Winter in Manhattan Odyssey Weekend Eight: Saturday and Sunday

Chelsea Market from Ed U

            "Wine is sunlight held together by water." 
                                         Galileo

Hells' Kitchen Flea Market from Sandra Y

      Saturday woke up to a lovely sunny day, and ventured out at around noon. Headed down and over to the Hell’s Kitchen Flea Market (39^th between 9^th and 10^th) and poked around.  Didn’t find any treasures that day.  This Flea Market is an awesome place for vintage clothes and tons of costume jewelry, vintage and otherwise. So, I headed instead to the Chelsea Market.  I love that so many cities, large and small are turning old abandoned warehouses into something.  In this case, the Chelsea Market  (9 Ave between 15 & 16 Streets ) is a mishmash of shops, restaurants, pickup foods, and popup shops, usually sample sales of some sort.  (Sample sales in NYC are a thing to behold, since it’s the fashion mecca of the US.)     

The Green Table from Jando S

            I was in the mood for a nice sit down lunch and The Green Table caught my eye, and I’m glad it did.  It is a “sustainable” restaurant in that it uses and sells truly local (NY State area) foods and wines.  It was delicious, tough decision on what to eat, and the Bartender guided me to some great selections.  I started with a Bellini using locally made juice and Prosecco.  I then had lamb sliders with a lovely glass of Sauvignon Blanc, finishing lunch with an apple-almond tart and rosemary ice cream and coffee.  Awesome. 

                While I ate I watched  the Bartender who so kindly helped me in my food choices.  She was great at what she did.  For the millionth time I started questioning what I wanted to be when I grew up.  Blah, Blah…As the restaurant got quieter She and I started to chat.  Something new in NYC, she was an artist!   Grew up in Maine, went to the Boston Conservatory, hit the Big Apple to make her way, did it for a few years, went to Florida, came back to Manhattan with her screenwriter boyfriend for another go around.  Now she has decided to teach theatre to children as well as work on her own craft.  Everytime I start to worry about K, I meet someone who proves to me that it is absolutely worth going for the dream.  It’s wonderful to have the gumption, guts, and fortitude to “go for it”.

View from The Highline

The Highline

          I then poked around some of the shops and sample sales before heading out and onto the Highline.  Another brilliant, and beautiful idea.  The Highline is a new, and still being developed, park built on a raised railroad track that runs along the West side affording beautiful views of the Husdon River on one side and what feels likes an insider's view of some really wonderful buildings on the right side. 

The Hotel Chelsea from Wikipedia

         I followed the Highline to its present end at 20^th and continued to 23^rd heading to my Wine 101 class that K had given me for Christmas.  As I walked along 23^rd eastward I literally bumped into the Hotel Chelsea.  I knew of this Hotel as it has famously housed so many artists, literary, music, and otherwise over the years…Dylan Thomas, Tennessee Williams, Bob Dylan..so many.  (What is really kind of interesting, coincidental, weird, is that I started reading “Just Kids” by Patti Smith a couple of days after this and so much of her life with Robert Mapplethorpe center around her life with him at the Hotel Chelsea!  One of my favorite scenes of the book is when she describes walking into the restaurant attached to the Hotel and already there were Janis Joplin and her Entourage, Jimi Hendrix and a Girl, Grace Slick and the rest of Jefferson Airplane.  All there were getting ready to go to upstate New York for a festival in a little town called Woodstock..WOW…)



NYC Wine Class, photo from their website

 

                On I walked until I got to the site of my Wine 101 Class.  I was the Oldest, and only single, person there.  But, it was a great night.  The space was beautiful.  Andrew Harwood  started the School and was very fascinating, smart, and brave.   I forget where and what he studied for undergrad, but did study in the Hotel Restaurant Program at Cornell for graduate school.  Heading to Europe to explore after graduation, he worked in a vineyard in Hungary, then France, then back on US soil in California, and came back to the East Coast and started NYC Wine Class (167 West 23rd Street. 212-647-1875) in 2004.  Brilliant, and enjoyable.  Highly recommended.  Thanks K!

               Stopped into the Gingerman to personally thank K, visited for a bit.  Then went home, visited with Roomie, and hit the hay!

              Sunday was a simple day.  I have lost the need to be constantly going while here!  A patient who used to live and work in Manhattan (and kept her apartment on the UWS..I want it!!) told me that New Yorkers don’t do what I do.  I told her that, of course, they don’t have to get it all in in three months like I’m trying to!  But, I will say that I’m proud of the fact that I have inspired my Roomie and her Partner to get out and take advantage of their city more, and partake of some of the endless opportunities, and “stuff” that New York offers!  That being said, K and I met at Café Jule, the wonderful little place just around the corner from me, for brunch.  I then went home to her place and hung out till it was time to catch my Megabus.  (It is amazing how you can feel a bit like being in a cattle call with them, especially in New York as you wait in a parking lot, literally.  The Megabus workers keep pretty good control of the chaos, and as a young Englishman noted with his charming accent, we got what we paid for, didn’t we?!)