I Love New York!

Back in the late 1980s and early 90s, a whole other lifetime ago, I lived in Upstate New York, near Albany. There were several occasions when I had to go down to "The City" for my job, and I hated these trips with a passion. I found New York City scary (it was, then), big, dirty, and an altogether unpleasant place to be. Fast forward twenty years—now I look forward to the day after Thanksgiving almost every year, because Mr. D and I spend the it in New York City. We get up before any of the other in-laws and cousins, and catch the nine o'clock express New Jersey Transit train to New York, so we can arrive at Penn Station before ten. In most years we have tickets for a two o'clock matinee performance of a musical. This year we chose Stomp, playing off-Broadway, so that we would see something that the six year-old nephew would enjoy (he did), and we were given the gift of an extra hour, as the matinee didn't start until three.

We have a standard routine: first, walk over to Fifth Avenue and wander up to Rockefeller Center. We stop to watch the skaters on the ice rink and browse the branch of the Metropolitan Museum store located there. We travel further up Fifth Avenue, passing by the beautiful St. Patrick's Cathedral.

 In most years, we head to a museum. This year, our favorite, the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum, was closed for renovations, so instead, we headed to Tender Buttons, a place I've wanted to visit ever since I first read about it at least ten years ago.

Tender Buttons is, as you might have guessed, a button store. But it is also a small button museum, with antique buttons in glass display cases, just as you might see them in a museum. It's a totally fascinating place, and I could have spent a lot more time there than the half-hour or so that we did.

Next, we walked through Central Park. It was a gorgeous late November day, with the temperature in the high 50s, and Central Park provided many memorable scenes that were just waiting for me and my camera.  Here are just a few of them:

We reluctantly left Central Park, but the next destination was a good one, at least for me—Knitty City, located on the Upper West Side. I've heard about Knitty City on one of my favorite knitting podcasts, Knit, Knit Cafe, and it sounded like a very nice yarn store. It turns out that it was! The place was hopping, but the staff that we encountered were all pleasant and helpful, and the place was crammed with yarn. I ended up purchasing this:

It's Sweet Georgia Tough Love Sock, in the colorway Saltwater. Funny—I had to go all the way to New York City to purchase a yarn that was hand-dyed 140 miles away from me, in Vancouver, BC. Oddly enough, I've never seen this yarn in any yarn store that I've been in on the West Coast.

From Knitty City, we headed to the subway, which we took to the East Village. We had lunch and dessert and met up with the rest of the family for a delightful performance of Stomp. All in all, a wonderful day. I really do love New York!