Walking Off Tribeca and Remembering Mostly Lunch

When I returned from my long walk and lunch in Tribeca today, I felt over-stimulated but more tired than usual. Traveling can be both stimulating and exhausting at the same time. Beyond the physical demands of exploration, an encounter with new sources of stimuli can induce mental fatigue. Walking around unfamiliar streets takes more work than the ones you already know.

Some of my haphazard impressions of the day in Tribeca:

enjoying the facades of the buildings along White Street;
the glimpses of the Hudson River and all that blue;
Duane Street and its gentle and elegant restraint;
the jarring presence of neo-Brutalist towers juxtaposed with more human scale nineteenth-century buildings;
a painter putting the finishing touches on a propped-open door of Robert De Niro's not-yet-open Greenwich Hotel and catching a look at some of the fine detailing;
the eight-foot crater on Church Street where a water main blew this morning, and hundreds of city workers trying to fix it;
a flower market with seasonal tulips and hyacinths;
a wide and busy Church Street;
cell phone conversations, 90% of which were about Eliot Spitzer.

Mostly, I remember lunch. I didn't have a particular spot picked out in advance, and I walked around until I was hungry. The Cosmopolitan Cafe at 95 W. Broadway looked good. The cafe was intimate and well-decorated with tables close together and a selection of books lined against the wall. I chose a table in the back. I enjoyed the quiche of the day - spinach and gruyere, and it came with a nice salad with lemony dressing and a selection of fruit. Afterwards, the proprietor surprised me by placing a cup of hot chocolate and a plate with a ginger cookie on the table and saying it was their "treat."

After that gesture, I enjoyed the walk home, even if I'm too tired to remember anything now. I may live in Greenwich Village, but Tribeca seems far away.

Here's a find! A blog about food in Tribeca: Taste of Tribeca.
Website for the Cosmopolitan Hotel.

See related posts:
The Woolworth Building
Establishing Shots: The Tribeca Film Festival
The Tribeca of Duane: Duane Street and Duane Park
Tribeca's Most Tripped-Out Vista
Tribeca Living: A Building for Chocolate, and One for the Wool Trade
In Search of the Lower West Side: Before Tribeca
Walking Off Tribeca: The Lay of the Land
Walking Off Tribeca: Starting at Square One