NYC & SFO in August

NYC – August 13 & 14, 2011

Took advantage of the sun, shortly after we arrived from Toronto, to go for a stroll along one of the latest and very popular attractions in NYC, the High Line Park,

a mile and a half of elevated promenade built on a railway that was used in the yesteryears of New York to transport cargo along the port on the Hudson River. It was disaffected in 1980 and was destined to be demolished when, through the effort of a few local dedicated citizens and politicians, it was saved from destruction, and opened as a park by Bloomberg in the summer of 2009. The second section was inaugurated only earlier this summer. It runs from Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking district to the 30th street further North, between 10th and 11th avenues; there is a final section to be built that will curve towards the river to end at 34th (work has not started on that section which one can see at the very end of section 2; I am not even sure if its construction has been “approved” yet…)

I read somewhere (was it in the G&M Saturday?) that it was not cheap to build: $33,000 the linear foot! When I mentioned this to a couple of volunteers for the Park, they pointed out its popularity with people – 5 million visitors since its opening 2 years ago, far more than expected, and we could attest to that this Saturday afternoon! Plus the tremendous economic impact it has in the on-going revival of this once dilapidated area of town – new restaurants, new boutiques, etc… (the NY Times reported when the mayor inaugurated the park in 2009, that the 2 sections had cost $152M, $44M of which would have come from “Friends of the High Line Park”...there is indeed along the park signs of sponsorship at work…) Regardless, it is considered a rather expensive way to go about city greening or reviving. The park is apparently featured in the Toronto design magazine Azure, this month.

P.S. featured as well in the Sunday Styles section of the NYT, August 28, 2011 (http://www.nytimes.com/pages/style/index.html)
Had picked up Dominique in the East Village (on 7th Street, between Avenue C and Avenue D, also known as avenue Crazy and avenue Death as she says, close to the East River) on the way to the High Line Park. Walked back to the hotel on 44th Street – the City Club Hotel – via busy as ever Times Square. Dinner at Bar Boulud (one of several eateries under Boulud’s brand around NYC – another one is right at our hotel, Cuisine Boulud, where we had dinner a few years ago, and known for its foie gras burger!), across from the Lincoln Center, before going to see “Freud’s Last Session” (conversation imagined between C.S. Lewis, the believer, and Freud, the atheist, near the latter's death)at a nearby theater.

Rainy day on Sunday – very rainy! Brunch at Tribeca Grill – everybody knows about this very good eatery (“Robert de Niro is one of the founding owners, and other bla-blas” – he is also credited for starting the Tribeca Film Festival some 10 years ago), and where we learned that TriBeCa means “Triangle Below Canal Street” – once an industrial area, now probably the most expensive and sought after – particularly by “celebrities” – residential area of NYC!

Visit to the New Museum of Contemporary Art, further up and eastward on Bowery (in a neighborhood known as NoLIta – “North of Little Italy”!) The latest home of the Museum, conceived some 40 years ago as an alternative place for contemporary arts. Very modern-looking to say the least: a tall stack of unevenly lined boxes – declining in size as they go up – and shrouded in a shimmering skin – a mesh made of aluminum. Open in late 2007. Went to see the exhibition “Ostalgia”, a play on words, referring to the apparently nostalgia inspired by Eastern Europe before the fall of the Berlin Wall; recent works by eastern European artists – very “alternative”…

Coffee and cakes nearby – very attractive neighborhood – then off to the airports (LaGuardia for Cynthia, going back to TO; JFK for Dominique and I) with a pit stop at Dominique’s flat in East Village to pick up our luggage.
Then, the long trek to the American West Coast – Dominique to Portland, me to San Francisco…

San Francisco, 15 & 16 of August, 2011

Back in town for the yearly “Bandwidth” music/technology conference – they have been holding it now for a few years in the former local Federal Reserve Bank building in the Financial District – the Bently Reserve Conference Center; holding a dinner as well in nearby Stock Exchange Tower on Sansome – opened in 1930, one of the best examples of Art Deco in SFO: there is a great mural from Rivera in the stairways leading up from the floor (11th?) where the dinner is held.

Lunch at the nearby Prebecco restaurant, on California (sister to Barbecco, nearby).

Staying at the Intercontinental Hotel – the Mark Hopkins, a landmark in SFO, at the top of Nob Hill. Great view from the "Top of the Mark" where you take breakfasts.

Stopped by favorite local bookstore – City Lights Books – corner of Broadway and Columbus, “home” of the beatnik generation – Kerouac, Ginsberg, Ferlinghetti, Dylan, etc. Picked up a few books: Bob Dylan in America for Cynthia, Décadence Manchoue for me.

Picture below: From the top of Broadway Street, just before the fog starts settling in...

“Redeye” back to TO.