I hadn't been to Manhattan for a couple of years. Well, actually, I do travel into Manhattan 5 times a week for work, but the only parts of the the city I see on those days are the areas around my office and Penn Station. When I go to work, it doesn't feel like I'm going to "the city"*, it just feels like I'm going to work.
* Sorry, Queens/Brooklyn/Staten_Island/The_Bronx folks. As a native outer-borough person ( from Queens ), I have to admit that we outer-borough folks have always referred to Manhattan as "the city". Don't get me wrong, Queens, Brooklyn, and the Bronx are great parts of of New York City ( Staten Island is a lovely place, but it's pretty much an extension of New Jersey. I'm sorry, but if you can't take the subway there, it's not really part of New York City. ), but nobody in NYC refers to them as "the city". If a New Yorker tells you, "I'm going into the city tonight", they don't mean they are heading into Brooklyn.
When the forecast called for beautiful weather last Saturday ( October 18th ), I decided that we should take advantage of what might be the last nice day of the year and have an outdoor family outing. We talked about a couple of options, but ultimately we all decided to have a family outing in "the city". What follows is a photo-essay of that outing.
As always, the boys were excited to be on the train.
( Actually, now that I think of it, we actually do travel into the city once a year to see the Big Apple Circus ( My company has a Big Apple Circus Day each year as a holiday event ), but I don't really consider that "going into the city". When we go to the circus, when generally head right home after the circus is done. )
Our plan was to walk from Penn Station ( 32nd St. and 7th Ave. ) to the Gramercy Park neighborhood Ruth and I lived in from 1998 - 2002 ( Ruth was doing her residency at Beth Israel at the time. We lived on the 23rd floor of an apartment building on 290 3rd Ave., between 22nd and 23rd St. ). On the way, we were hoping to stop at the original Shake Shack location in Madison Square Park ( Note: The Shake Shack kiosk in Madison Square Park didn't open until after we left the area ( in 2004 ). Shake Shack was preceded by a cart that was in Madison Square Park starting in 2001, but we never tried food from the cart while we were living near there. ). I've tried In-N-Out a few times on trips to California and I've had Five Guys burgers plenty of times on the East Coast, but any In-N-Out versus Five Guys debate became irrelevant to me after I tried a Shack Shack burger a few years ago at Citi Field. Since then, Shake Shack has become as much of a Citi Field outing tradition for our family as Mets victories.
Unfortunately, the night before our trip, I found that the Shake Shack kiosk in Madison Square Park had been shut down for renovations and would not open again until 2015. I came up with a few new plans for lunch in our old neighborhood, but we still thought it would be fun to let the boys enjoy Madison Square Park for a while.
After the boys built up an appetite at the playground, we headed over to Frank's Pizza on 23rd Street.
Frank's is a hidden gem that serves the best pizza I've ever had in Manhattan. *
* BTW, if you're not from New York, I should let you know that New York City's great reputation for Pizza is not based on Manhattan pizza. Manhattan pizza is usually quite poor compared to the pizza of the outer-boroughs. I had never tasted Manhattan pizza that was in the same class as the best pizza from my Queens neighborhood until I tasted Frank's pizza.
Being in the same class as the pizza in my old Queens neighborhood is no small feat. The best pizza shop in my part of Queens was good enough to get a shout-out in the popular New York City tourist guide video below ( New Park Pizza is mentioned in the section starting at 3:55 ):
I'm apparently not the only person who was impressed by Frank's pizza. The shop proudly displays the following review on their wall ( granted, the review is 23 years old, but the pizza really is as good as the review indicates ).
And most importantly, the pizza got Peter's stamp of approval!
After having our pizza ( just a slice each, to leave room for the food to come ), we took some pictures in front of our old apartment building ...
... and our old church.
The boys also took some time to have fun with some of the city pay phones.
However, the main reason we headed towards our old neighborhood was to have what many consider to be the best bagels in New York City. Back when we lived in Gramercy, trips to the original Ess-a-Bagel shop on the corner of 21st and 1st was a Sunday morning tradition. They are still as good as I remember.
Of course, now that we were this close to 15th Street, there was no way we were not going to visit the original site of our old high school on 15th Street between 1st and 2nd Avenue.
There were having some kind of event in the building, so we actually got to step inside the front door and take a few pictures.
We also took a picture next door in front of Beth Israel Medical Center, where Ruth did her residency.
Considering that Ruth and I had been indulging our nostalgia all day, we figured it would only be fair if we took the boys someplace were they could have some fun. So, soon after we left the Stuy area we found ourselves at Forbidden Planet.
The location of Forbidden Planet has changed since I used to go there during my Stuyvesant days ( I don't think I actually ever bought anything there, but I was there plenty of times when friends were shopping. ), but it was still roughly in the same area ( about 2 blocks south of Union Square ). The boys had fun and we bought them a "Teen Titans Go!" book, a Minecraft book, and a set dice that are generally used to play role-playing games ( The boys don't actually play role-playing games, but Michael was fascinated by the different kinds of dice ).
After Forbidden Planet, we headed to Pommes Frites. The place is supposed to have some of the best fries in the city. Ruth and I heard about the place on the Food Network after we had already left Manhattan, and we had always wanted to try it out. We were not disappointed.
After Pommes Frites, we walked over to some of Ukrainian restaurants near 9th Street and 2nd Avenue.
As much as I craved some of those delicious Veselka pierogies ...
... we needed to save room for some desert at Veniero's.
The boys had some gelato,
and Ruth and I shared some Italian cheesecake
and tiramisu.
After desert, we indulged the boys again by taking the subway to the Rockefeller Center area and going to Nintendo World.
We decided to have dinner before leaving the city. While we seriously considered showing the boys Grand Central and trying the Shake Shack location there, we instead headed to the last Baja Fresh in Manhattan ( after taking Peter to McD's, because he wasn't about to eat Mexican food ).
Ruth I and both became big fans of Baja Fresh after we discovered a location near our Jersey home back in 2003. There soon were several location near our home, but they've all closed in recent years. I've also noticed that they've been closing in Manhattan, and how there is only on Baja Fresh there. The last Baja Fresh in Manhattan was nearly empty when we got there, so I don't think Baja Fresh is going to survive in the New York metropolitan area for much longer. That's a shame, because I've always found their stuff to be much tastier than Chipotle. Unfortunately for me and my Mexican food cravings, most people like Chipotle better, and it looks like Baja Fresh may not be around for much longer.
In any case, those Baja Fresh buritos were a great way to end our day. After that, we walked over to Penn Station and took the train home. We were all worn out by the time we got home, especially Peter, who passed out on the couch about 5 minutes after we got home.
We all slept well with full tummies that night.
Rich
