A Day In A Life.......

As many of my Fridays do, this Friday began on West 12th Street in NYC's  West Greenwich Village .... …

At the former home of James Beard…..

http://www.jamesbeard.org/

I have been having lunch and dinner there with a group of friends for fifteen years….

Different chef and menu each time…..

And different wines ……….

Lots of different wines.....

My next stop........

The New York Chocolate Show........

http://www.chocolateshow.com/

Interesting cooking demos......Pasta with chocolate sauce?  No...
http://www.finecooking.com/item/12035/fine-cooking-live-at-the-chocolate-show

Interesting vendors.....

Next stop........

The Spotted Pig for dinner.......

http://www.thespottedpig.com/ 

What to order…. A Spotted Pig Burger with Roquefort, not blue cheese, Roquefort, good Roquefort and shoe strings fries with fresh rosemary and garlic…. OH MY!!!!!.  And they have a Michelin star?

It was the night before Halloween…...

I just love the west village….

On to The White Hourse Taveren for a Pub Crawl.....
The White Horse Tavern, located at Hudson Street and 11th Street, is known for its 1950s and 1960s Bohemian culture.  The bar opened in 1880, but was known more as a longshoremen's bar than a literary center until Dylan Thomas and other writers began frequenting it in the early 1950s. The White Horse is perhaps most famous as the place where Dylan Thomas drank, (legend has it that Dylan's record was eighteen shots of whiskey), before returning home and eventually becoming ill and dying a few days later of unrelated causes. Other famous patrons include The Clancy Brothers (who also performed at the establishment), Bob Dylan, Mary Travers, Jim Morrison, Norman Mailer, James Baldwin, Seymour Krim, Delmore Schwartz, Richard Fariña, Jane Jacobs, and Hunter S. Thompson.
Other famous patrons included Jack Kerouac, who was bounced from the establishment more than once. Because of this someone scrawled on the bathroom wall: "JACK GO HOME!" About the same time, the White Horse was a gathering place for labor members and organizers and socialists, but NOT liberals. The Catholic Workers hung out here and the idea for the Village Voice was discussed here.

Around the corner I came across..............

A shop selling bedbug poison…

Interesting window…..

Interesting window…..

A high end Zagat rated dildo shop on 7th Ave. South....

The Stonewall Inn, is the site of the Stonewall riots of 1969, which are widely considered the start of the modern gay liberation movement.

http://manhattan.about.com/od/glbtscene/a/stonewallriots.htm

It is next to......our next stop....

Established in 1950, as a neighbourhood bar. Through the years it was home to beat writer  Jack Kerouac, musician Bob Dylan, sports fans, intellectuals, and your average Joe or Jane.

http://kettleoffishnyc.com/

Our last stop......

 Kenny's Castaways ... Bruce Springsteen played his very first New York gig here. The New York Dolls, Patti Smith, Aerosmith, Rod Stewart and the Ramones also performed at Kenny's.

http://www.kennyscastaways.net/

For more information on pub crawls and walking tours......

http://www.unclesamsnewyork.com/

Vendy Awards...........

This was taped to a post.....

Mets....... go .....Philli..........

An Iconic symbol



The Tennis Center.....

Host to the awards............ really a fun museum

These folkes were fun and good..... did not win?

Jacmican Dutchy

I like Anita the owner but not sure why they were noninated....

More Rickshaw

Average menu.......

Lovely setting.......

Falafal King.............. They were really good........

All you could drink beer provided by.......

They won for best new vender......

Country Boys/Manirtiez Taco Truck.... A winner of best vender and the longest line.....

End of the day lines.............

A lovely setting...........

Winner best dessert..........

The Big Gay Ice Cream Truck......

The line for ice cream......

Judges...............

Time for a nap........

A happy camper.....

http://newyork.seriouseats.com/2009/09/a_look_at_the_2009_vendy_awards.html#continued

Walking West Greenwich Village......

My day started as many do. I took the 10:03 train from Little Silver, NJ to NY Penn Station. I was signed up for a walking tour: Edgar Allen Poe’s Greenwich Village. The tour was very good but “Jared The Tour Guide” was amazing, he has a wealth of knowledge. I hope we walk together again.

http://www.unclesamsnewyork.com/

Took the subway to.......


Stopped for lunch at Rare, Bleeker and Carmine, 6th Ave.

An M&M Burger, their classic burger flambéed in whiskey, topped with caramelized shallots, cheddar cheese & apple smoked bacon and a beer...Not bad.....
http://rarebarandgrill.com/

Next stop Washington Square Park.....The tour starts under the arch. A little history.....Before the Washington Square Park was built in 1826, the area was used as a burial ground. The north side was a German cemetery, while the south side was a potter's field (a nameless burial ground). The area was later used as a public gallows and execution ground. The hanging tree, historians believe still stands at the NW corner of the park. The estimate is 20,000 souls, not necessarily lay at rest on the site. It is the most haunted site in NYC. I understand Halloween night the park overflows with revellers. There are also ghostly walking tours of the park.

The hanging tree is on the right side of this entrance….



The center piece of the park is the Arch and yes, the fountain. For the Centennial of Washington's inauguration as President of the United States a wooden Memorial Arch was constructed on Washington Square. The arch, designed by Stanford White was so successful at the celebrations, that a marble version was commissioned. In may 1895 the final version of the 77 ft (23,4m) Washington Arch was inaugurated. The pier sculptures of Washington as general and president were added in 1916 and 1918 respectively.

The Arch has a fun history including, in 1917, Marchel Duchamp and John Sloan climbing the 110 interior steps to the top with balloons, Chinese lanterns, wine, food and a cap gun, and declaring Greenwich Village “a free republic, independent of uptown.” In 1968, the Students Against War and Racism climbed to the top and flew a banner reading “The Streets Belong to the People” along with the National Liberation Front of Vietnam flag. The passageway to the top is now locked.

http://gonyc.about.com/od/photogalleries/ss/washington_squa_5.htm



“The Row” of townhouses overlooking the NE corner of the park built between 1829 and 1833 are built of red Brick in Flemish bond in Greek revival style,. The entrances are flanked by Ionic and Doric columns and have marble balustrades. By the end of the 19th century, the north side continued to attract rich and leading citizens, while the south side was populated with immigrants living in tenement houses.

Now The Row is now owned by NYU. Edward Hopper lived and painted there, John Dos Passos wrote Manhattan Transfer, Henry James was also a tenant….

Next stop Washington Mews .... Their properties denominate the area, and the park. NYU is the largest property owner in NYC after the Catholic Church.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wallyg/371367837/

wp://www.forgotten-ny.com/Alleys/GREENWICH%20VILLAGE/green.html

The park, in many ways is a campus hub......


One of my favourite West Village icons is Jefferson Market Court House now a library. It is located at 425 6th Avenue (SW corner of West 10th St) on a triangular plot formed by Greenwich Avenue and West 10th Street. The building was originally built as the Third Judicial District Courthouse between the years 1874-1877 from a design by architects Frederick Clarke Withers and Calvert Vaux (Vaux and Fredrick Olmstead, were the design team for NYC’s Central Park and Brooklyn’s Prospect Park) . Faced with demolition, public outcry led to its reuse as a branch of the New York Public Library. NYC’s women’s house of detention was also located here. Emma Goldman, Mae West and Angela Davis were guests.
ttp://www.nytimes.com/1994/04/03/realestate/streetscapes-jefferson-market-courthouse-stopped-clock-sired-preservation.html

Today, the women's detention center has been replaced with a community garden.

Patchin Place is across the street from the court house.

Famous residents have included poet e.e. cummings and authors John Reed and Theodore Dreiser. Patchin Place also contains NYC's last functioning gaslamp The lamp dates back to the gaslight era and has since been electrified.

Greenstreets Parks/recration areas is a parks project that turns concrete traffic islands into green/usable space.....
htp://www.nycgovparks.org/sub_your_park/trees_greenstreets.html

Toooo............much fun.....

I think this building is a "landmark" in the neighborhood........

MacDougal and Minetta Streets. Twisting, turning Minetta Street starts at the rather straighter Minetta Lane between Sixth and MacDougal and somehow winds up at Sixth and Bleecker. It originally followed the ancient Minetta Brook, which rises at about 6th Avenue and 21st and meanders southwest to the Hudson. The brook was submerged in the 1820s, but still plays havoc with basements in the area during heavy rains. In the 1820s the area was among NYC's first black neighborhoods: the region was known as Little Africa. New York University has since diverted the stream: it no longer flows under the paths named for it. There is also a Minetta Park.

http://www.newyorkcitywalk.com/html/interactive_Minetta.html

Over the course of its long history, the Tavern was frequented by various layabouts and hangers-on including Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound, Eugene O'Neill, e. e. cummings, Dylan Thomas, and Joe Gould, as well as by various writers, poets, and pugilists.
http://www.minettatavernny.com/
http://www.forgotten-ny.com/Alleys/GREENWICH%20VILLAGE/green.html

We did stop at the location of Edgar Allen Poe’s house and the clinics he visited. A rendition of his house is part of the façade of the NYC law library. I declined to take a picture.