Di had an upset stomach today and she didn't sleep so well over night, so Hans left her in for a morning wander in our hood; a bit of Lower East Side, SoHo, TriBeCa and of course, Chinatown. Di blames the Coney Island corn dog!
Hans was back home before 10am having accomplished the following route:
First off, wandering our street which is Henry Street at the way to its eastern end. We had only walked it as far as East Broadway subway station before. Here we are letting off steam again...
Not much to look at it on the eastern side of Henry Street so we are certainly staying in the relatively nicer part. There were a couple of old tenement buildings along the way that looked nice. Here is one of them.
Henry Street finishes off at Grand Street so Hans turned a sharp left there and walked Grand Street westwards. This is a view of that street. Is the name accurate? You will be the judge.
Grand Street crosses many neighborhoods and soon we are into Chinatown again. This guy is waiting for green light so he can cross with his cargo.
Bean sprout delivery.
What is this? And what is it with sudden Swedish words and brands popping up in the most unexpected places? "Hästens" is "The horse's" in Swedish. No, Hans didn't get the connection between that and beds either, but then again, he couldn't be bothered to cross the street to see if he could find out.
SoHo and the murals and street art appears again. Here are 2 examples almost next to each other also on Grand Street.
Time for a cuppa and who could pass this offer? For $3.99 + tax you get coffee, 2 eggs with potato and 2 slices of toast. OK, Hans has had his breakfast already although a bit smaller than normal as we didn't have any bread at home, but this was good. No, he couldn't finish it all and had to discard both some potatoes and toast. Fun little corner place in SoHo. Very popular for morning cuppas by the look of it.
Hans then crossed Canal Street to get into TriBeCa, the name coming from triangle below Canal Street. However, according to Wikipedia the borders are loosely Canal Street, West Street, Broadway and Vesey Street and therefore not really a triangle at all.
Below is the theatre where they hold the TriBeCa Film Festival, just off Canal Street.
TriBeCa is trendy with lots of converted warehouses with lofts and nice restaurants on loading docks. Here they are using the 3rd floor window to get building material inside.
This sign and its message from a TriBeCa intersection may be something for Sydney, notorious for cars blocking intersections.
There is a Montessori school at ground floor level. Quite fancy, wouldn't you say?
The school continues around the corner and if you look closely into the left window, there are strollers hanging off rods in a very organized and tidy manner. The kids can be seen playing through the window to the right (and several subsequent windows too if the photo would have reached that far)
Hans had to take a photo of this "renovators dream" building, just to show that not all buildings in TriBeCa have been modernized and cleaned up. Puh, some reality check here.
Onto Mott Street in Chinatown. Who can ever get tired of this?
Di is sitting in the couch and looked perky reading from her Kindle when Hans gets home, so Hans absence must have helped her improvement.
A few hours of downtime followed, rain started around midday as predicted, and we had some leftover fried rice for lunch. Nice.
After lunch, we go out anyway. We swing by the USPS (US Postal Services, i.e. post office) on East Broadway to take care of some mail before we are taking the subway to Broadway / Lafayette Street station. In the corner of Houston Street and Lafayette Street is REI (Recreational Equipment Incorporated), a haven for outdoorsy stuff.
Di is after a pair of hiking boots, and is trying on various types in the picture below.
We stop at a supermarket on Mulberry Street to get a couple of things and here things did not go fast. It took "forever" to get to one of the three checkouts despite us being first in the queue. Then it took a loooong time to get our 3 (three) items identified and keyed in correctly into the cash register. We were amazed (Di also frustrated...)
Anyway, we decided to go to Caffe Roma for our coffee and cake which is just opposite Grotta Azzurra where we had our "worst" meal last Friday.
We decided on a variety of cookies to go with our hot drinks while we were gazing out at people getting wet. All good and relaxing. The ladder in the picture belonged to a tradie who was doing some work for Grotta Azzurra.
And what did we see then. Grotta Azzurra is apparently providing cheap plastic ponchos presumably for their customers. These guys were inside Caffe Roma consulting their tourist map.
BTW, Hans had just read that in the last New York City census, there was not one single person living in Little Italy today that was actually born in Italy. Hmmm....
A bit more shopping for dinner with some nice salsiccia (italian sausages) from Little Italy and a few basics to keep us for the final few days in New York City. We walked home in the rain, feeling that's it, enough for us. The rain has certainly set in.
Home cooked dinner will soon be a luxury item again (when we move back to hotels as we keep traveling) so baked potatoes, roast pumpkin and some nice sausages go down well, of course with wine. Good night.
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