The flight out, yesterday, was fairly uneventful, the landing could have been smoother, but we made it onto the runway.
We met our driver at Passenger pick-up 1, and he proceeded to take us from Newark to Manhattan. It rained for part of the way, fairly heavy for about 10 minutes.
Traffic was horrible. It took us almost two hours to get to the hotel. There was a hefty back-up heading into the Lincoln Tunnel. Once we got into the tunnel, traffic picked up, our top speed reaching maybe 35 mph.
Debbie pointed out some city buses that had a advert on the side in text reading "Yippy Kiy Yea Mo.. - John 6:27" a reference to the upcoming Die Hard movie.
We arrived at the hotel around 6:30, it looks much like it does on the Website, www.gershwinhotel.com, but in person you can feel much more of its history. We wanted to choose a place that had more of a "New York of old" feel, and we hit the jackpot there.
The Gershwin, located on East 27th @ 5th has sort of bohemian-boutique-motel6-Tin Pan Alley charm.
Debbie noted that New York city, as a whole is much cleaner than she thought it would be, and I have to agree that it is much cleaner than I remember it--of course I haven't been here since about 1985. Rudy really cleaned up the place.
After getting our things settled in the room, we took a walk from the hotel over to Chelsea to get some dinner. We moved a couple of blocks south to Madison Square park, across from the Flatiron building, which has a great looking little place called the Shake Shack. Our first impulse was to get something to eat there, but the line was way too long for our hunger to stand.
We made the decision to continue over to Chelsea, turning west to 8th St.
A great area for our first stop. Tons of charm, bustling with people, more restaurants than one could eat at in a month. Flower shops on every corner, small boutique shops, a few of which we stopped detoured into.
All of the buildings were incredible, such history and style to the buildings that can only be achieved by the passage of time. San Diego tears down too many places like this.
Our focus soon turned to food, we decided to pick a spot. On the corner of 19th(?) and 8th Ave, there was a string of three interesting restaurants.
Seafood Mare (seafood sea?), a Cuban place and one with a sign that read "The best Italian in Chelsea"...we stood on the corner for a second to decide on which had the most intriguing look.
At this point Debbie noticed a Steak House just down the side street, so we too a walk towards it. She stopped in front of the menu, and thought it may be a good choice, I took a few steps further and peeked into the place.
I turned to her and said, "This place looks weird, let's eat here."
Upon seeing it, she agreed.
The entire dining room was no more than 500 square feet. All done in early 20th century woodwork, the walls were adorned with (vegetarians beware) mounted "trophy" animals. Steer, deer and bear, quail and pheasant on shelves, a lion and a freaky-looking-teeth-bearing raccoon.
We were seated in a corner, directly under a giant moose-head.
As is our routine, we ordered a bottle of sparkling water, a glass of wine each, and an appetizer of fried calamari. It was quite good, and seemed a bit plumper than we've been served on the West coast. The sauce that accompanied it was thinner and less marinara than usual but had a nice smoky taste.
We ordered the lamb chops w/ bernaise sauce and a sirloin with wild mushroom sauce.
We wrapped up the evening with a walk...south along 8th Avenue. There were tons of cool looking buildings and shops the whole way. We headed into Greenwhich Village and decided to begin heading back. We kept going a little bit until Christopher St., where we turned east.
Christopher St. had many cool restaurants, just as we had been seeing, though this time we had the added addition of "boy-toy and leather" shops.
We kept along until we got to the Christopher St. park, where we sat down for a bit. Debbie made a phone call and I jotted a few notes in my sketchbook.
After a short time sitting in the park, we followed 7th Ave., north, from Christopher St. up to 23rd St. and continued east until we hit 5th Ave.
Most of the store were closed, though there was a short stretch of 7th that had a few interesting restaurants.
We eventually made it back to Madison Square park, the Flatiron district and our hotel, where we settled in after long day of traveling.
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