A Weekend in NYC: June 2024

On Thursday, June 20th (our 26th wedding anniversary and the third day of a 95-degree heat wave with high humidity) we all took the train down to New York for a fun long weekend. Unfortunately the train was delayed: All of Amtrak lost power from Philly to New Haven, so we sat on the tracks for two hours with no air conditioning before a rescue train came to push us into Penn station. When we did finally get in we just took the subway downtown and checked into the hotel on Canal Street quickly. 

We went across the street to the Canal Street Market, to Joe’s Steam Rice Rolls, and got curried fish balls on rice rolls and soupless ramen with grilled chicken, plus another stand there for spam musubi and another one for excellent, melt-in-your-mouth vegan sushi with miso truffled eggplant nigiri. From there we went uptown to Riverside Park and walked into the park to see a free production of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Abridged. It’s a hilarious show—37 plays, 3 actors, 97 minutes. Robert and I saw it back in 2001 or so and really thought the kids would enjoy it. We got there at the perfect time to see it, even with the massive train delay, but the actors were rehearsing Coriolanus with their whole troop for next week because one of the main actors for The Complete Works was sick. So we briefly watched them blocking some fight scenes and then walked down the rocks and hung out in a shaded playground that had water and a bunch of Latin American families playing happily, and also a mom and three baby hawks. Then we got frozen yogurt (the kids haven’t had Pinkberry-style froyo since Marcus was a toddler, so this was a big novelty) and took the subway back down to Canal and walked into Chinatown to have dinner at the Peking duck house, which Robert remembers from his childhood. 

We had duck, shao lung bao, plain lo mein, spicy shredded beef, and everyone enjoyed. Then we walked back to the hotel and it was after 9:00 so Helen crashed. On Friday, we were up early but not excessively so, and we walked over to Russ and Daughters (the cafe) for breakfast. We strolled through little Italy and I showed the kids all the places I remembered from my childhood, and then over to Delaney street where we’d go shopping for coats every year. The girls had chocolate babka French toast. Marcus had eggs Benedict with smoked salmon. Robert and I had a bialy with smoked sable and goat cheese, and a smoked salmon chowder. It was all fantastic. We even walked around the corner to their original shop and bought some ice cream bars and pops that Sarah had seen advertised on Instagram, and a jar of pickles to take with us (we might have smuggled them into the Met successfully in my bag).

From there we took the subway uptown to the Met, where we retraced the path of the kids in From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, and saw everything from the 18th century Syrian reception room to a 16th century Swiss Bible story tiled stove to a fashion exhibit with Worth dresses and modern ones worn at the Met gala.

The fashion exhibit was particularly fascinating–it had a bunch of information on how fabric degrades, and how they reactivated the smell molecules of the different dresses and hats and then bottled them, so you could uncork a stopper or scratch a wall to smell them. It also had a floral dress that was deliberately printed out of focus, and it was surprisingly hard to get an accurate (out of focus) picture of it--the phone cameras kept auto-correcting it! Of course we also saw the Temple of Dendur, the arms and armor area, the Rodin sculpture room, a bunch of medieval painting rooms, and lots more. 

From there we walked across Central Park and took the subway downtown to Witch Toppoki, an all you can eat Korean ramen, rice cake, and fish ball restaurant on 29th street that everyone loved, and from there we took the subway further down to Chambers Street where we got the kids ice cream at Van Leeuwen. 

There it was a short walk over to Rockefeller park right by Battery Park City, where we set up a blanket on the grass for the Swedish midsummer festival. Even at 5:30 pm with the sun low in the sky, it was still 91 and humid, but Helen played soccer games with Parks Department people, and she and Samantha wove flower crowns.

They finally put up the big midsummer pole draped in flowers, and a group of Minnesotan Swedish-American fiddlers played traditional music and called out the dance moves. It was wild—I had assumed that half or even most of the attendees would be the New York version of people like us, just city people who saw the festival advertised and thought it looked fun. Like, I drag us to all sorts of ethnic festivals and folk dances and things, basically all of which we have zero cultural connection with. But apparently the vast majority of people there were at least partly Swedish (surprising, but maybe reasonable) and (even more surprising to me) knew the songs and dances, so when the caller would say “now we’ll do the ______ [long Swedish name]” they’d say “oh!!! I love this one!” or something. Everyone sang along and did the motions. So Helen and I muddled along. I picked up the tunes and sang along mostly on open vowels, occasionally with an initial consonant from one of the words being repeated around me, and we sang about being frogs, or bakers or shoemakers, or whatever. We stuck it out through about five different songs, and then Helen’s hair was soaking wet and plastered to her head, and we decided to call it a night. 

We walked over to the Battery Park movie theater a couple blocks away and got a large popcorn and a large Sprite (it really felt necessary to have something with a little sugar in it to drink, since we had been outside all afternoon) and we saw Inside Out 2, and then walked back to the hotel, stopping for hand-pulled noodles and two plates of dumplings at a hole in the wall in Chinatown at 9:30 on the way. Their menu contained a humorous “warning” about vegetables being present in every dish; we ordered one specifically without vegetables, for picky eaters, and it arrived with vegetables. Robert liked their truth in advertising.

On Saturday morning we walked over to the Mott Street Eatery for what I had read were the best kimbap in New York, and a Hong Kong-style milk tea, and some sticky rice in lotus leaves and shrimp rice noodles from three different stands. We loved the kimbap woman (her breakfast kimbap with seasoned egg was especially delicious, but everything was perfectly made and presented there) and her special free tastes of sweet shoestring fries, but we highly do not recommend the bathrooms there–in case anyone is wondering. From there we took the subway down to South Ferry and boarded the Staten Island Ferry, which the kids have somehow never been on, for a nice trip out on the water.

The National Lighthouse Museum is just a couple minute walk to the left of the ferry terminal building when you get out at Staten Island. It’s a cool site where they used to manufacture everything needed to supply lighthouses up and down the East coast, and all the lens pieces would be imported here from France and assembled and tested before being shipped out. It was a classic cute small museum with a talkative old guy (as these things often have). We have previously been to a bunch of lighthouses, as well as a big Coast Guard and light ship museum on the cape and a national historic lifesaving station (on a different part of the cape) so this fit right in with all that. They had a collection of lighthouse patches, exhibits about women and Native American and Black lighthouse keepers, and also models of over 250 lighthouses from around the country. Everyone enjoyed, and Samantha and I particularly appreciated the wave-shaped tile mosaics and the lighthouse art in the bathrooms. 

We walked back to the ferry, and read a really interesting exhibit about how they are trying to plant 1 billion oysters in the NY harbor over the next 10 years. Then Robert and Marcus walked over to the Staten Island 9/11 memorial, which outlines the spot the Twin Towers used to be on the horizon, and jogged back and met us just as we were boarding the boat back to Manhattan.

We grabbed a Rita’s ice and frozen custard layered treat in the ferry terminal and walked up to the Wall Street branch of Liberty bagels, all of the kids’ favorite bagel place. Marcus had a Cuban sandwich on an egg everything bagel. Samantha had plain cream cheese on a rainbow bagel. I had lox and scallion cream cheese on a pumpernickel bagel. Unfortunately Helen was looking really woozy by that point and I was starting to think that five days in a row of 95 degree temps, and tons of walking, and late nights, had done a number on her. She went to the bathroom and sipped water and cuddled on my lap and made it out of there looking not significantly worse, and also not actually throwing up, though, so that was good. 

We went across the street to a Duane Reade because Samantha had had a hairbrush emergency that morning, and then we read lots of plaques on the sidewalk for the Canyon of Heroes, which commemorate all the ticker tape parades in New York’s history. Lindbergh, Amelia Earhart, the president of Mexico? All of them and much more. It was great fun. 

From there we walked over to Hamilton's tomb and then took the train to Setsugekka in the East Village, which is supposed to have some of the best matcha in New York. It was very cool—we chose our grade of matcha (highest for a hot latte and a nutty mid-grade for an iced latte) and then took a seat at the bar while the woman gently whisked the matcha and discussed its provenance with us. It was quite the ceremony! During this, it suddenly started to sun shower, so after her matcha-making the woman woman rushed outside to take pictures of the sun shower, and we went outside to sip and compare our matchas under a tree. Helen was looking better at this point, and I think some of the matcha gave her energy and helped. During the rain, the temperatures dropped about 6+ degrees, very noticeably, and it was pleasant and lovely. When the rain stopped and the sun came back out, it was right back to the 90s though, with even higher humidity. 

We were looking for a place to go sit down out of the heat so we walked around the corner to the Swiss Institute, a free contemporary art museum where Robert and Samantha spent an hour sitting in a ground-floor gallery watching a video installation on a loop (according to some of the notes, the artist “rewrote the lyrics to the My Chemical Romance song ‘I’m Not Okay (I Promise)’ in Mandarin Chinese and English, which was then covered by an acapella group. In the resulting music video, a troupe dressed as an army choir conducted by a young girl melodically recites Li’s version of the emo anthem.” This was combined with “footage from a GoPro camera worn by a duck in an animal rescue center in Geneva,” in case you were wondering). Meanwhile, Marcus and Helen and I sat on their roof sculpture garden in the shade and read our books. Everyone took advantage of the bathrooms and water, and we even appreciated the art installation in the elevator, “The Color of a Tongue” (not a joke). 

We walked back up St Mark’s Place appreciating classic Village architecture, street art (mosaic street lamps), cute Japanese stores, and more, and then took the subway up to Grand Central. There Robert and Marcus and Helen headed into Queens on the 7 train to go to the Queens Night Market, while Samantha and I headed over to Columbus circle. We briefly went into the mall to use their bathrooms and get water and a strawberry smoothie for Samantha, because the heat was catching up with us, and then walked down to Kashkaval Garden to meet Lyla and Emily, who drove in from New Jersey to meet us for dinner and a show. Emily had picked the place because she’s pretty strictly gluten free and I was not picky. The girls were the epitome of picky that night, though, and both mostly ate bread and cheese (fondue) despite there also being fantastic dips and grape leaves and rice crackers, and then fruit and veggies to also put in the fondue. But it was fine—we were happy, and enjoyed talking, and then we walked over to the theater to see Hadestown. 

It was absolutely amazing! Ani DiFranco sang Persephone, and she was wonderful, and the cast as a whole had different voice qualities and the music felt quite different (more folky, less jazzy) than on the original Broadway album. Also I have rarely seen a show where I have been so utterly captivated, or where the staging/set design feels so absolutely breathtaking and over the top yet also absolutely perfect. We all came out grinning beside ourselves, so we walked into Times Square and snagged a table at Juniors for ice cream sundaes (Emily and Samantha), a milkshake (Lyla), and an egg cream (me) so we could talk more about the show. Eventually Emily drove home and we took the subway back down to Canal (straight and quick shot on the Q) and slid into bed.

Meanwhile, Robert et al had fun at the night market. Apparently they had Taiwanese skewers, Brazilian steak sandwiches, guava drinks, hand-spun cotton candy in the shape of duck, and then played in the playground and walked through Flushing Meadow Park to the Lemon Ice King of Corona. There was also some urban spelunking and some giant inflatable ball fun, too. Ben and Lily met them there from Brooklyn, and then they made one final stop at the Lemon Ice King for seconds before heading home. I’m so glad Helen was feeling better and that it was a fun evening for everyone–on Sunday morning we pretty much just got up and took the subway to Penn Station and headed home, so making Saturday evening great, if late, was a lovely way to end. 

 

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Created: 6/24/24. Last Modified: 6/24/24.