I’ll be honest, I woke up the morning of our last day totally sad. I mean, I wasn’t sure if we were going to be able to fill in an exceptional city experience in just one day. I had five items in my ‘List of Places To Go To During This Trip’ and we hadn’t gone to any! I was determined to at least get a few of the places checked off.
But first we needed a bright start to our day, so mama and I went for a run in Chelsea Piers. And let me tell you, it was so beautiful there. Maybe because I’ve never been before and I’ve always had a thing for running by water, but I was completely captivated. I passed a man who had about 5 fishing rods out in a line, he went down that line and casted each rod individually and just waited. He didn’t have a book or anything to busy himself with while he waited for fish to bite. He just seemed so peaceful and present, like he wasn’t concerned with anything else but the five casted rods and all of potential the fish they deliver to him. I was that strolling dolt that runners hate because I was just taking up valuable running space, but hey I ran for a little while so I deserved that stroll. My mom had to call and tell me to meet her at one of the piers
When I got there we stretched, and did some yoga.
When we felt like we took a sufficient amount of pictures we made our way back to the hotel. We passed by this place called ‘wichkraft.
[insert picture of the chelsea piers location]
The name was interesting, I’ll give you that, but what caught my eye was the building’s bright blue exterior. As much as I wanted to go in and eat there, I figured “Hey you can save this for the next time you come to New York.” So there we go, I was already planning for the next trip.
We got back to our room and got ready for our last day in the city. I decided to bring Sulley with me that day since I usually take him everywhere and he was cooped up in the hotel room almost the whole time.
First order of business was lunch. We didn’t actually have breakfast so we needed to eat. Thankfully my grandmother cooked, so we stopped by the apartment, ate and then left. I don’t think we spent more than five minutes there. We said our hi’s and everything, but we wasted no time because today was the day we were going to kate spade! I’ve been waiting for this since I found out we were going on this trip. It’s one of the five things on my list, at this point all I was thinking was “We gotta go find kate. We gotta go find kate.” We were on the subway and I got an address, 205 Columbus Avenue. My mom said that that was perfect since she worked around that area and that’s where she spent a lot of her time. We got off the subway and found ourselves facing Central Park West and a beautiful synagogue. I had google maps telling us the directions but for some reason they were telling us to walk two blocks down take a right and then walk a block down, basically doing around in a circle. So for that moment I just left it alone and enjoyed my surroundings. We passed by sooooo many beautiful brownstones, somehow they all looked similar but also completely opposite from each other. As we reached the end of that block we saw a sign for the Athleta store, we turned right and mama showed me a few of the restaurants where she spent most of her lunch hours. We walked around for a bit more, my mom pointed out John Lennon’s apartment building. Then a few yards later she went “Here’s where he got shot.” So that was nice.. Then she asked “Okay so where’s kate spade?” but this time, I decided to look at the actual map instead of the directions list and I could not even believe what I saw. If at the end of the block, when we saw the Athleta sign, we turned left instead of right we just had to pass like 2 or 3 stores and kate spade would have been right there! Don’t get me wrong though, I loved seeing all the brownstones and restaurants that my mom was still so familiar of. It was just so funny that we walked so much only to find that we were literally just in the opposite side of the block.
But I was pumped, I was like “Yeah! I’m ready! So ready!” When we got to Columbus Avenue mama goes “Okay it should be..” but I may cut her off because there it was.
What I felt at that moment was like a mix of excitement and, for some reason, a little apprehensive. I don’t know if it was a ‘what if this isn’t as special as I’m making it in my head’ or a ‘what if I’m somehow kicked out of the store??’ kind of nervous.
But all of that washed away when I entered the store. When it comes to the size, it was pretty much the same size as the kate spade in Tampa, FL. But that didn’t matter. I think because the feeling is different when you go to the store in the city in which it was founded and created. The shop we were in wasn’t the first kate spade shop or anything, but I still sort of felt like I was stepping into a part of the brand’s history.
I woke up from my little mystic revelation and saw this gorgeous mannequin in front of me wearing a cute floral dress, I was about to step closer to see the dress a little better when it suddenly shifted. Because of my philosophical monologue about stepping into the brand’s past, I mistook a sales associate for a mannequin. But now that I was totally and completely in the present, I was ready to find my gem. The night before I was looking for cute mini iPad cases and saw a few on the kate spade website that I liked so I tried to locate those specific ones, but I didn’t see any of them! What I did find was an adorable case that probably fit my personality more than any of the other ones that I saw.
The case says ‘Eat Cake for Breakfast’ in the front. It was perfect! I looked at the other cases that they had though, to give them all a chance. But I was hooked on this one. Then mama showed me the area where they had the fragrances, I ended up really liking the Live Colorfully roll-on perfume so I decided to get that too! The pretty sales associate who, as it turns out both mama and I thought was a mannequin, was the one who checked us out. I don’t remember if she asked us if we were just visiting but it somehow came up that it was our last day so she asked what else we had planned for the day and we mentioned going to MoMA. My mom slipped in that I wasn’t going to do anything else until we went here. I though she was just going to be like “Oh haha that’s cute.” But NO. You know what she said? She said “Awww. You know when you walked in I knew you were a kate spade girl.” Let me tell you, I just about died. Here was this girl who I thought was a mannequin because of her level of fab, telling me that her first impression of me is correlated with my favourite shop in the whole world. I don’t know how I managed to stay calm.
And as a cute cherry on top, mama bought me this pretty bracelet that says ‘Take a Chance’ I left the tiny shop insanely happy because of everything that happened and I just got a couple of cute items!
[insert insty picture of the stuff i got at kate spade]
MoMA (Museum of Modern Art) was our next destination, but we took a little detour and passed by the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts,
After those photo ops we walked allllllll the way to MoMA. See, it may not sound bad because I’ve been saying walk/walked/walking for the past two posts but let me tell you, we walked about 20 minutes, add that to however long we walked from the subway and back around to kate spade AND we also ran/walked that morning. So by the time mama and I spotted MoMA, we were ready to lie down. Instead we did…half of that. MoMA’s lobby has a ton of seating areas so we sat for a while before we decided if we wanted to actually go in or if we should do something else. In the end, I knew I was going to totally regret it if I sat in the lobby and then left, so I said YES LET’S GO! I ended up taking pictures of A LOT of the exhibits so I’ll show my favorites (I’ve linked the pictures to their respective MoMA pages)
Canyon – Robert Rauschenberg
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Book 4 – Lucas Samaras
Accumulation No. 1 – Yayoi Kusuma
I’ve blurred the picture just enough so you can guess the protuberances without having to see all of the details. The debut of this piece was met with so much shock, Kusama decided to create pieces like Accumulation No. 1 but with different household items. The biggest reason this specific work is in my favorites list is because when I showed my mom and kuya Cris, at different times I might add, they both thought it was a chair made of grey sweet potatoes. So we now call it the ‘sweet potato chair.’
Shooting Painting American Embassy – Niki de Saint Phalle
Titled (Art as Idea as Idea) The Word “Definition” – Joseph Kosuth
Kosuth has previously stated that “art is making meaning.” So in his series ‘Art as Idea as Idea’ he explores how art can relate to language.
Mirror Stratum – Robert Smithson
Letters (The Twenty-Six Series) – Richard Tuttle
G.U.-G.U. Well – Alan Shields
10/27/69 – Sam Gilliam
75 Watt – Revital Cohen & Tuur Van Balen
The object doesn’t actually work. Cohen and Van Balen made the product to document its production in a factory in China. They built the object so that the each assembly-line worker has a choreographed action, which results in all of the workers resembling machines more than human beings. Mr. Van Balen better explains the intent and process of this work here.
Porca Miseria – Ingo Maurer
Porca Miseria! is a phrase often used as the Italian equivalent of ‘Bloody Hell!’ or ‘Damn!’ The phrase can be used to express irritation, frustration, or unadulterated anger. The chandelier itself is like the outcome of whatever emotion is meant by the “porca miseria!”
The production of this piece is limited to ten a year because to make ONE of these chandeliers requires the effort of four people. They all break some plates and the final design of the chandelier relies on how the pieces are broken. While there is one overall structure, no two chandeliers are the same.
Lounge Chair – Grete Jalk
This chair was made from two plywood pieces, by use of a complex lamination process.
Resilient Chair – Eva Zeisel
Screen – Eileen Gray
The Impossible, III – Maria Martins
Probably one of my top favourites. Martins said, “It is nearly impossible to make people understand each other.” A statement that is dramatically explained by this piece. The forms are close to each other but are in these aggressive stances, which takes Martin’s statement a step further in that no matter how close people may seem, it is impossible for them to completely understand each other.
These ended up being a lot of favourites, but I love them all!
When we filled up our art fix we met with Kuya Cris in the MoMA shop where we talked about where we were going to eat. Initially he planned for us to go to a great sushi place. And listen, don’t get me wrong I absolutely love sushi, but I don’t think I could have handled it three days in a row. So in the end we went with Serendipity 3.
YES. The one from the movie Serendipity. I’ve been wanting to go there for the longest time. So we got there and they told us the wait was about an hour and 45 minutes. I don’t know what possessed me at that moment but I said “Yeah, that’s good.” So we waited. For an hour and 45 minutes. Which wasn’t too bad. We sat at a little park nearby and watched pigeons for probably an hour? Maybe less than that. But I learned that pigeons do that thing where they get all big and puffy so they can attract a mate. It rarely ever works, but it’s interesting to watch. So then we went to sit in front of the restaurant just in case the call us in earlier than what they told us. A couple of people asked us how long we’ve been waiting and when they heard the words “Oh, about an hour.” they had this expression that was either of awe or pity or both. The host came out and called this obscure name, got no response, and walked back inside. Then two minutes later he came back out and said the same name and the man sitting in the bench directly in front him raised his hand. Now there may be some real, logical reasons as to why this man didn’t raise his hand the first time the name was called, but up until today I’m convinced that that party was not his.
A few minutes later the main host came up to us and asked for us to identify which party we belonged to, when he told him he asked that we wait inside. And I swear to you all, people started applauding. It was probably just a handful of people, but if they felt the need to congratulate us for finally getting in, then you know we’ve been waiting for a while. It’s funny because as soon as we got inside my mom said “Yeah, ‘wait inside’ watch we wait here another hour.” We ended up waiting another 20, but it was funny that we just knew we weren’t going to be seated as soon as we got inside. We also had another theory that since we were meeting Tita Flu here, she probably called the restaurant and told them to have us wait until she’s a block away. We were probably seated for about two minutes when she texted and told us that she was outside, so that was a bit suspicious.
YES an hour and 45 is a long time but the wait was so worth it! It was so worth it! Kuya Cris decided that he should just go straight to dessert. The rest of us were pretty hungry. I was trying to order in a way that best suited my interest. I was definitely going to order the mint frozen hot chocolate, and I was unsure if I wanted an actual dessert, so I went for one of the appetizers, spudniks. Mama went for a regular frozen hot chocolate and a burger, Tita Flu went for a regular frozen hot chocolate and the chicken nachos. I was incredibly excited, I’ve heard so much about the frozen hot chocolate and I was so prepared. What I was not prepared for was the size. I’ve seen pictures of the place, and pictures of hot chocolate. But I don’t know, I guess I didn’t fully accept that a normal drink was going to be so big.
Oh but it’s so delicious. It’s so strange, it’s definitely frozen but it feels like you’re drinking hot chocolate. You get that warmth and comfort, you could even taste a little marshmallow. I don’t understand how the drink works, but it’s magical. Now, Kuya Cris’ desserts came the same time as our drinks so we were still pretty hungry so we started eating a little bit of his food.
Mama and I had a side and were able to make a respectable dent. Mine and Tita Flu’s food came and I was in for the most pleasant surprise. I wasn’t too sure about how they would handle food since their specialty is desserts and sweets. But man, those spudniks were delicious. A good portion was crunchy and the other god portion was nice and melted in my mouth, then there was the delightful addition of the cheddar and bacon on the top.
I honestly got a little emotional while I was eating, it was that yummy. I also had a few bites of Tita Flu’s nachos, which were delicious as well. There was some chili on top, which I don’t usually enjoy, but my goodness this just amplified how yummy everything else was.
Kuya Cris was really struggling with his crazy dessert, even WITH our help. But as you can see, he finished it!
It was only after he finished his dessert did mama’s burger finally arrive.
I’m not sure if the picture properly shows the magnitude of this burger. It was huge. It looked absolutely delicious, but wow was it huge. Mama ended up slicing a very small portion of it and gave it Kuya Cris. Which was absolutely insane! Like, the man just finished this monster dessert and now he’s gonna have to eat this colossal burger.
We told him to make a distressed face, which is a different picture from the one above. But I feel like this picture is the one that properly shows his confusion and overall distress. He was trying to persuade us to help him, but we were all grossly full, so he had to battle this for himself.
What’s crazy is that he actually finished the burger. The fries were sorta left alone, but hey.. He conquered a burger, we weren’t about to nitpick.
When we felt like we were strong enough to actually walk, we went to this awesome place called Dylan’s Candy Bar. Just a huge, three-story candy store. I bought a bag full of different sour belts candy and this cute little container filled with the banana fruit candy and smarties for Pahpah. It took a great amount of dedication and patience for all the people who watched me pick all of the banana ones. Mama also got Tita Flu the cutest cup cake plushie. We were there for a little while, I think. I was so hopped up on sugar that night, I just remember being really full and hyper.
We then went to 34th street to get some stuff for Pahpah. It was almost 9 I think, but it was crazy because most of the stores were already closed. It was a Saturday! But there was one store open, American Eagle. I was a little like “Eh…would he really want stuff from here.” And I was pleasantly surprised by the selection. I didn’t feel like I was inside an 8th grade boy’s closet or anything, there were some nice, mature clothing selections. Mama got him a pair of shorts, these really cool type of sports underwear, and a couple of shirts. I got him like six pairs of really awesome socks (they had a sale, 3 pairs for $10, so I went “HEY WHY NOT GO ALL THE WAY TO 6 PAIRS”)
After that, I really don’t know what compelled me but Kuya Cris asked if I wanted some Boba tea and I said “YES.” Just like that, I said it with gusto and excitement. But I was still full. I was still very full, but my heart wanted some boba. And I got some boba, some taro boba that was a pretty purple colour. While we were waiting for it though Tita Flu decided it was probably time for her to head home. It wasn’t too long after she left that my boba was ready. For a few minutes we tried to decide on our next destination, we picked one but by the time we crossed over to the next street I was just ready to go back to the room. Which is exactly what we did and Kuya Cris even stayed with us for a while, talking about kids and sweets. But when he left there was that feeling of inevitability that we were going back to Tampa the next morning. It was especially present because we were packing all of our stuff back in the suitcase. We showered and wore what we were going to wear to the airport. It was <strong>that</strong> official.
As much as I didn’t want to go back so soon, I was comforted by the fact that I enjoyed every single moment and spent it with great people, specifically my jet setting counterpart
It was the shortest and one of the best trips I’ve ever taken. I was quite sad to leave New York, but I know she’ll be waiting patiently for our next adventure. Don’t worry NY, we’ll be back in no time.
The Girl Who Wrote 