Our view of the Empire State Building at sunrise.

Saturday (09 April 2011)

Our favorite time to enjoy larger cities is before all the other tourists get up and out.  So, by 8:10am we were walking to Greenwich Village for breakfast at Murray’s Bagels.  Tony tried a ham, egg, and cheese on sesame, and Louisa enjoyed a cinnamon raisin bagel with walnut/raisin/cinnamon cream cheese.  The bagels are fresh, chewy on the inside, slightly crusty on the outside, and just plain wonderful.  Their fresh oj is also excellent.

Skyline view from the Staten Island Ferry.

Our next stop was the #1 train at the 14th Street Station.  We took that down to the Staten Island Ferry terminal.  Some of the stops were definitely nicer than others, but each had mosaic tiles announcing the station.  At some point, a lot of care was put into those tiles – as well as in creating an underground labyrinth of tunnels connecting the different platforms.

The one statue... TO RULE THEM ALL. Well, it is a cool statue.

We just caught (as in, workers were in the process of closing the doors) the 9am ferry.  Highlights were seeing Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty, the Manhattan and Brooklyn skylines, and a mini light house.

The Brooklyn Bridge can be viewed by walking along the waterfront by East River Dr.

The Lower East Side had a perfect pedestrian walkway; of course we had to take it.  Up the river, past the Brooklyn Bridge and towards the Williamsburg Bridge.  Detours included Doughnut Plant (great creme brulee yeast doughnut, good coconut cream-filled yeast doughnut topped with toasted coconut, and neither of us really liked the chocolate glazed yeast doughnut).  Chinatown looked interesting as we walked past the beginnings of that area, but first on the evolving itinerary was the Williamsburg Bridge.  Actually, our first stop was Babycakes NYC.  The place has a fun 1960s (think big up-dos, cat-eye glasses, polka dots, lots of red lipstick) vibe, as well as 1980s music, and makes a mean brownie cupcake with mocha frosting.  This treat was enjoyed on a bench in a little park between two roads, and provided the kick we were looking for since the frosting has crushed coffee beans in it.
We eventually made it to the Williamsburg Bridge.  The bridge is old, but affords nice views of Brooklyn and the river.  And you might walk past some strange photo shoot where a guy is wearing skinny jeans and a casual black jacket, has nicely mussed hair and is strolling while purposefully looking out over the water, while attendants scurry ahead while holding lighting equipment).

Lafayette statue at Union Square.

If you’re in the mood for some Jewish comfort food, try Yonah Schimmel’s knishes.  We recommend the potato knish and the mushroom (which is really potato and mushroom).  Each is good, with a very thin dough, and large – about the size of a baseball.  Continuing north to the Union Square green market led to discoveries of fresh, hot, spiced (with cinnamon and clove) apple cider.  Also gathered at Union Square was a group of (mostly well-dressed) Muslim protestors who were moving through the streets while chanting.

My first pressed apple cider was tasty, delicious, and protest-free.

Our destination was Veselka, an upper scale Ukranian diner where we were meeting a friend for lunch (thanks for the recommendation, Matt!).  The moving wall of people was separating us from our destination, so we waited for a break in their line and hustled through.  Of course, it helped that we cut off a few very small, very shy looking little girls, but hey kids, who said protesting’s easy?  On a philosophical note, the whole “mob mentality” of protestors, and the inherent need to take any argument to extremes, does more to alienate people who might agree with the basic premise of the argument (war is bad, good people on both sides die, get the American soldiers home) while disagreeing with the punchline (America is a nation of imperialistic Islamophobes).

We call this guy Osprey Pigeon.

Lunch was great, the potato pancake was freshly fried and crispy, and the pierogies were great.  We liked the meat, cheese, spinach, and sweet potato fillings.  After lunch we got distracted by a pigeon that was so large it slightly resembled an osprey.  Common sense persevered, and we stopped in to MUD coffee.  The store is very narrow (as in, about 10′ across, including counter), crowded, and there’s no clear line or ordering system.  But they’ve got good coffee.

View of the UN Building from the waterfront.

We took our coffee on a walk towards the library so Matt could return a few books, and then parted ways for a few hours.  Our excursion took us towards Veniero’s Pastry Shop, an Italian bakery known for good cheesecake.  Unfortunately, it’s also crowded (and surprisingly hot and stuffy for a day where the temps didn’t top 60 degrees), and we wound up with a black and white cake rather than a cheesecake.  This realization occurred after we had walked up towards the UN building and were sitting overlooking the water about a few blocks south of the UN headquarters.  The cake itself was good – dark chocolate cake on the bottom, vanilla pastry cream on top – but it wasn’t the cheesecake we were after.

Grand Central Terminal: The attractive version of Penn Station.

The walking tour continued past the UN headquarters (construction is occurring on the side facing the water), so only the side facing the city is accessible.
Next up was Grand Central Terminal.  The building itself has amazing architecture, and the grand hall is exactly that.

One of the cool skyline views along 6th Ave.

We briefly stopped back at the hotel, then went to Maffei’s pizza place with Matt for dinner.  There was a bit of confusion regarding what we ordered, but the slices of pizza (we tried the cheese and the pepperoni) were good – cooked in a brick oven, crispy crust, great sauce (thick, nicely spiced), and good amount of cheese, plus foldability.  We recommend the red sauce over the olive oil variety.  Louisa also got to enjoy the final pepperoni slice while walking back to the hotel.  Of course, this may have involved dodging more crowds/cars while eating, but she managed to handle this without (a) running into anyone or anything and (b) dropping any of the pizza.  We were also happy to have missed some street festival which closed about 10 blocks of 6th Avenue just west of our hotel.