Each of my visits to New York acquires its own distinctive flavour. Although I like to enjoy a portfolio of pleasures (as a sybaritic investment banker might say), there is usually one theme which emerges, and this visit was decidedly literary.
This wasn't deliberate, although I now realise it was inevitable. I stayed near the magnificent New York Public Library and on my first day was delighted by the brass plaques on Library Way . It's not easy walking along East 41st Street as you have to keep stopping every few yards to read the quotes and poems in beautiful typefaces and with wonderful decorations (below). The WB Yeats poem above is one of my favourites (click on the photo to read the text). How amazing to halt and read the pages of the pavement in busy New York where everyone seems to walk twice as fast as anywhere else.
When I arrived, my room wasn't ready so I went to the Oyster Bar at Grand Central Station, also not far from my hotel. As I went in, I discovered the brilliant independent bookstore in the terminal (at the moment it has a lovely window display of knitting books) and bought a book of Robert Frost's poems. Then I sat and ate local seafood, drank a glass of wine from Washington State, read RF's poems and was totally absorbed in things American. It was completely wonderful, and all the better for being unplanned. It's not often that words, wine, food and atmosphere all come together to create a perfect moment of solitude.
But I didn't spend all my time on my own. I also shared plenty of words with some great people. I met Kay of Mason-Dixon book and blog fame, and another time I met Liza of books and quilting fame. As words are one of our stocks-in-trade we are never to going to run out of them, and we certainly managed spectacular word-counts in our conversations.
As well as giving me some excellent book recommendations*, Kay also pointed me in the direction of a great Upper East side bookshop - Crawford Doyle Booksellers at 1082 Madison Ave. I do like the way neighbourhoods and clientele are reflected in their local shops - this was very smart and tasteful. The Upper East side also has correspondingly upmarket under-tree planting,
and some fetching pavement patterns.
By contrast, a couple of days later I was in the Lower East side, 'reading' my favourite window display in NY, that of Economy Candy on Rivington Street.
This is one aspect of the window dressers' art which is overlooked in the sophisticated shops of Fifth Ave. The 'fill 'em up, pile 'em high and make them look mouthwatering' style of display isn't exactly what you find in Barney's, and I love it all the more for that.
This temple to tooth decay is just down the street from Schiller's Liquor Bar, which not only has top tiling and word design inside and out,
but also has a huge range of reading material on racks by the door. I always associate the bar with reading The New Yorker, a magazine which requires several beers and plenty of food to sustain you through one of their mega articles.
On my last morning, I went to the printing district of lower Manhattan around Hudson and Varick streets where the characterful buildings once housed presses and print warehouses, and now accommodate publishers' offices. How prescient of Jacques Torres to open his chocolate factory here, when everyone knows that books and chocolate are a match made in heaven.
It was here that I met the lovely, generous Irene who has read the blog for a long time and has been incredibly helpful with books and suggestions (she has introduced Alice and Phoebe to some excellent, contemporary American writers). Irene suggested we meet for a hot chocolate at Jacques Torres' place. Oh my goodness. All I can say is - go.
And so I came back from NY with piles of words, visions of words and memories of words. What a great collection.
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*Kay's recommendations gave me the impetus to visit the famous Strand Books ('18 miles of books' - but no satellite navigation to help you) which is bewildering and brilliant at the same time. It's the best place I've found for cut-price, second-hand and out-of-print books, and it's also only five blocks away from an excellent Barnes & Noble on Astor Place if you need new and in-print books, and a little more order.
As well as the above shops, I'd recommend Kinokuniya for Japanese books, and the Shakespeare & Co outlets as good alternatives to the ubiquitous Barnes & Noble.
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Tomorrow, the last word on New York: Purl.
