Well, not really.

I'm going to Newark, New Jersey. Yeah, I know, it sucks. I've already been told that a hundred times by a hundred people, a hundrend of whom have never actually been to Newark.

But, regardless, I'll be there for the weekend for a conference. On the upside, I should have time to hop the train and spend a few nights in New York City. I've never been there before, so I don't really know what to do, and I would love some advice.

Tips on where to find bagels, pizza, and cool small things will be appreciated. So would advice on Newark, too, actually.

Thanks!

I wish I knew anything good about Newark, but I don't. Hoboken is the cool place to go in NJ, but if you can go to Hoboken, you might as well skip it and just go to Manhattan.


These are my favorite pizza places:

sit-down pizza restaurants (no slices):

Grimaldi's (Brooklyn) http://www.grimaldis.com/
Lombardi's (Manhattan) http://www.lombardispizza.com/pages/1/index.htm
Totonno's (2 in Manhattan, 1 in Bklyn) http://www.totonnos.com/Index-2.html
John's Pizzeria (3 in Manhattan) http://www.johnspizzerianyc.com/index2.htm

slices to go:

Famous Original Ray's (6th Ave. & 11th St., Manhattan)
Two Boots Pizza (a couple locations in Manhattan) http://www.twoboots.com/frames/TwoBootsMain.html
Ben's (Spring St. & Thompson, Manhattan)

there are many other good places for a slice, but these are my faves.

---------------

i'm pasting a post that i once wrote to someone else about cd/record shops. forgive me if it sounds condescending:

The Virgin Megastores are surprisingly good (although a bit expensive). There's one in Times Square but I prefer the one in Union Square (14th St. and Broadway). You should stick to downtown anyway.

There's Tower Music (also surprisingly good) on Broadway and W. 4th St., and across from it (on W. 4th btw. B'Way and Lafayette) is the small but tre hip independent store, OTHER MUSIC. You should definitely drop in there.

However, though Other Music is very cool, the best place overall is probably KIM'S MUSIC & VIDEO (St. Mark's Place btw. 2nd & 3rd ave.) It's bigger than OM, has more inventory, and I think they are slightly cheaper. Also, they have a much bigger used CD section.

There are a handful of other, small record & CD shops all over the downtown area. Some of them cater to DJ's and club kids (I remember one or two on Bowery, east of Soho) Others are vintage record shops (a few on Carmine St. in the village). None really stick out as being great, but it can be fun to stumble into them. I encourage you to walk around downtown (East Village, West Village, Lower East Side, The Bowery area, Nolita, Soho).

The best part is that all the cool stuff is pretty much within walking distance.

newark? hope you can run fast.

new york, on the other hand!
pizza: joe's pizza on carmine and bleeker for messy ny style, two boots for fancy gourmet
bagels: h+h on 46th and 12th ave, murray's in various locations (but pretty much any bagel you get in new york are going to blow your mind)

my favourite restaurant is at carmine and bleeker as well. named shopsins. i think you'll dig it.

carmine st is a really great street to walk around. it's basically in the middle of nyu's campus (and washington square park) so if you walk around you're going to find a lot of fun stuff. you w/ill also get hopelessly lost.


also, check out the lower east side (take the F train to 2nd ave.) aside from being a super trendy night spot, you'll find any sort of international food, as well as katz's famous deli and TEANY! which is moby's teahouse and my favourite little spot. also, a really cool hookah bar with fantastic hummus and economy candy, a huge cheap candy store with awesome tshirts for sale. piano's bar - which is where a lot of small shows and avant garde comedy by david cross and todd barry, etc is performed. these are all in one block.. which is why it's the best hood in the city. the bowery ballroom and mercury lounge are down the street.

uh, central park is amazing. you can sit on a rock at the pond and see all the skyscrapers around you but hear nothing but birds and silence. it's my favourite place in the entire world.

you feel like a jerk doing touristy things sometimes but check out the chrysler building (42nd st), the empire state building (34th st) and ESPECIALLY grand central station (42nd street). they are marvels to look at.

there are some awesome record stores on st. marks. kims and sounds (i prefer sounds - it's smaller and les sintimidating, but kims has pretty much everything. also, st marks has lots of street vendors and shops that sell incense.... shrug. around the corner is a kick ass asian market (sunrise) and around the clock, my favourite 24 hr diner.

Hey! Thanks!

aneg is right, you'll find a world of activity in the East Village & Lower East Side (which overlap).

tons of bars, restaurants, etc. if you stick to these neighborhoods, you're pretty much guaranteed to have a great time.


and H & H Bagels are BY FAR THE BEST, but there's no reason to go to 46th St. & 12th Ave., that's an unreasonable destination without a car. there are many little cafes, shops & coffee shops, etc. which offer good bagels (sometimes supplied by H & H).


Shopsin's is funny in a way (the owner is famously cranky), but it's not open very late. Don't think you should plan on it if you are only here at night.





also, you may want to check out CBGB's before it goes away (if you care at all)

you should also maybe check out a show

this thread is weirding me out a little bit.

What I'm learning is that Newark has that effect on people.

edit: holy cow herbert is in town tomorrow.

not that, it's just weird to hear people recommended places that I actually know about, several of which I passed by or even visited today. I know it's not actually that weird but it feels strange for whatever rea

For great New York style pizza go here:

Joes Pizza Closed - at least the one I loved did.

I'm pretty darn sure that the Joes on Carmine and Bleeker closed down due to crazy increases in rent - really sad, it was my fav in the world and I live in Chicago.

http://www.gothamist.com/archives/2004/10/...s_its_doors.php

OH THAT IS SO DEPRESSING.

grilled cheese ny recently closed down and that is also sad, because that place was the shit (any sort of grilled cheese you wanted, totally fancy ingredients, incredibly cheap).

plus, the fez closed, and that was a great little music club. booo ny. booo.

i'm stalking you, andrew.

i saw you by St. Mark's, walking by The Continental. you looked unhappy. someday i'll kidnap you and cheer you up.

i second this - when I was hanging out in NYC last October I went there and got a lot of neat stuff - Pulp's "This Is Hardcore" for $4, among other things. Lots of cool shops in the East Village/St. Marks...

fucker beat me to it.

Check out Otto's Shrunken Head: they have live music most nights, no cover, and mix a mean Mai-Tai.

Hey, I'm totally at the Starbucks by the Astor cube right now. Too bad it's raining.

Glad somebody steered you to an authentic NYC coffee shop there, Michael.

are you having fun? i could be there in 10 min. i'll yell out your name and make a big scene.

Haha. It's okay. I'm going to roll over to Magnolia bakery.

I'm here to jack the WiFi.

Waverly Restaurant on 6th Ave & Waverly is a good, old-school diner...in case you were looking for breakfast.

Thanks! I might seek refuge.

The plan is to walk Bleeker a ways, catch a train uptown, walk across the park over to the museums, subway again to Times Square, and then catch the train home to Washington from Penn Station at 8. I'll miss the East Village, WTC/Wall Street/etc., but there's only so much I can do in a day.

Okay, I'm heading out. Rain schmain.

I'm looking for breakfast. I can be there in 15 hours.

Wooo. The subway station on Christopher I planned on using was closed and I had to ad lib in the pouring rain. As you might expect, it didn't go well. I ended up retreating to the diner on 14/9/Hudson to jack another wireless connection. I know there's a stop around here somewhere, but the kid was getting soaked.

In the meantime here, strawberry milkshake.

Those magnolia cupcakes are good.

edit: looks like it's two blocks over on 7th.

You can also get on the A, C, E line at 14th St. & 8th. That'll also take you uptown. Where exactly do you want to go?

Ben,

I hope you're going to the Whitney Museum's Biennial. I'd make that a priority.

It's kind of like the SXSW or CMJ of art. Purports itself to be a representation of the best new American art. Big deal for new young artists to be included.

It's a well-established New Yorker ritual to go and then complain to friends about how much it sucked.

Best,
DrJ

Hmm. I'll look it up. They went to that in a Woody Allen movie, right? I'm back online thanks to the sphere put out by Mike's Pizza at 88 and Lexington. I'm across the street at Corner Bagel Market eating an onion with scallion cream cheese and lox. Damn good.

I took the Red to 72 (or was it 74?), walked across the park and then hiked up 5th Ave to the Guggenheim.

I'm looking for someplace to watch the Big Ten championship at 3:30. Any hot spots?

But do they have the "bomb frosting?"

heh. "the red"... don't call it that. it's the 1,2,3 or 9. if you refer to a subway by the colour that is like an instant invitation to be mugged because you are clearly a tourist of some sort.

if you think magnolia is good, you should have tried polka dot cake studio right down the street. best cupcakes in the world!!

Okay, thanks for the tip. I took the local, so I guess that's the 1, right....with the 2/3 being the express?

I did the Whitney thing after my bagel. All the anti-bush stuff was pretty childish (The message seems to be that we'll wait to IMAGINE PEACE until after we've assassinated George), but Liz Larner's pipe work was great, the Calder stuff in the main collection is worth the price of admission, and I have never in my life been in such close quarters with so many beautiful women. Holy cow.

Now I'm over at Don Fillippo's on Lexington watching the Hawkeye game. Already had a cheese slice and a couple garlic knots.

Well, funny thing, I'm back in New York. I'm writing now from my hotel room on 31st. I took a Chinatown bus up to meet some relatives. We walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, checked out the Fulton Street area and strolled around the Times Square. I ate a kabob from a street vendor, had a bagel, a limonata, and a steak at an Irish pub on 33rd. Tomorrow: public library, crepe creations, another bagel, a slice of pizza and the Sunday Times.

I bought four or five books at the Fulton Street Strand location (August Kleinzahler, Sy Hersh, Saul Bellow, Seabiscuit, A Civil Action) and picked up the special edition CDs of Kylie's Fever and Goldfrapp's Supernatural at Virgin megastore. I couldn't resist the cover art:

HAH. Dude I had that Kylie special edition in my hands for like a half hour last weekend in a virgin megastore in nyc trying to justify owning two copies of the same album when i could basically download the extra disc, even though it was only 7.99.

I left it at the Virgin in Union Square. Don't tell me that's where you picked it up?

Details... don't tease this board when it comes to bagels.


Isn't this a faux pas of sorts? As aesthetically pleasing as the plummage may be, that is strictly bro-peacock wear. Or are we to believe that A. Goldfrapp is a dude in disguise rather than a homely peahen?

That's pretty wacky. I picked mine up at the Times Square location. I've dropped my original more than once, shattering the case and scratching the disc up real good, so I figure it's worth 8 bucks for a fresh copy with THE BEST COVER ART EVER. It is probably the best album of the 00s. I noticed the same bit of a trans-animo-prosopopoeia, but suffered the opposite reaction. I think it's hot!

The phenomenon of women adopting male qualities of appearance to give themselves an added sexual charge has a centuries-long tradition. My favorite is Uma Thurman wearing a three-piece suit in Woody Allen's Sweet and Lowdown, but the examples are legion.

The tradition of males seeking attention by blurring lines the other way isn't near as rich, although it has surely blossomed in the West lo' these recent decades.

surely you know about Annie Hall in which Diane Keaton wore a tie. that was actually a big, well-known recent cultural moment.

there's free wi-fi in Bryant Park, behind the library.

I see what you mean, but because the male peacock is already crossing the line in the opposite direction (taking on qualities we consider distinctly female rather than attracting mates by possessing the biggest tusks or something), it's like Ms. 'Frapp is doing a double-cross (like a woman posing as a male performer who only plays women). I don't doubt your attraction though.

And what about the bagel Ben. What about the bagel.





danger, Ben Welsh, danger