New York City in a (Long) Weekend: Part Twofeatured

I Said “Brrr, It’s Cold in Here”

There was a little more sun when we woke up on Day 2 of our Big Apple adventure, but there was also forecasts for snow, wind bursts of up to 60 miles per hour and wind chills lower than anything the city had seen since 1993’s Storm of the Century.

I hate being cold. I hate being hot, too, for that matter. There’s a slim margin of about ten degrees where I find perfect comfort. And everything from the dustings of snow on the ground to the sounds of metal street signs absorbing the force of the winds were saying “Hey, Nicole, your bed is nice and warm and comfy. How’s about you cuddle up for awhile?” Mom and Stephanie wouldn’t have put up much of a fight. But I had big plans for nothing in particular. I had big plans to have big plans. So on went two layers of socks beneath some fleece leggings and into a pair of weatherproof (but fashionable, obviously) black boots as we headed out to the Upper West Side.

Second Verse, Same as the First

People who are very serious about their travels will often tell you to never eat at the same place more than once on any given trip. And, by and large, they’re right a lot of the time, especially when you’re in a culturally rich city with a thriving foodie scene and a strong brunch game. The entire city was open to us for brunch. We had no places to be until that night. The city was our proverbial oyster.

And we chose Alice’s Tea Cup. Again. We’ve literally dined at Alice’s Tea Cup for every brunch we’ve ever had in New York. Granted, I can count on one hand the number of times we’ve been in New York for brunch, but still, every brunch. Serious travelers can be a judgmental bunch sometimes (so can New Yorkers, for that matter). I’m sure some would try to revoke my frequent flier card and restrict me to the outermost of boroughs for not only going to the same restaurant two days in a row, but going to a restaurant with more than one location, at that. But here’s the thing: when you’re spending a lot of money to go somewhere, do what makes you happy. That’s ultimately what will determine the worth of your trip in the end, anyways, right? Did it make you happy? Was it worth it?

So we changed it up a little – instead of dining at Chapter II, we hit up the Chapter I location. Same menu, same whimsy, different neighborhood. And ultimately, we had no regrets. Despite a decent wait and a packed dining room, it was a memorable meal in one of our favorite places.

New York, I Love You XOXO

The Chapter I location of Alice’s Tea Cup is a short walk away from Central Park, and despite the wind chills, we had all decided we couldn’t be that close to the park and not wander through it. Because of the wind chills, though, we made two rules:

1.    No wandering aimlessly (this time) – since I was the one truly invested in the idea of celebrating New York’s coldest day in two decades by walking through an open park, Stephanie insisted I choose exactly what I wanted to see and plot out how I’d get to those points before we got there.

2.    The second an appendage goes numb from the cold, we head to the nearest Starbucks to warm up.

I already knew the points I wanted to visit and luckily, they were all within walking distance from each other, so we settled our check at Alice’s and headed out to the park.

I love Central Park. I love parks. I love open urban spaces. We don’t really have anything quite as expansive in Chicago. We have Lincoln Park, which is more zoo than open park. We have Millennium Park, which has a lot of character but only stretches for five or six blocks. But we don’t really have that expansive urban jungle maze that has these small gems of art and culture tucked in the corners.

First stop? The Imagine mosaic and Strawberry Fields. We entered the park near The Dakota (where John Lennon was assassinated), so it was a natural starting point for us.

The second stop on my Central Park checklist was going to be the Bethesda Fountain (because as someone who loves New York, I was obsessed with Gossip Girl and the Bethesda Terrace was where Chuck and Blair got married in the series finale), but on our way over, I caught sight of the Bow Bridge. The Bow Bridge was the setting to a pivotal storyline in Glee’s New York episode in season two, so clearly the Gods of television shows that were cancelled for low ratings were telling me I needed to visit Bow Bridge, too.

With my iPhone as our guide, we navigated a path towards the Bethesda Terrace and Fountain on our way to the Bow Bridge. And it was every bit as beautiful as it looked on television. Stephanie and Mom lack a healthy appreciation for Gossip Girl, so they sat tight by a fountain that looked like the one from Friends but totally isn’t while I snapped my pictures.

Short on both patience and body heat, they also didn’t want to walk to Bow Bridge. With Maps telling me it was a scant five minute walk, they stayed at the fountain that looked like the one from Friends but totally isn’t while I went to take pictures of the Bow Bridge.

And then, as I was crouching down, framing *the* shot that was going to go into the photo book, my camera died. Predictably. The rest of the day would have to be filed under #shotoniphone6.

By the time I got my snaps in, my phone was blowing up with text messages to get back…now. No one was losing sensation in their limbs (yet), but it was time to get out of the park.

Central Park is a big maze with multiple exit points and a very muddled middle. It’s easy to get lost and even easier to misjudge the time and distance between you and the perceived nearest exit. So to be safe, we went back the way we came, quickly realizing that we still had a day on our Hop On Hop Off tickets and there was a stop right near where we entered at Strawberry Fields.

These Streets Will Make You Feel Brand New

The first bus to come was the bus running the Uptown Tour loop, so we hopped on, grabbed the primo seats at the back of the upper deck where you had a clear view out the back but still felt the warmth of the acrylic roof, and headed out towards Harlem.

I’d alternate between listening to the tour guide, snapping pictures out the back of the bus and jotting down the names of stores and restaurants that looked like cool places to check out on subsequent visits.

The bus was decently empty, both surprising in the fact that it was a Sunday of a holiday weekend and unsurprising in that it was really freaking cold out and no one in their right mind was going to ride a double decker hop on hop off in these winds. What I didn’t know and you may not know, too, is that in the winter and periods of inclement weather, they enclose the top of the bus. So you can still see out, but the heat stays in. The back of the bus is open, but stayed warm enough to still be comfortable.

As we came out of Harlem and rode around to the east side of the park, we hopped out at the furthest stop the bus would make on the east side so we could walk over to Fifth Ave to do some shopping.

Fifth Ave is the shopping walk of fame. Windows looking in to displays of haute couture line both sides of a street that boasts some of the most high-end shopping in the world. Women trot down the street carrying handbags worth more than I make in a year and enough shopping bags to count as some kind of weight training exercise.

We ducked into Bergdorf’s first, primarily to get out of the cold but also because it is one of the most glamorous, visually stunning department stores in the United States. Plush carpets, sparkling chandeliers, absolute glam.

Next stop? A stop at the mothership to pick up some commemorative baubles.

We detoured into Trump Tower because the Starbucks app told us it was the closest location and we were in desperate need of some caffeine and a place to figure out where we wanted to go to dinner before our show.

A bit turned upside down, we wandered through the streets, ducking into a shop here and a Starbucks there to warm up while we made our way towards the theatre district. There aren’t really words to describe the kind of cold that swept through New York City on this particular weekend. An 11 block walk that would ordinarily take no longer than 15 minutes takes nearly an hour when you need to stop for hot coffee or to regain feeling in the tip of your nose every few blocks.

Hangin’ with Mr. Cooper

We had theatre tickets for the evening, so Times Square was going to end up being our final destination. With the frigid temps discouraging wandering and intentionally getting lost, our options for dinner were not only limited, but limited to Times Square.

I love Times Square. I do. But there’s no place in New York I’d rather be in less during a standard meal time. Options are generally limited to chains and places with some kind of cheesy shtick. The food is overpriced. Service is generally poor. The waits are insane.

The best option of a group of unappealing options was Junior’s Deli, a restaurant we’d been to a few years back on our first trip out to New York. Junior’s is known for their cheesecake, which I thought actually lived up to its hype. The wait for a table was a half hour at peak dinner time and we knew we’d like the food, so we settled into the least crowded corner of the waiting area and passed the time by reading the post I wrote about our first time dining at Junior’s to remember what we liked and what we didn’t.

When our buzzer went off, we were led into a busy dining area to a decently spacious table. Our server quickly came over to introduce himself, take our drink order and drop off bowls of cole slaw, pickles and beets.

I don’t know if the prices were lower since our first visit, or if they’ve stayed flat against the rate of inflation, but they were more than reasonable for the sandwiches we ordered for dinner – a rarity in Times Square. Our food came out piping hot and to order, and was completely satisfying. All in all, this was the best case scenario in opting to have dinner in Times Square.

Grilled Cheese

Pastrami on Challah

Cheeseburger

As we pondered which kind of cheesecake to order for dessert (because when you’re at a deli famous for their cheesecake, it’d be sacrilegious not to order a slice), we noticed some crowds forming outside the restaurant.

We opted for a slice of plain cheesecake and we enjoyed it while watching the patrons inside the restaurant line up against the window and try to figure out why everyone outside was crowding around.

A quick consultation with Lord Google told us that The Elephant Man was playing next door and that there were quite a few celebs starring in the production. As we left the restaurant and headed into a small shop next to the theater, the crowd got bigger and security started staking out their spots.

I went inside to buy a magnet, and when I came out, Bradley Cooper was making his rounds at the stage door, signing autographs and taking pictures.

I have a lot of respect for actors who make time to meet with their fans at the stage door. I have even more respect for Hollywood A-listers who star in Broadway shows and make time to do the stage door. But going outside to sign autographs on the coldest day New York City had seen in decades, where literally three to four minutes of skin exposure could result in the early stages of frostbite? Mega props to Bradley Cooper. After he’d done a full loop around the partition, he headed back inside and the crowd that had been gathering magically dissipated.

Look to the Western Sky

I had too many opinions on what show we should see. Naturally. I’m very serious about Broadway shows. I even have Broadway in Chicago season tickets so I can see every musical that passes through Chicago’s theatre district. And when I couldn’t decide what I wanted to see, I told Stephanie to pick a show and then not tell me what it was, only with the warning not to fuck this up. Basically, I was trusting her to choose Wicked because Wicked is just about the only musical I haven’t seen on stage yet that’s on my must-see list.

So Stephanie bought our tickets and in a random phone call to Mom one afternoon while I was in between meetings, Mom dropped a bomb on me:

“Are you excited to see Aladdin?”

I incredulously asked her if she was serious. One, this was supposed to be a surprise. Two, Aladdin!?!?!?! Who goes all the way to New York to see ALADDIN?! One one had, Stephanie did have an affinity for Aladdin. On the other, it’s not her favorite Disney movie. On one hand, it was a Tony winner. On the other hand, IT WAS ALADDIN. Mom had to be kidding (right?). But Mom doesn’t play tricks – she’s too pure of heart to play a trick.

So as our trip approached, it became obvious to me that we probably weren’t seeing Aladdin. I mean, we could be, but Stephanie and Mom were ribbing me way too much. It reminded me of the time Stephanie told me she had a commemorative brick dedicated to me outside of our local Wal-Mart for my 21st birthday.

I didn’t know where we were going after we left dinner. Wicked? Stephanie said tickets were super expensive for shitty seats. Les Mis? Two of our favorite stage actors were starring in it, but I’ve already seen Les Mis on stage. Cabaret had Emma Stone in it, but was supposedly sold out. We walked past theatre after theatre, each marquee serving as a check off a list of potential shows.

We turned a corner and suddenly, I found myself face to face with the marquee at the Gershwin. She did good. She did real good. And she had me fooled for a good solid week.

I bounced up and down, I grinned like a fool, I texted everyone I knew who’d care, I could not contain my joy. We were (finally) seeing Wicked and, not only that, but we had some majorly great seats in the first row of the loge. We found the bar on the loge level, ordered some (appropriately) green martini’s that were served in commemorative sippy cups and I was pretty sure that between this, our celeb encounter with Bradley Cooper, the trip to Tiffany’s, the stroll through Central Park, brunch at our favorite tea spot and just being in New York, this was probably the greatest day ever. It was the coldest day ever, but the greatest day ever, and the only thing that could have made it even slightly better would have been if the temperatures were the double digits. Or the positive digits. I would have taken either.

Wicked did not disappoint. The Gershwin is a stunning theatre. The sets were magical and the score was can’t-get-these-songs-out-of-your-head good. I sat at the edge of my seat, singing along to every song I knew.

Bright Lights and the Big City

If it were even possible, it was even more frigid outside when we exited the Gershwin. Any exposed swatch of skin was numb within moments of exposure. We stopped in a couple shops to pick up some last-minute souvenirs as we made our way back to Times Square, where the bright lights provided a little more warmth.

I still had, like, fifteen bucks on my Metro card, but Stephanie and Mom wouldn’t even entertain the idea of hopping on the subway and walking back to the hotel. It took a few minutes to hail an empty cab but the ride back was relatively quick.

Back at the hotel, we packed up our suitcases, took some hot showers and snuggled up under mountains of blankets as we caught the tail end of the Saturday Night Live anniversary special.

Goodbye, New York

An early flight meant an early wakeup call, but it was a beautiful, cloudless morning in Battery Park.

We didn’t have time to wander around or linger – flying on a holiday meant we were likely facing long lines at the airport – so we caught our last glimpses of the city through the window of our taxi on the way to LaGuardia.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: O’Hare spoils me. It’s not the most beautiful of airports, or the most tech savvy, but it serves me more than well. It sets a high bar. And I’m an airport girl – I like airports. I don’t like the lines, but I like the experience of being in an airport because being in an airport is almost always the kickoff to some kind of adventure and that brings an air of anticipation.

But I don’t like LaGuardia.

It’s cramped. It’s antiquated. It’s horridly out of date and the dining and shopping options are slim. They have a wall painted with a lyric from my favorite Taylor Swift song and a nice view of Manhattan from the runway, so it has a couple of things going for it. Our flight was slightly delayed while the plane was deiced, but thankfully, our visit to LaGuardia was a relatively short one.

Takeoff was a little rough, but my sister, ever the resourceful one, came prepared. With a coloring book. Of course Stephanie packed a coloring book. I scribbled mindlessly inside the lines, Stephanie looked out the window and Mom, bless her heart, was still trying to figure out how to work the seatback entertainment console.

The flight was a quick two hours and it felt like by the time we leveled off, we were beginning our descent. American’s flight path back into O’Hare comes in over Lake Michigan, and nothing says welcome home to me like that view of the skyline out the window.

We landed just before noon and I was back in my apartment and online getting some work done by 1:30. It was a short trip (only two full days, really), but that short getaway was just what I needed to feed that little bit of restlessness between our big trips.  We ate at our favorite brunch restaurant (…twice), we drove through Brooklyn, we criss-crossed the city taking pictures and we (finally) saw Wicked. Weekends don’t get much better than that.