Tourist in My Town

New York City feels to me like a place I will never have fully explored, and that makes it even more appealing - it remains quite the elusive figure: she whose depths will never quite be plumbed. Luckily, excited friends visiting often have their own ideas about fun places to go. And I can host and go along for the ride.

My great friend Nina visited me a couple of weeks back, armed with the latest copy of Time Out - circled in black throughout with the must-sees and the might-sees. I've known Nina for ten years, since we both worked on an American study abroad program(me) in Oxford, she as a visiting professor, I as British student mentor. On our very first day of meeting we discovered a shared love of literature, films and cocktails. A potent combination for friendship. Ten years later our weekend plans, perhaps unsurprisingly, included a bar or four, a movie and a trip to St Mark's book store.

The Original Speakeasy Look

A long established trend in the city of New York is a revisiting of the drinking heritage of speakeasies. Once the way around the prohibition era, the speakeasies paved the way for women's entry into bar life. (Well, if you make drinking in bars illegal for everyone, what's to say that some are more illegal than others?) An FBI study proved that the longest time it took - across America - to get an illegal drink in any such speakeasy from the time one arrived at any railway station, was about 3 minutes. (In New Orleans they even had a speakeasy in the station. Smart thinking!)

Two modern speakeasies of note are PDT (Please Don't Tell) - which I will obey and leave mysterious for now (though I'm pretty sure that those in the know need no telling anyhow) and Death and Company. Addams' Family-style doors and a sombre, soberly dressed doorman lead the way into the dark bar, lit by candles and not much else. Air conditioning and credit card payments the two key modern attributes of this otherwise authentic looking bar. Well, that and the hipster clientele.

A candle-lit Vesper - chilled and delicious

Further to the speakeasy trend, the prevalence of bearded New York city bar tenders only contributes to the air of casual subversiveness. I'm not quite sure why this is. Bill Bryson is someone I'd never describe as casually subversive in this way, beard or no beard, but the young, bristly bearded men seem like they've said, "Aesthetically I'm over the studied chic. It's time to let it all hang out." So maybe Sixties cocktail lounges will be next.

Visiting Gilbert and George's London Pictures, East Village NYC

Discovering new places with old friends is one of the greatest pleasures of catching up - when there's so much in the way of catch up conversation, but there's also enough new experience in the mix that one can fluctuate between the two - take a break from one and get back to the other. Bar hopping, gallery dipping, cinema viewing (we saw Headhunters - Danish crime / suspense drama) and book shop browsing provided perfectly poised antidotes for our incessant catch up chatter.

Sushi at Ooki, to finish it all off on Saturday night, was a perfect end to a perfect 'staycation' with a great friend.

Bed, Bath and Beyond...before and after

It's spring time in New York, and the streets are full of butterflies. Among the tourists and commuters hankering for sidewalk space, the red admiral butterflies particularly seem very keen to get into Foot Locker. But seeing nothing in his size, I presume, one headed on to Bank of America instead.

The spring time weather brings out the hipsters in their shorts and sunglasses, the bohemian types in sun dresses and sandals, and on Sundays the smart sun dresses and flats for champagne brunches. And for shopping, which seems less a pastime here than a sport and a necessity.

View from my bedroom area through to the front room

For me, this was the time to find an apartment. Having successfully acquired a bank account with little to no trouble, I was excited to start this process and looked through hundreds of adverts on Craig's List and many other sites to find the perfect New York pied-a-terre. All lined up to spend my first Saturday hunting for apartments with a broker, I never heard from the guy after our first phone conversation, so was immediately off-piste looking for individual places online.

It seems that the fast life style in New York most certainly applies to apartment hunting. Within seconds of texting a potential apartment contact I had lined up an appointment for three hours later, and took myself off to the Upper East Side. To see the smallest apartment I had imagined. Literally, a small boxy room which could house (I would guess) a futon or sofa bed, a small table and a TV. In one room. Tiny closet. Tiny kitchen, tiny (powder blue) bathroom. (Comparatively) massive price tag. And facing onto 2nd Ave, where the 2nd Ave subway is being constructed at a snail's pace.

Exposed Brick Wall in the Front Room

Only one set of applicants were able to apply for each apartment at the same time. And sadly, a couple were ahead of me in the race. Such a shame. Luckily, they left quickly and I pounced on the broker for another opportunity, and she took me to a larger apartment which no one had seen yet. It was when I left and realised that I was already decorating it that I knew I had to attack. With a nifty trip to Staples on Sunday, suddenly I had produced all the documentation I needed and one week later I moved in!

Kitchen (I) complete with US sized fridge

Kitchen (II) with new stove

American apartments usually come unfurnished, so the first weekend moving in focused on fairly important matters like: finding a bed to sleep in, a chair to sit in, and making sure the A/C worked (it does!). And then thinking about the bathroom which Miss Piggy would probably feel more at home in than I did...

Bathroom...yep...

One sunny Saturday a week ago I had no furniture.  One week later, and it's my second weekend in New York. I have trawled the SoHo, downtown and my neighbourhood thrift stores for many different kinds of furniture. Finally I got a bed, a chair, a rug, a dining room, media cabinet, kitchen cart...and a TON of stuff at Bed, Bath and Beyond, where I spent an OBSCENE amount of money.

 Enjoy the before and after pictures and let me know what you think! More on New York lifestyle next time...

After pictures...purchases!

Front room with couch, rug a-la-Mondrian and media cabinet (and the NYC view)!

Bedroom (I)

Bedroom (II)

For some reason the bathroom picture won't upload the right way...so more to come of that...