Looking Back on Thanksgiving Week: Jones Street, Papabubble, New Museum, Star Trek Art, and More

Thanksgiving Week began for me on Monday when the sun came out after several days of rainy weather. Recovering from a cold and a sore knee, the result of wearing the wrong pair of glasses, misunderstanding the distance from the street to the sidewalk, and then falling down, I wandered, well, hobbled, northwest on Bleecker Street and, later, the same direction on 4th Street. After the rainy weather, and given my state of mind, I thought the streets looked like they were recovering from a trauma.

I stopped to gaze down Jones Street, wanting to see the street again after mentioning it in an earlier post about Johnny Mercer. He lived along in here in the early 1930s when he was a young, struggling songwriter /actor/Wall Street errand boy. It's an unhurried block of a street, nestled between the far busier Bleecker and W. 4th Streets, and it looks like it can weather good and bad times. I was on one of these walks that have no purpose and no destination, plus I was walking slow, so I could take my time to explore some nooks and crannies. I peaked into the window of The Slaughtered Lamb and noticed a cozy fireplace. As I'm on an unhurried mission to find taverns like these, especially within easy walking distance, I went in for a minute and chatted with a couple of friendly people

who work there. They were putting up holiday decorations around the bar, and I promised I would come back. As I left, I noticed across the street the window of Patisserie Claude, one of the finest croissant makers in the city, covered with paper along with a notice that they were closed for renovation. I hope that's truly the case, because I would miss it. (Ed. Note, December 2008): Great news-they're back open).

After staying inside Tuesday to finish a professional project, I was more than ready on Wednesday to get out of the apartment and take on some items of my To-Do list. First on the agenda was a hobble to Papabubble, the new candy venue on Broome Street near Mott. My expectations were more than met, largely because I enjoy seeing candy made like an artful craft, in this case much like glassblowing, and I thought the little candies were delicious. While on Broome, I explored several blocks, enjoying the mix-match of businesses, ethnic restaurants, civic and religious institutions, and so forth. As with the parallel Grand Street, a fun walk would be to stroll Broome from east to west, starting in the Lower East Side and ending in the South Village.

After wandering around Broome, I made it over to the New Museum on the Bowery (near the intersection with Prince St.) to see Live Forever: Elizabeth Peyton. (See earlier review of her recent work at Gavin Brown Enterprises.) In a well-designed exhibit, the selection of works from her still-young career adds up to a fuller understanding of her preoccupations with portraiture and celebrity. She displays a virtuosity with line and composition, and all these little works pack a big punch. I sort of wish, however, that one of the on-hand gallery guides did not tell me that she sometimes applies Gesso on her heavily-primed canvases with strokes of a credit card, because I could then not stop thinking about how much money she gets for her artwork.

When I got home, I rested for an hour, and then I walked down to the W. 4th station to ride up to the 81st Street stop, the nearest stop to checking out the inflation of the Macy's parade balloons. I've written about that already and showed you my pictures. I also want to mention that the new Shack Shack on Columbus Ave. and 77th (we all know the one in Madison Square Park) looked mighty festive for the holidays, decked in pretty twinkling green lights.

Finally, the fun day ended with drinks in the downstairs bar of Le Poisson Rouge. I love this new performing arts venue on Bleecker. While sipping our drinks, we enjoyed seeing artist Devorah Sperber's uncanny and smart pieces from her Star Trek series. Here are the familiar images of the Starship Enterprise, Spock and McCoy, Uhura and Sulu, and so forth, but she's created the works out of thousands of chenille stems (pipe cleaners). (Sperber's website here) The knockout piece is one of her "Thread Spool" works. It's of Spock, but he's rendered upside down in a patterned arrangement of thread spools of different colors. You can only understand it's Spock when viewed through the clear acrylic sphere on a metal stand. The work is about perception, pixels and vision and the mechanics of how we see. Like Spock, it's perfectly logical.

Images: Jones Street, window of The Slaughtered Lamb, Papabubble, Broome Street, New Museum. by Walking Of the Big Apple. More images in this set on Flickr WOTBA.

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25 Things To Do Near the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)

(updated 2016) The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) at 11 W. 53rd Street is near many other New York City attractions, so before or after a trip to the museum, a short walk in any direction could easily take in additional experiences. Drawing a square on a map with the museum at the center, a shape bounded by 58th Street to the north and 48th Street to the south, with 7th Avenue to the west and Park Avenue to the east, proves the point of the area's cultural richness. (A map follows the list below.) While well-known sightseeing stops fall with these boundaries, most notably Rockefeller Center, St. Patrick's Cathedral, and the great swath of famous Fifth Avenue stores, cultural visitors may also want to check out places such as the Austrian Cultural Forum, the 57th Street galleries, the Onassis Cultural Center, and the Municipal Art Society. The image above shows an intriguing glimpse of the tops of two Beaux-Arts buildings through an opening of the wall inside MoMA's scu

Museums in New York Open on Mondays

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25 Things to Do Near the American Museum of Natural History

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Visiting New York on a Monday

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Taking a Constitutional Walk

A long time ago individuals going out for a walk, especially to get fresh air and exercise, often referred to the activity as "taking a constitutional walk." The word "constitutional" refers to one's constitution or physical makeup, so a constitutional walk was considered beneficial to one's overall wellbeing. (Or, as some would prefer to call it, "wellness.") The phrase is more common in British literature than in American letters. As early as the mid-nineteenth century, many American commentators expressed concern that their countrymen were falling into lazy and unhealthy habits. Newspaper columnists and editorial writers urged their readers to take up the practice of the "constitutional" walk. One such essay, " Walking as an Exercise," originally printed in the Philadelphia Gazette and reprinted in New England Farmer , Volume 11, 1859, urges the people of farm areas to take up walking. City dwellers seemed to have the

The High Line and Chelsea Market: A Good Pairing for a Walk

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14 Useful Mobile Apps for Walking New York City

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Spring Training: Conquering the Hilly Terrain of Northern Manhattan

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(revised 2017) How long does it take to walk from Penn Station/Madison Square Garden to well-known destinations in Manhattan? What are the best walking routes ? What if I don't want to see anything in particular but just want to walk around? In addition to the thousands of working commuters from the surrounding area, especially from New Jersey and Long Island who arrive at Penn Station via New Jersey Transit or the Long Island Rail Road, many people arrive at the station just to spend time in The City. Some have questions. Furthermore, a sporting event may have brought you to Madison Square Garden (above Penn Station), and you want to check out what the city offers near the event. This post if for you. The map below should help you measure walking distances and times from the station to well-known destinations in Manhattan - Bryant Park , the Metropolitan Museum of Art , the Empire State Building , Times Square , Rockefeller Center , Washington Square Park , the High Line

Walking Off the Big Apple

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