We took the subway to Greenwich Village and walked all around the Village, Little Italy, and Soho. Most of Washington Square Park was being renovated, but we did get to see the famous arch. We found the historic Stonewall Inn which is where riots broke out in 1969 to protest the repeated arresting and jailing of gay and trans people by the police which had been a constant practice. This started the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bi, and trans) rights movement. Across the street, there are some very nice life size statues of a male couple and a female couple; great photo op! Since Cory is gay (and OK'd my saying this on this blog), this was a meaningful stopping point for both of us. The Oscar Wilde book store is no more, but we did enjoy a brief trip to the famous Strand Bookstore which has six floors! We also had egg creams (delicious beverage with milk, chocolate syrup, seltzer water and no eggs or cream!) This was very filling, so we didn't eat at Bobby Flay's Mesa cafe, just gazed.

Evening: We returned to the hotel, changed for the evening, and set out for Ochi's Lounge which "Time Out New York" lists as having an evening of stand-up comedy every Tuesday entitled "Dykes on Mics". Ochi's is underneath Comix comedy club in the West Village. Before we entered the club, we found a great store/deli which had wonderful paninis. Ochi's is the first bar we have been to together (Cory turned 21 last December!) "Dykes on Mics" features comic Amy Beckerman hosting an evening of several comics doing short bits (actually a combination of lesbian and straight women and a gay man). It was very small, with equal numbers of audience members and performers. We enjoyed chatting with some of them after the show and they gave us tips on some gay bars which we checked out later!

Later, near our hotel, we were wanting dessert, so we headed back to the Carnegie Deli where we enjoyed authentic NYC cheesecake with some nutritious strawberries as a counterbalance! The walls are covered with photos of celebrities, though we didn't meet any that night.

written by  dafna33 on April 4, 2010 from New York, United States
from the travel blog: New York City 2010
tagged Stonewall, ZabarS and OchiS
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Meeting Alan again was a real treat, and we had a lot of fun seeing actually three special exhibits with him. First, Tim Burton. Amazing! I had no idea he did so much painting and drawing. Some walls were practically covered from floor to ceiling with his work. Burton draws you into his wacky, dark, subversive, devilish, crazed universe and you never want to leave! There was Edward Scissorhands and stuff from Ed Wood and Mars Attacks! Oh, my. I am now on a personal Tim Burton film festival, starting with Big Fish.

Then, we took a break and had lunch in the fun MoMA cafe (great arugula!) A woman across from us took our picture. She had a tattoo of a wrist watch where a watch would be. Her tattooed watch had the word "now" on the face.

The other exhibits: Marina Abramovic who is a performance artist. This was a retrospective of many years of her work, with videos of performance pieces. Marina herself was there and was performing a piece in which she sat at a table continuously throughout the day (I don't know how she did that, frankly). There was a chair across from her on the other side of the table. Museum visitors would line up (sometimes waiting for hours) and take turns sitting in the other chair, and she and they would simply gaze at each other. Quite stunning! In another part, there were two nude women standing and facing each other closely in a doorway from one exhibit room into another. Museum visitors could walk between them, or there was another way to get into the next hall as well (thankfully!). There was also a piece which had a massive pile of cattle bones. A lot of jarring images.

And lastly, William Kentridge, a South African artist who does fairly dark, political work, largely dealing with Apartheid. The best parts were his animation pieces which he makes by making charcoal marks and then erasing them and changing them, filming each change. These were shown in small darkened rooms which you could watch as you walked by. Really interesting!

Then, we parted with Alan and dashed off to the TKTS booth in Times Square to get same day theater tickets, and we got tickets for Avenue Q! Then, we actually returned to MoMA and saw more stuff (we really couldn't get enough!) We had street gyros on the way back to the hotel.

Avenue Q was really fun. It features puppets (which resemble muppets) and is not for kids at all! A lot of the songs deal with things that we all think but don't talk about (eg, racism, sex, porn)! And so it is a quite therapeutic experience to have all of that on stage.

Next (whew!) we sauntered off to Marie's Crisis Cafe (really a bar). Two separate friends suggested (no, insisted!) that we go there. It's a piano bar in Greenwich Village where show tunes are featured. What a fun time! Some songs were sing-alongs, and sometimes people did solos. When we left, the piano player and the coat guy gave us hugs!

written by  dafna33 on April 4, 2010 from New York, United States
from the travel blog: New York City 2010
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We returned to the hotel to rest and get ready for our big evening out. Cory located a restaurant (his iphone was really helpful on this trip!) with a Montana theme which features buffalo. We went there and had buffalo steaks which were delicious. Then, we hung out for awhile at a coffee place (so we wouldn't miss Seattle too much!) before going to the theater to see Wicked! We were in the seventh row and saw everything just great, including flying monkeys overhead. We will never think of the Wicked Witch of the West in the same way again. It was the total back story of Oz.

Then, it was time to go out after the show. Cory wanted to go to a bar called McGee's which is purported to be the prototype of the bar in the TV show "How I Met Your Mother" with Neil Patrick Harris. Well, we went to it, but it looked like just a basic bar, nothing special. So, we left and decided to go to a bar called Therapy which was one of the gay bars recommended to us by the people at Ochi's. It's on 52nd Street between 8th and 9th Avenues. It was wonderful! It's got a really cool vibe and a really comfortable space on two floors. A nice crowd (and very nice eye candy!). On the second floor, there was a show going on with guys who volunteered for a dance competition (stripped to their underwear!) The MC was a woman who used to be on Broadway, entertaining us with jokes and song ("I'll do Bette, Liza, or Barbra"). She was fairly scantily clad as well. Then, Cory bought us drinks. And I had the most amazing Lemon Drop I have ever had (it's my favorite drink). It was shaken so much it had foam on the top. It was delicious and incredibly strong as if it was all vodka with a half teaspoon of lemon juice! I was plastered after the one drink, and Cory found this extremely amusing. So, we needed to go somewhere to sober up. We found a diner which looked exactly like the diner in "Seinfeld", and I gradually came back to earth after a BLT and some of Cory's fries. It was a fun night, what can I say?

written by  dafna33 on April 4, 2010 from New York, United States
from the travel blog: New York City 2010
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The subways!! Yes, yes. We rode a lot of them and became expert MetroCard users. I love the dank, dingy smell in the subway stops, the rumbling and screeching noises, the lights flashing in the dark through the windows between the stops. It's so great that you can just hop on a subway after a night out and just get home and there are lots of other people out doing that, too.

And I love the streets glutted with yellow taxis. And I love walking down the street with so many people. I thought people overall seemed pretty friendly (of course there were people who were extra friendly because they were trying to sell us comedy club tickets!). But, we really liked the whole New York vibe and the whole pulsing feel of the city. So, I can't wait to go back again! If you have a chance to go, definately do it!

written by  dafna33 on April 4, 2010 from New York, United States
from the travel blog: New York City 2010
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