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How to Visit NYC (without pissing me off)
presents The Best of NYC (web exclusives are in blue)
Bathrooms: Bar 89 (89 Mercer St.)
You have never seen anything like these bathrooms and there’s a reason why it’s first on my list. Bar 89 is a kinda hip bar down in Soho that attracts a lot of annoying eurotrash who smoke too much. (Since writing this, smoking has been baneed in NYC, so it’s no longer an issue) The food is a little fancy, but since I’m the most difficult prick in the world to feed, and I’m saying that there’s at least one thing on the menu that I’ll eat. The bar looks really cool and they’re constantly changing the interior with the changing of the seasons. For Christmas one year they had huge trees hanging from the ceilings and more often the decor is very stylish but understated. All the waitresses are hot and the place is definitely a cool place to be seen. The amazing thing is that the food is pretty cheap and their liquor drinks are great. To me, the second best thing about the place is the french fries. They’re gorgeous and huge waffle-cut fries that are never greasy and always taste like they were made two seconds ago. The other day we were talking about our favorite fries in the world (of course we were tormenting ourselves on the way home from the gym since we’ve all stopped eating fries) and while McDonald’s makes a good one, the ones at Bar 89 are a million times better. So if you’re in NYC and just want some liquor and fries, go down to Bar 89 and get a table. Have a few drinks and then hit the cool stairs in the back of the place. You’ll notice how high the ceilings are as you ascend the stairs and then how the owners really are doing amazing things with such a small space. At the top of the stairs you’ll see a few small bathrooms that are unisex. I know you might wonder why there are six or so separate bathrooms, and then you’ll say, why are the doors clear? That’s the cool part. The doors are like seven feet high and slightly smoked glass. You can see right through them from the outside, but go inside for a second and close the little latch which serves as a lock. In an instant the door will fill with liquid crystal, making it completely opaque. You can’t see out and no one can see in. Open the latch, the liquid crystal comes right out and you can see right through the door again! Someone I know actually went in there and didn’t lock the door properly, sat down, and wondered why she could still see right through the door. Ooops! Don’t make that mistake, though. You’ve been warned.
Pizza [slice]: Two Boots (various locations)
I worked two different jobs in the same neighborhood (the border of Houston Street and Lafayette or so. Oh, by the way, if you come to NYC, the street that runs east and west right beneath it is NOT Zero St. It’s Houston street, but it’s not pronounced like that shithole city in Texas, it’s pronounced HOUSE-TUN. If you pronounce it wrong in front of a NYer, you’ll be reminded how stupid you are very quickly.) and this was the closest pizza place that wasn’t heinous. The crust is light and crispy, the sauce is spicy and rich and the cheese is very fresh. But more than that, they have cool names (with photos) for the different slices, like the Newman (after Newman on Seinfeld) and of course, Mr. Pink (after the character in Reservoir Dogs). They also have Sicilian (which many people just think of as being square pizza) and lots of other dishes. It’s also wicked cheap and they have very fast service. There’s other locations further east and west in the Village and they’re all equally good. In 2004, a new chain opened called Pie which is also very good. They make long, thin-crust pizza and you tell them how much you want. Then they cut off a piece for you, weigh it, and then they charge you based on weight.
Pizza [pie]: Patsy’s (various locations)
In the neighborhood where I used to live (Murray Hill, just like on my old PO Box address), there were about fourteen different pizza places that would deliver for free within 20 minutes of your order. No shit. The competition is so fucking fierce that they all give away premiums, use computers to track your orders and they also mail coupons, but they still can’t beat Patsy’s.
Produce: Chelsea Market (16th St. & 10th Ave.)
I haven’t been to this market in a few years because in 2004 they started opening up Whole Foods in Manhattan, which has the best and most consistent produce in NYC.
Chinese: Empire Wok (2nd Ave. & 81st)
I wrote a long piece called, “Get A Piece of the Wok” in Negative Capability #2 all about this place because it’s my favorite restaurant in the world. You must go if you’re ever in NYC.
Skyscraper: Chrysler Building (42nd St. and Lex.)
Classic design, gorgeous in every way. If I was a big monkey, this is the building that I would climb.
Coffee: Oren’s Daily Roast (various locations)
I don’t drink coffee and I never have. My wife has been a crackhead since high school. She is a regular at Starbucks, but like many of their best customers, she will talk shit about them regularly. Around the corner from our apartment (and with many locations throughout the Village) was a tiny little Oren’s. They have great coffee, make excellent iced coffee, awesome candies (including the awesome Frozen Hot Chocolate packs from the NYC restaurant Serendipity 3), and for me, they make a damn good hot chocolate in winter.
Dog Run: SW Washington Square Park
Whenever Juli and I were in the Village and bummed out, we would always head down here and just watch the dogs. When it was really hot, we’d sit in the shade and watch the dogs fight over the water and splash each other and feel like the world was going to be okay. Sometimes it gets a little bit smelly in the summer, but it’s best at dusk on a warm summer night.
Most Frenzied Crowds of Worker Bees: Grand Central Station (42nd St. and Park Ave.)
I lived in Westchester County for a few months and every day I had to sit on a train platform in the freezing cold at 7 a.m. and wait for a train crowded with vomits to take me to Grand Central. When I arrived, it was the most crowded place on earth, just buzzing with insanely violent waves of human traffic. It always freaked me out because I don’t drink coffee in the morning and so for the first few hours of every day, I’m extremely vulnerable to circumstance.
East River View: Carl Schurz Park (85th St. & East End Ave.)
Cool Thing to Do for No Reason: the Roosevelt Island Tram (2nd Ave. near 59th St.)
Great Authentic NYC Movies/TV Shows: Ghostbusters, Stripes, Scrooged, After Hours, Arthur, Taxi Driver, Gloria (the original), Unmade Beds, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, When Harry Met Sally, The Cruise (a documentary about a NYC tour guide), Taxicab Confessions, Law & Order.
The Worst of NYC
The garbage smell on Sundays.
Stores, restaurants and apartment buildings begin to put their garbage on the street for a Monday morning pickup starting on Friday afternoon. No shit. They will pour messy, cheap garbage bags full of rotting meat in the street. By the time Sunday rolls around, the world is a lot more pungent than it ought to be. One of the few things I don’t like about NYC.
Everything’s so goddamn expensive, every single movie is $9.50 (probably $10 by the time you read this) and there are never discount matinees. As of 2005, most movies are $10.75 and rising. I saw Batman Begins and V for Vendetta in IMAX for $15, but it was worth every penny. Man, those two movies were good.
From fresh fruit to rent, everything is more expensive than you can possibly imagine. There are some bargains to be found, but not in the tourist areas. If you want a deal, go off the beaten path. The parades and cabbies that cause insane traffic.
In the darkest, most foul and most mind-crushingly humid parts of hell there are a bunch of guys in wife-beaters talking about how people don’t tip enough or show enough respect for their particular strain of the human virus. The Irish are the worst because they start fights, get drunk and throw up all over everything while acting like their ethnic group is somehow superior. I hate to break it to them but being superior and puking on one’s own shoes are mutually exclusive, I think. Next on the list are the various Hispanic groups, including Puerto Rican and Dominican because they roast pigs in the street, gang grope women, spray people with beer and ride around thirty to a car while honking their horns and hanging their fucking flags out the window. They should BAN ALL FUCKING PARADES FOREVER. The cabbies are constantly knocking on the floor below the parade people. They really need to shut up and die.
The fact that you can’t swing a dead president without hitting a hardcore Jew.
I may very well be a card-carrying Jew and all, but I hate the Orthodox members of every religion. Beyond Orthodox Jews (like that douchebag Joe Lieberman) there are the Hasidim who wear black coats and grow the curls and smell like rotting goat carcass covered with human sweat.
Waiting on line for everything, even dumb shit.
Even in a dump like the drugstore Duane Reade, there are always lines, even in the middle of the night. I mean, if you’re nervous about shopping in a store by yourself, NYC is the place for you.
The vague urine stench found in most places.
No public toilets + French tourists + illegal immigrants from Eastern Europe = urine smell.
Disgusting pukes from every corner of the world will rub up against you so you can enjoy their smell.
Tourists like you.
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