Greenwich For Real

Just a note, I'm posting TWO posts tonight, so after you get done reading this one, you can continue on to a "catch up" post. Or you can skip down there and read that one first to keep this all chronological and stuff. :-)

Today was a Greenwich Village do-over day. Since we got rained out last weekend (see the prior blog post), we decided to do our walking tour and everything today.

We started out with a great breakfast:


Miles was a great help in the kitchen as we whipped up some chocolate-chip pancakes and bacon. Oliver was anxious to help too!


We got ready to go, and decided to drive in. Driving into the city is actually super easy for us, and costs about half as much as if we took trains. Driving in Manhattan isn't too bad either, as long as you get into the vibe of the Drift. The Drift is that maneuver by taxi's and most other drivers on the road where the vehicle is left to just drift across lanes. No signal, no clear intent, just moving in fluid motion across the lanes of traffic. It's as if there were no lanes. Once you realize that drifting happens nearly all the time, you start to adapt and accommodate. I have gotten down the technique of the Drift, but I still use my turn signal. :-)

We found FREE parking in Greenwich Village right at Hudson and Bleeker and took in the shopping down Bleeker street. Oh, and before I get ahead of myself, Kristal...


looking exceptionally hot today!

After Bleeker, we hit a house that Walt Disney had lived in:


We then took a detour and headed over for lunch. Here are the boys while we waited for our order:


We went to this mexican restaurant, sat outside, it was great. We ordered this Tapas plate with a bunch of "mini" stuff -- mini tacos, mini burritos, mini quesadillas, and mini taquitos. We thought we were getting a great deal because the whole thing was $19 -- less than $5 each for lunch! We also ordered soda's -- BIG MISTAKE. The soda's were $4 apiece!! A four dollar glass of Diet Coke???? Yeah, officially the most expensive glass of soda I've ever had.

Moving on, we took in some stately brownstones:


With cool street addresses:


Here is the brownstone that was used for exterior shots of the Huxtable house, on the Cosby Show:


Maybe it was in better shape 20 years ago. :-)

Here's a funny picture Kristal took of us walking. I look like I'm trying to wax eloquent about something and her knowing smile that seems to say "yes Dear, how fascinating." :-)


We ran across this wall, one of the last examples I've seen of "old New York" before it was cleaned up:


You just don't see tagging like this anywhere in Manhattan. It's almost like a preserve to see it in Greenwich Village. As an aside, I have NEVER seen more tagging than in Newark, NJ. That place is GHETTO. And scary. I actually watched a show on A&E called Gangland (about modern gangs), and they featured the MS13 gang, and they have a huge presence in Newark. And modern gangs aren't just the crap you think of in East LA back in the 80's, like Beat It style, we're talking about brutal, (inter)nationally organized gangs. Jersey is apparently a haven for this stuff, not just Mafia.

ANYWAYS, by this time, we were all starting to get a little tired:


On our way back to the car, we ran across Gay St. It's a cute little street:


Everybody who passed it would stop and take out their camera's to take a picture. You'll also notice that there are no people on the sidewalks. Walking on the residential streets of Greenwich Village was really cool as they were nearly empty. Just a few locals now and then. Which is a stark contrast to practically everywhere else in "mainstream" New York. The boys loved it because they had plenty of space to play (pretending to be Indiana Jones on some adventure).


We hit Washington Park on our way out. This park used to be a haven for drug dealers and other seedy folks, but is now a generally cool hang out with TONS of musicians playing instruments of all sorts. It's right by NYU so you get lots of university hippy's as well.


And last but not least, Miles took this great picture of Damion, Kristal, and myself:


So that was our day in Greenwich Village!