Upper East Side
Eli’s Vinegar Factory, A Grocery Store Godsend
I honestly cannot go near the vicinity of 91st between First Ave and York without being pleasurably overwhelmed by the smell of freshly baked bread. For an Irish girl like myself – there is no better smell (except maybe a Smithwick’s draft). This is the aroma of Eli’s Vinegar Factory, a more-than-your-average grocery store. (If I could afford to shop there daily, I certainly would, no doubt). The food is always fresh and extravagant and definitely worth every cent after far as quality is concerned.
NYC Graffiti Files: UES Edition
When my friends and I studied abroad in Italy, one of our favorite things to document via digital camera was the graffiti that was pretty much EVERYWHERE. Wayward teens that had snuck out past curfew felt no hesitance in leaving their mark on, say, the side of the Pantheon, an ancient Roman temple dedicated to the gods.
When I was visiting Berlin, graffiti also covered what is now left of the Berlin wall, which some may find tasteless but I liked to think of it as a giant “F-U” to leaders of decades past and reclaiming of history. And now as part of my initiative to take more pictures of this incredibly photogenic city, I’ve decided to start my NYC graffiti file for photos. Of course, everyone is welcome to join.
A Good Coffee Is Hard To Find
Whenever I move to a new part of town, my motives are simple and few – explore the neighborhood and seek out a more or less nondescript coffee place that I will call my own and entrench myself so deeply that my order is ready without the words “large coffee, black, please” having to be formulated. I generally go for the café that would not be an apparent chain (if it turns out another exists on the island – so be it) and I usually like to get a mini historical rundown of my chosen location.
The Upper East Side: An Apologia
Today The New York Observer posted an article on their real estate blog titled “More Kids Dating Soho, Marrying the Upper East Side” about born-and-bred Upper East Siders moving back uptown to their home neighborhood after spending some time in the city’s “grittier environs”, as the writer calls it, so that they may–get this–get Soho, the Lower East Side, or Chelsea out of their system. (Note: I think only Upper East Siders refer to Soho, LES, or Chelsea as “gritty.” You really HAVEN’T ever gone over the bridge, have you?)
I’ll get the other deeply elitist and embarrassing point of the article out of the way now, which was not that these former downtown rebels were moving back between 59th and 96th so that they could outsource their parents’ housekeepers and the family dog, because that’s too cringe-worthy to even touch on for me. But rather that 86th Street is *gasp* that commercialized urban strip mall where “classes collide” in the “microcosm” of the Upper East Side. (Read: The four-way intersection around the subway that is less white than surrounding streets, due to those domestic workers coming from above 125th Street. Because really, who else will do your laundry and watch your kids while you sip lattes with the ladies who lunch?) More »