still, the grand dept stores on 5th, the madison shoppes nearby and even bloomies are an alternative if she likes that. definately much calmer up there. i guess you could throw in lord & taylor for more reasonable prices.
August 10, 201311 yr ^ yeah, soho is crowded with tourists and locals off work on the weekends exactly because they like that. nolita is less crowded. plus there is much more price range variety around soho than uptown, where everything is expensive everywhere. still, the grand dept stores on 5th, the madison shoppes nearby and even bloomies are an alternative if she likes that. definately much calmer up there. i guess you could throw in lord & taylor for more reasonable prices. I would avoid 5th avenue, especially Lord & Taylor, that's equivalent shopping at Macy's! UGH! AGAIN! Say it with me, MADISON AVENUE.
August 10, 201311 yr you need a the wallet size of a sultan, pasha or prince to just say madison there gatsby. waste of time if she actually wants to buy something. plus its not as interesting of a neighborhood to walk around in.
August 10, 201311 yr you might also want to try Bleecker St. in the West Village. In recent years it's become a hotbed for high-end Madison Ave. style boutiques without the obnoxiousness of Madison Ave. That can be combined with trip to the Meatpacking district (with its own share of designer boutiques along W. 14th St between 9th and 10 Ave--Diane von Furstenberg, e.g.) and the High Line, the southernmost entrance right nearby. http://www.mainstreetpainesville.org/
August 10, 201311 yr you need a the wallet size of a sultan, pasha or prince to just say madison there gatsby. waste of time if she actually wants to buy something. plus its not as interesting of a neighborhood to walk around in. Says who? I don't have a wallet the size of a sultan, pasha or prince and I do just fine. It's about the experience, got to stores make them wait on you hand and foot. Drink their champagne, eat their finger foods. live life.
August 10, 201311 yr The Wife just informed me that we will mostly be shopping on Sunday before our late flight home. Last time this happened MTS was grasping his pearls because of the stores she went to, so I am thinking I(she) will need some advice as to what is in the area. Especially since it is Sunday, always a day of strange hours. BTW, I love you guys. Where do you want to shop? What's your budget? Not too sure, but she has been on a banana republic kick recently. Didn't have much of a problem dropping $400 a few weeks ago. We are going to cole haan as she loves their shoes and I need to return a pair as well. Banana Republic? Cole Haan? Oh laaaaaaaaaawd! Shop at a store not in Cleveland. Step up your game! That was more so used as an example. Not where we were going to shop. And I can only do so much. Lead a horse to water and such. Also, pretty sure there is no Cole Haan in Cleveland. Also we did go to Gallows Green, that is a fun little place.
August 11, 201311 yr That was more so used as an example. Not where we were going to shop. And I can only do so much. Lead a horse to water and such. Also we did go to Gallows Green, that is a fun little place. You went to Gallows Green? :o :o OMG. You took one of my suggestions. I'm suddenly light-headed.
August 12, 201311 yr This is not particularly creative, but for conventional brand shopping (including Cole Haan and BR), lower 5th Avenue (14th-23rd) seems to be consistently the least zoo-like of all the main MN shopping areas on weekends.
August 12, 201311 yr MTS where the hell do you fly back to CLE from? I can't picture you in one of those little crappy RJ's I was taking out of LGA this weekend. Those are the absolute bane of flying, loud as hell and no real comfort. Truely flying tin cans. Add to that that each of my flights was delayed 2+ hours. Absolute insanity. I will probably post more later, but I am tired and just trying to make it through work today. Ugh.
August 23, 201311 yr So I thought I should give everyone a little rundown of the weekend. The travel aspect of the trip was the worst part, like I mentioned before 2+ hours on each leg. The worst was in LaGuardia. Which earns every one of it's terrible bits of information. There aren't really any redeeming qualities to the airport either. My wife had gotten in to NYC earlier on Friday as she had a training event there. Well due to my delay and her extended Happy Hour (how she got back to the hotel by Union Square from Midtown shes not too sure) Friday night was a bit of a bust. We did go to Heartland Brewery for some food, made the next day for everyone better. It was surprisingly good, but our expectations at this point were just bar food and this was better than that. Saturday was a mostly beautiful day, which almost worked against us. We had made Bike Rental reservations, but were a bit lazy about getting to the rental place, just past Times Square on Broadway. We figured with reservations there wouldn't be any worry. But the Saturday we were there was one of the 3 Saturdays in August when they close down Park Ave to cars, meaning bike rental places were swamped. By the time we got to our rental place they were down to 2-4 bikes!! We got ours and basically hoped that there was nothing wrong, there wasn't so off we went. Now the rental shop told us repeatedly "Don't Ride on the Sidewalks! It's against the Law!" I figured that with the bike lanes seemingly everywhere, and Park Ave closed we wouldn't have to worry. Not quite. As we were riding down Broadway the bike lane seemed to just disappear (really it jogged over, but not well marked) suddenly we were in the street, it worked out but definitely not the best way to make sure you are fully awake. After that we made our way over to Park Ave, probably a little south of 42nd st, and rode all the way to Foley Sq. Where I got a not so decent shot of Frank Gerhy's building, 8 Spruce St. DSC_0152 by tedders55, on Flickr It gets better though once the sun comes out. I actually got a light sunburn too, Damn Irish-ness. Anyway a couple more pics Not sure where this was exactly but neat little building/art piece. DSC_0156 by tedders55, on Flickr Riding through Grand Central Station, well around really. But there was a tunnel! DSC_0177 by tedders55, on Flickr After that we made our way to Central Park, and honestly neither of us thought it was that much fun to bike through there. It's a park ... so no pictures. Now the Hudson River Greenway was a lot of fun to ride down. Being boaters we always find water and other boats more interesting. However, the marina's down there are pretty fugly and probably un-godly expensive. But there is some interesting ... art DSC_0178 by tedders55, on Flickr DSC_0177 by tedders55, on Flickr One World Trade Center DSC_0189 by tedders55, on Flickr DSC_0194 by tedders55, on Flickr Statue of Liberty DSC_0197 by tedders55, on Flickr So after eating and a few cocktails we were feeling pretty good. The weather was nice. And really riding up and down Manhattan was all I had been planning to do; well the wife decided we were going to ride across the Brooklyn Bridge. Sure why not. It's not like we had been riding all day or anything. DSC_0203 by tedders55, on Flickr Ohh and here is another shot of 8 Spruce, with One world Trade Center too DSC_0206 by tedders55, on Flickr What do we do after crossing the BB? Cross the Manhattan bridge. We couldn't have spent more than 20 min in Brooklyn, I think the wife just wanted to do it to say she'd done it. Women ... Now at this point I am starting to get a little tired. I'm over 30 damnit the body is starting to break down!! Really I'm just out of shape. I'm thinking we should just take the subway back to drop off the bikes. The wife nixed that, said "we are going to ride, it will be just as quick and more scenic". I disagree with the first part but was not going to win this fight. That was a nice extra 7mi to end the day. There's more to the night but that is for a later post as I need to get to sleep.
August 23, 201311 yr "Not sure where this was exactly but neat little building/art piece." I think this is Bond St. near the corner of Lafayette, in NoHo. That short block has become a sort of fantasyland for whimsical high end architecture. Down further (toward the Bowery) are some super-expensive new apartment buildings with all sorts of elaborate decorative flourishes on their facades. (I guess mrnyc can dispute this if I'm wrong! lol) http://www.mainstreetpainesville.org/
August 29, 201311 yr After returning the bikes we needed some rest before dinner. Really needed a lot of rest, because we just rode damn near 30 mi. After resting, showering, and getting ready it was off to dinner and a show at the comedy cellar. I mentioned before, but dinner was at Blue Hill. Fantastic place, tucked into the ground floor in the West Village by NYU. I found a new style of wine that I like, Tempranillo. We had a bottle from Spain and I really enjoyed it. Which is going to prove expensive as we need to restock our wine collection. This Morning's Farm Egg as an appetizer was wonderful, rich but the corn in it complimented nicely. I had The Berkshire Pig while the wife had Gnocchi (I think they have taken that off the menu and changed the pig around a little bit, I don't recall orka being in there). The pork was very nice, cooked wonderfully and came with 3 or 4 different cuts. Her gnocchi was interesting as it seemed like it was stuffed, but not completely. The pasta was more like a semi-circle around the filling. It was still very good, but not exactly what was expected. Dessert was Chocolate Bread pudding, and honestly that was the disappointing part. It was ok, but when compared to everything else seemed flat. I think the fruit options would have been more interesting, but nothing was jumping out at the time. Overall it was a very, very enjoyable dinner. Even though we were a little worn out from the bike ride. The wine though is going to be an ongoing expense from that meal.
August 29, 201311 yr The Comedy Cellar. This is a funny little place. It feels like nothing there has changed in 20 years, from their operation to the people running it, but it does run pretty efficiently. It was fun and normally I like having multiple comics do 20 min sets as opposed to one or two doing a 30-40 min set each, but it just seemed like an off night. There were only 2 of the 6 that really seemed to connect and get the crowd rolling. Strange night there. After all that it was well after midnight, and we felt beat from the day. I actually got a little sunburn from the few times the sun did come out so I think that added. It did amaze me how warm it stays there even once the sun is down. It never even got that hot out, and during the day it seemed quite nice really. But at night the humidity seemed to increase significantly and just made the heat weigh on you.
August 30, 201311 yr thanks for the report back. i think you made excellent choices for your bike ride and your wife was right to go over to brooklyn and back on the bridges. for next time i would suggest riding north along the hudson river park, past the intrepid, the trump towers neighborhood to 125th st. you can stop at the boat basin for beer break and dinosaur bbq on w125th. everything else was about what would be expected. i hope you got to walk around the village a bit before or after the comedy cellar and blue hill. btw tempanillo wine will be a tricky grape habit, age really helps, which means expensive, or blends. "Not sure where this was exactly but neat little building/art piece." I think this is Bond St. near the corner of Lafayette, in NoHo. That short block has become a sort of fantasyland for whimsical high end architecture. Down further (toward the Bowery) are some super-expensive new apartment buildings with all sorts of elaborate decorative flourishes on their facades. (I guess mrnyc can dispute this if I'm wrong! lol) yeah thats definately it. lafayette street in noho and soho is a good place to ride bikes, it wide and relatively quiet and lots to see.
April 12, 20169 yr Not a fan of Eli, but he's got himself a really nice place. http://ny.curbed.com/2016/4/11/11408664/rent-eli-manning-hoboken-tea-building
April 12, 20169 yr Not a fan of Eli, but he's got himself a really nice place. http://ny.curbed.com/2016/4/11/11408664/rent-eli-manning-hoboken-tea-building That dog looks superimposed.
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