Half-day adventure (part one)
Curtis Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels, and a morning host at WABC was filling in for Sean today. As he has his own staff, there was minimal work for me to busy myself with. A side note this early on may be uncouth, but if you'd care for an interesting bio on Mr. Sliwa, you can read it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Sliwa
With half a day suddenly in my hands, I decided to go on a photo journey for my blog friends.
*psst!* That's you!
I dressed for walking, and took the NQRW subway line down to Canal Street. My goal for the first part of this trip was Chinatown, and Little Italy. I walked with dorm friends to both sections of town about 3 weeks ago, but I was sans camera that Sunday afternoon.
Here's a map showing my path, via subway, to Canal Street.
The blue on this map shows my "on-foot" path through Chinatown and Little Italy. The blue "X" at the end of the path shows where I took the train uptown, but there's more of that story to come.
First of all, you know you're in a different part of town when you exit the subway, and see a McDonalds with Chinese characters.
Now we're definitely in Chinatown. This section of town used to very much be Little Italy, but as the presence of Italians in the section of town waned, the presence of Chinese, Taiwanese, and some Koreans grew. The area also just screams black market. Bootleg DVDs of movies out in theaters, knock-off (or stolen) designer purses, and basically whatever goods the mob most recently came across are on-sale for cheap in Chinatown.
There are also a lot of very fresh seafood markets in Chinatown. Live crabs squirm around in tupperware bins, and a man with metal tongs and rubber gloves recaptures them if they start to scramble their way down the street. Squid, giant shrimp, and more fish than I can name fill open-air stores, filling the air with tasty wafts of rotting sea life.
A store declaring itself to be an "Asian Mall" lured me in, and subsequentially disappointed me. Basically, the place had traditional medicines and souvenir garbage. A big plastic case of roots, and a box full of mushrooms were things I don't see every day, though.
On to Little Italy. Almost completely surrounded by Chinatown, Little Itally is basically a row of restaurants, cafes, and churches. I tried to wander outside this row of Little Italy to find a more "authentic" scene, but nothing emerged. I either found some run-down school, or started seeing signs with Chinese characters again. Having not eaten in Littly Italy since 2001, I can't say first-hand, but rumor has it that the best Italian food in NYC is no longer found in Little Italy.
Speaking of Italy, car alert. A Ferrari drove by me in Chinatown, and I snapped a quick couple of pictures. I'm less familiar with the Ferrari line, but I'm pretty sure we're looking at a F430. Someone please e-mail me if I'm wrong.
Okay. This concludes part one of my half day adventure. When I get another free hour to blog, I'll give an account of the second part of my day's journey. From here, I took the A/C/E line uptown to my second destination.
More soon!
With half a day suddenly in my hands, I decided to go on a photo journey for my blog friends.
*psst!* That's you!
I dressed for walking, and took the NQRW subway line down to Canal Street. My goal for the first part of this trip was Chinatown, and Little Italy. I walked with dorm friends to both sections of town about 3 weeks ago, but I was sans camera that Sunday afternoon.
Here's a map showing my path, via subway, to Canal Street.
The blue on this map shows my "on-foot" path through Chinatown and Little Italy. The blue "X" at the end of the path shows where I took the train uptown, but there's more of that story to come.First of all, you know you're in a different part of town when you exit the subway, and see a McDonalds with Chinese characters.
Now we're definitely in Chinatown. This section of town used to very much be Little Italy, but as the presence of Italians in the section of town waned, the presence of Chinese, Taiwanese, and some Koreans grew. The area also just screams black market. Bootleg DVDs of movies out in theaters, knock-off (or stolen) designer purses, and basically whatever goods the mob most recently came across are on-sale for cheap in Chinatown.
There are also a lot of very fresh seafood markets in Chinatown. Live crabs squirm around in tupperware bins, and a man with metal tongs and rubber gloves recaptures them if they start to scramble their way down the street. Squid, giant shrimp, and more fish than I can name fill open-air stores, filling the air with tasty wafts of rotting sea life.
A store declaring itself to be an "Asian Mall" lured me in, and subsequentially disappointed me. Basically, the place had traditional medicines and souvenir garbage. A big plastic case of roots, and a box full of mushrooms were things I don't see every day, though.
On to Little Italy. Almost completely surrounded by Chinatown, Little Itally is basically a row of restaurants, cafes, and churches. I tried to wander outside this row of Little Italy to find a more "authentic" scene, but nothing emerged. I either found some run-down school, or started seeing signs with Chinese characters again. Having not eaten in Littly Italy since 2001, I can't say first-hand, but rumor has it that the best Italian food in NYC is no longer found in Little Italy.
Speaking of Italy, car alert. A Ferrari drove by me in Chinatown, and I snapped a quick couple of pictures. I'm less familiar with the Ferrari line, but I'm pretty sure we're looking at a F430. Someone please e-mail me if I'm wrong.
Okay. This concludes part one of my half day adventure. When I get another free hour to blog, I'll give an account of the second part of my day's journey. From here, I took the A/C/E line uptown to my second destination.More soon!
posted by Brett at 1:09 PM
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