Lower East Side & TriBeCa - 13 Oct

At the jazz session last night, we were surprised to be very crowded in - six to a table (they actually had seating for 8) but luckily the last couple didn't make it. Ray Gelato is a classic New York Italian American (in my opinion) although he's hailed as being from London (England) as they mentioned several times, with no discernible English accent.

A quite good singer of Jazz and the occasional Blues standards as well as several original songs all relating to food (such as 'Why'd you have to take my last meatball?'), Ray also plays the tenor saxophone quite well. He was supported by a Philadelphia based Swing band which seems strange given the Blue Note is supposed to be the supreme Jazz venue in New York City and surely there's another local back up band he could have used?! The City Rhythm Orchestra was good though.

We got home around 10pm and unfortunately for me, not a great night's sleep, although Mark was fine.

Today - 13 October - we were excited about spending more time in the Lower East Side and TriBeCa areas. We started out with the Tenement Museum on Orchard Street. They have an excellent store and their guides are very informative and educational. After a crepe in a nearby area (waiting for the 12pm session to start as the 11.15am was sold out), we spent a very interesting hour with Judy learning about a real family's experience (The Moore's of Ireland) in NYC in the 1860's. It was extremely tough and when the building was vacated by its last tenant in 1933, it lay dormant until the Tenement Museum was created in the 1990's. Tenement actually was a name for apartment but came to be associated with poor housing (like the Housing Commission Flats in Melbourne), rather than quality living. They had no requirement for running water or electricity and even though the building owner and his family lived in it for many decades, they also didn't have these luxuries (necessities).


Typical street scene - walk-up, building fire escape on footpath, delivery van & taxi, all I'm missing is the homeless guy and all the NYC cliches have been met!


Typical lower east side tenement


Fire escapes on every building


Another typical scene

Afterwards we walked around checking out some quite cool and crazy one off local designer shops in the Lower East Side and I found an interesting bracelet (arm band) and a pair of jeans. We grabbed lunch at a Thai place and then headed over towards TriBeCa.

We walked around - you could tell it was more expensive, as there were very few street level shops as those there were either large restaurants (like Nobu), art galleries or expensive furniture shops. One gallery had limited edition Banksy prints for $22,000 USD each! They were only the size of an A4 page! Getting towards TriBeCa you are also getting close to the Hudson river and it was extremely windy, so much so, I nearly got blown over at times.


Cast iron architecture allowed bigger windows to be placed in buildings rather than the small windows in brick buildings, often tenements


Tribeca


Several streets in TriBeCa have these walkways between the buildings.


Melbourne or Soho?

Exhausted after nearly 6hrs of walking we made it home about 5.30pm and collapsed. We went out again for dinner at Tree, (http://treenyc.com/) a French inspired local bistro which has a fabulous Prix Fixe 3 courses for $25 pp which was lovely alongside a glass of Cotes Du Rhone.

Ready for a good sleep now.