New York City, Day III, 24.Apr.2010

Day three in New York City was as entertaining and great as the first two days. Here is our itinerary for the day, Saturday:

1. Elaine (my mom) and Janet (Dennis' mom) took the Downtown Manhattan Bus Tour...on the touristy double-decker ones
2. Dennis & I go to Tenement Museum downtown
3. Shopped on Spring Street on the way to the Tenement Museum
4. Ate at Katz's Deli, while waiting for our tour time to be called at the museum
5. Saw the Sondheim on Sondheim Broadway musical...at Roundabout Theater, which used to be Studio 54
6. Angelo's (between 53rd and 54th on Broadway, next door to the Ed Sullivan Theater/David Letterman Show) for a late night (11:00ish) dinner after the show.

Janet had never been to New York, so she wanted to do a bus tour one of the days we were there. She wanted to see as much as possible, and a double-decker bus tour is a great way to see a lot in a brief time. They are sort of fun too. I loved it the time I did it. We did both the downtown and uptown loops. It's exactly that: I felt like I saw everything without spending a ton of time. You can get off and on the bus where you would like. Janet and Elaine didn't do that, because they went on a Saturday tour. It was packed. They said if they got off, they may have had to wait for awhile to find a spot on another bus.

Dennis and I started off our journey to the Tenement Museum getting off the subway about a mile from there. We walked down Spring Street, in SoHo, to get there. Great, great shopping - many smallish, local stores, along with chain stores (anthropologie, Pink Berry, Diesel). We found a cool science store (The Evolution Store). It had the greatest stuff!! Everything from skulls to full human skeletons to mounted butterflies to edible bugs to animal teeth...It was a fun way to start the day and a nice entertaining way to walk. I could have spent all day AND my life savings in those stores!!! (the picture on the right is graffiti on Spring Street)

Dennis and I missed the Tenement Museum on Thursday. We had to get Letterman tickets. It also took forever to get to the city from the airport because bridges were closed off for the President's visit.

We made it back there this day, Saturday. We knew the tours would still have the same issue and be at set times, but we had time that day to wait and figure it out. Please don't let that detour you from visiting there!! It's so, so worth it. **Go here to buy advance tickets: Tenement Museum online tickets** You can look up the times online. They change every day. We ended up doing "The Moores: An Irish Family in America" Tour, at 3:45 p.m. From their website: We've carefully restored 6 apartments, including our newest one: the home of the Moores, Irish immigrants who lived at 97 Orchard in 1869. 1869?!? Incredible. I learned so much. Our tour guide was wonderful too.

There is so much to say about this place I don't know where to begin. Making one of the many long stories short - the woman who founded the museum bought the building in 1988 for $700,000 (a run down, uninhabited except for the storefronts, gutted building in Lower Manhattan when it wasn't that cool yet). She just bought another building to add to the museum last year. (from their website: We will continue to grow. In 2007, the Museum purchased 103 Orchard Street, which will serve as a flagship building for our Visitors Center, exhibitions and classrooms.). It's also run down and needs work...there ARE people living on three floors of it (who they are going to accommodate and move up to the top floors), but she wants it because much of it is historically accurate, and she will most certainly find (tenement) artifacts again, as they did in the first building...she paid $10 million for this building...unbelievable! Quite a difference from 1988. Downtown is cool, hip, and desirable now.
We killed time waiting for our tour at Katz's Deli. Wonderful. I love pastrami sandwiches, and I love New York "lore" and places I've heard about and that people talk about. They just had a "Food Wars" on The Travel Channel the day before I came to New York about the best Pastrami in NYC - it was between Katz's and 2nd Avenue - Katz's won. I wanted to see if that was indeed true, but I would not have time on this trip to the city. I would need to sample a couple of others, at least, to form a respectable opinion. 2nd Avenue and Carnegie Deli...Well, I did a very scientific poll instead: I asked the New Yorker who shared our table at Katz's. She told me she lived in Uptown Manhattan. I asked her if Katz's was really the best. She said: "I've tried them all, Katz, Carnegie; and Katz is the best." I said what about 2nd Avenue Deli? She said Katz is the best. So there you have it: it really is. It was delicious.

This is Katz's Men's Room. Check it out and check out the walls and the stuff around it. Quite an interesting place. Not a clean place as my new best friend (who shared our table) also pointed out, but a great, great sand. And jam-packed. A line out the door to get in.

We took the subway back to the hotel. We were seeing Sondheim on Sondheim. We decided we weren't hungry before the show...that half pastrami sandwich filled me up for hours!!...so, we ended up eating after the show. Sondheim was wonderful. It was at the location of the old Studio 54, so it was cool to get to see that piece of New York history. It was a great production, that I can't even explain - lots of video and not much else. Vanessa Williams is very talented and was perfect in this. Dennis is a new found fan of her's. He always thought she was beautiful, but now he's a fan of her talent too. It's hard to get him to be a fan sometimes.

We ate at Angelo's. There are pics of my calamari here. The pic of Janet and Elaine is also from Angelo's. It was a good place. It was a nice, late after show dinner. The cannoli there was delicious as well...but there was no restaurant where I ate in New York that was even close to some of my favorites in Portland. I didn't seek out really good restaurants really...but I like the quaint local places we chose. I liked Arte's Cafe the best, which is in the next blog. :) Day IV.

End of Day Three!!