I went out in South Street Seaport with some friends last night. South Street Seaport’s an odd place because parts of it are super touristy, but another part of it exist with colonial buildings and cobblestone streets and hidden hangouts. The place I went to, Acqua, thankfully fell in the latter category.

When I arrived at Acqua, my friends were already enjoying themselves in one of the outdoor tables. I sat down and ordered a Bellini. We ordered a few gourmet pizzas for the table. The food and Bellinis (I had several) were delicious. But one of my favorite parts of the restaurant was the inside flooring – looked like it might be from the 1700’s, all old and warped wide boards. A very cool spot.

The photo to your right is a live capture of Bryant Park on July 25, 2007. Why is this place the greatest? I went by today and I think I’ve nailed why it’s by far my most favorite park in NYC. All elements that make a great park are inside of it, what are they?

- Great people watching
- Carousel
- Free WiFi
- Free Classic Books & Modern classics and newspapers & magazines
- Great chairs & seating
- Beautiful view of classic New York (NYPL) alongside new construction

It has everything that NYC means and stands for to everyone who comes here. It offers you peace and calm and a great place to have lunch. It offers a lot of free things while having a great view of everything. No, Bryant Park didn’t pay me to write this. I just am in love with the place. It’s also great when you can catch a botchee ball competition or an intense chess match.

Recently I was at one of my favorite restaurants on Irving Place, enjoying a nice chat with friends and waiting for my meal to arrive. While we were waiting, I went to the restroom, which in this place is just a tiny, single toilet for each gender. I locked the door and went about my business. A minute or less later, someone tried to open the door, realized it was locked and waited. After MAYBE another minute and a half, another person showed up outside the door. They proceeded to chat.

New arrival: “Have you been waiting a while?”
Impatient twat: “Yeah… a WHILE”. Seriously, she emphasized that.
New arrival: “Are you sure someone’s in there?”

At this point, I yelled, “Yes, someone’s in here!” but apparently they didn’t hear me.

Impatient twat: “Oh yeah, I tried the door a while ago.” Mind you, it’s been maybe two and a half minutes total since I’ve been in there. And she got there a “while” after I’d entered.

I finish up and start to wash my hands when I hear this outside the door:

Impatient twat: “Well, I’m not upset about the wait, I’m just worried about the smell.”
New arrival: “Yeah, I hope it doesn’t smell!”

I came out of the restroom, looked at both of them and said, “I could hear what you were saying, and that’s really rude!” Impatient Twat shrugged it off while New Arrival looked embarrassed.

Now, I suppose I had been in the restroom a minute or two longer than average, but this is a ladies’ room. The only one in the restaurant. And sometimes, say, once a month or so, ladies take a little longer in the restroom. And really? Don’t discuss how afraid you are that it’s going to SMELL when the lady inside comes out. Especially not when she can hear you.

The lining-up for the single bathroom thing is something that’s common in NYC – space is at a premium, and many restaurants don’t have room to have a multi-stall setup. I also know that people have to have everything nowNowNOW, particularly in this city, but you just have to suck it up and deal with waiting for the damn bathroom without being a rude assface about it.

image courtesy treehugger.com

Anyone been to the floating pool at Brooklyn Bridge Park? Sounds fun, though crazy crowded I’m sure.

I noticed something similar in Rome recently, floating on the banks of the Tiber, and thought it looked like a cool idea. In fact, I may have even thought to myself, “Huh, we should have something like that in New York.” So imagine my surprise when I returned and discovered that, in fact, we do!

Granted, the Roman version seemed much more adult-oriented, appearing sort of clubby and even sponsored by Absolut or some other liquor company, I believe. Definitely more appealing to me than wholesome family entertainment, but what can you do.

But seriously… “Floating Pool Lady”??? Come on, I know we can do better than that!

A design drawing of Per Se, taken from my seat that night!

On Sunday my boyfriend and I went to dinner at Per Se. I’m just writing this now, 60 hours later, as it has taken me this long to revive myself from the food coma that this place put me into. As a patron of many upscale NYC restaurants over the years and as no stranger to the tasting menu, I can unequivocally say that Per Se tops them all, by leaps and bounds. Seriously, it’s that good. This might just be the best restaurant in New York, not to mention one of the priciest. But yes, it’s worth every penny.

Where to start? Well, lucky for me, Per Se send you home with a copy of your menu, and excellent tool for the well-intentional blogger who plans to chronicle their meal but gets lost in the haze of duck liver and copious bottles of wine. I can’t tell you how many places I’ve been where I wanted so badly to recount every dish and every ingredient, but found myself completely sauced by the fourth course and unable to remember my name much less what I was eating.

For the foodies, here’s a blow by blow rundown of our insanely incredible meal. We opted for the Carnivore meals, but the vegetarian meal looked amazing as well. Follow the jump to see what they served for the 2nd course that nearly killed me–in a good way!
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OK, now it’s my turn. It must be apartment-hunting time.
I have to give up my apartment in Rego Park, Queens. In 2004, I was diagnosed with ALS/Lou Gehrig’s Disease. In 2005, I spent $5,000 to have the tub ripped out to install a stall shower. But the time has come when I need a wheelchair to get into the bathroom, and the wheelchair doesn’t fit.

So I am looking for an apartment in Manhattan, and it must be accessible. Well, nobody seems to know what “accessible” means. It means something roomy enough to move my motorized wheelchair around, and it means a bathroom door that is not half the size of the other doors. There are apartments built for the disabled, but the waiting-lists are 10 years long. We never think anything will happen to us like a disabling disease. But it does! It happened to me, and if you think the NYC rental market is tight, try looking for a decent-size studio or one-bedroom for under $2500/month with a bathroom and kitchen wide enough for a wheelchair!! I don’t mean to play “let’s top this” but with the population aging and living longer, and people like me surviving past the 2-5 years’ life expectancy of an ALS patient, we really do need to make NYC more “accessible”!

I love a good, mindless summer blockbuster as much as the next girl. Every so often it’s nice to go to the theater and see all the stars we love to hate running around onscreen. But what I’d really rather see are small, independent films. And what better place to see them than at a film festival? And you know NYC has tons of them. And one is happening right now!

The NY Film and Video Festival is going on now. It started at the end of last week (whoops! I’m a little late) and continues through the 26th. There are TONS of films to see, as you can see by looking at the schedule. One in particular that I’m really interested in seeing is Bedford-Stuyvesant. You’d think from the title that it might be a hard-hitting documentary about life in a tough Brooklyn neighborhood, but no… it’s a horror film. There are girls in towels, evil, and a curse! What more could you ask for? AND it takes place in our fair city.

There are, of course, many other films to be seen, but I’m going straight for the horror flicks. And then when the directors get to be world famous, I can say I saw their film debut at the NY Film and Video Festival. Can you?

Here I am again, bringing you a selection of nerdy activities for your nerdy self:

Wednesday, July 25:
4 PM
Have you read Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma? Did it make you seethe with frustration? If so, join me at the Fales Collection, third floor of the NYU Bobst Library, to discuss the 2007 Farm Bill. I may get angry and throw corn at people.

(70 Washington Square S. between LaGuardia Pl and Washington Square E.)

6:30 PM
The nerddom continues at the Museum of the City of New York, where you and I can view Eugene de Salignac’s photographic record of our booming city.

(1220 Fifth Ave. at 103rd St.)

Be there or be… ummm…

This morning I arrived at JFK after taking a redeye from L.A. Shockingly, I managed to get some sleep on the flight and didn’t feel too horribly exhausted. However, first thing in the morning, there is one thing I do not want to be bombarded with: advertising. Particularly loud Microsoft advertising.

In terminal 9 at JFK, between the check-in/baggage claim area and the gates, you go down a big escalator, through an underground hallway, and then back up another escalator. Sounds inefficient, but it’s because the hallway goes under an active taxiway and was the easiest way to do things. Anyway, of course that space couldn’t go on being all blank, colorless, and ad-free. At first it was just a series of poster ads. Innocuous enough. I’m already used to all the jetways being lined with HSBC ads telling me how much they love individuality. But then, the hallway of advertising got worse – they put in big flat-screen monitors in the walls and started the bombardment of blindingly bright ads, with sound, first for Vista and now for Office 2007. All well and good. I know Microsoft has to make a living just like everybody else. But Jesus H. Christmas Crap, I do not want the Office 2007 theme song blaring at top volume at me as big shiny monitors blare images into my brain at 6 a.m. That shit just makes me want to install Linux on every machine I can get my hands on.

After we left the airport, I noticed that there is now a giant hand holding up a giant Samsung phone at the entrance to JFK. I’m used to billboards, taxi ads, and commercials, but it seems advertising is just getting more and more in-your-face. At this point I’d rather just have good old-fashioned obvious product placement in my TV shows and movies. You know, maybe Bruce Willis could take a break from fighting bad guys to grab a sip of Duff Beer, or something.

What annoying advertising have you noticed around the city lately?

One year ago, I came to this city to look for an apartment. I had called up my friend from high school who was a broker and asked her to show us some places. When we came into her office, she said the usual schpeel about how our price range is unrealistic and how there are only three places she can show us.

The first place was in Alphabet City. For a suburban girl, the whole city seemed a bit like a dump, so Avenue C didn’t seem anything dumpier. The next stop was in East Village. I liked the neighborhood, but the apartments we looked at were ridiculously small. And I mean, small. I would have had to pay $1200 for a hole with a chair in it.

Usually the broker saves the best for last, so after seeing those three apartments, we were geared up to see the next one- on the “Lower East Side”. When we got off the subway we realized that we were in Chinatown. How did we know? Oh the Chinese signs everywhere and the umm, Chinese people. This was no LES- it was right by the Manhattan bridge- but what did we know.

The broker took us upstairs. When we came in, our jaws dropped. It was an empty space with windows. The walls were caving in, and so was the floor. There was trash everywhere. It was also obvious that no one had occupied that space since 1989.

“So, you can put a wall up here, and here, and over there. This can be a bedroom,” the broker told us, pointing to a corner.
“That’s not a bedroom, you can’t put a twin bed in there,” my roommate proclaimed.
“Welcome to New York!” the broker snapped.
“Are you fucking kidding me? And there’s no stove!”
“Well there’s a gas connection, I’m sure you can buy a stove.”

We were flabbergasted. I wish I had taken photos of this place, because it was amazingly crazy. Manhattan is a bizarre place. That loft was going for $3,000 a month.