Today my friend Christine sent me a link about the store "Love Saves The Day", which I'd gone into with her a couple of weeks ago when I'd visited New York and met up with her and her fiance Chris. It turns out that the place is closing soon. I wish that I'd taken a picture when I was there, since it was packed to the rafters with all kinds of kitsch stuff from the seventies and eighties (read: my childhood and teenage years), including old copies of Penthouse and vast numbers of original plastic "Star Wars" figures. (I think that there are still a whole bunch of mine left back at my parents house, and they may actually be worth something now.) It's was a cool place and sad to think that it will be gone soon.
Anyway: I'd meant to write something about that trip shortly afterwards, but really I do suck at blogging. It came out of an offer Chris had made to meet up with him one day for a visit to the city between Christmas and New Year. I was able to take the Surburban Transit bus from Princeton directly to the Port Authority bus terminal, which was easy for me.
First stop was lunch at the Hell's Kitchen location of Vynl (that's not a typo), which was glitzy glam, all mirrorballs and glass. Then we headed off to the Rockefeller Center to see the famous Christmas tree, and visited Radio City, where Chris suggested we take the tour so we could look around inside. Radio City is an Art Deco mecca and well worth the visit - I took a few pictures but I could have taken more - and we even got to see some a little of the Christmas Show and the Rockettes performing one of their trademark set pieces (collapsing in slow motion at the end of the Parade of the Wooden Soldiers - I didn't know that this was so famous, but Kyle knew what it was the instant I described it), followed by a brief opportunity to meet a Rockette.
Our tour guide talked a lot about the design and engineering of the auditorium, and Chris told me that it's truly amazing, so it was a little disappointing not to be able to actually go into it and see for myself. After the tour we were turned loose to wander around the lobby of the building for a bit. It was really neat to be able to see so much of the interior still looking good in all its 1930s goodness.
After leaving Radio City we met up with Christine to wander the streets looking for bars (as well as visiting "Love Saves the Day" briefly). Perhaps I should have tried to see more but New York is a pretty big place and I was only there for the afternoon - besides which, who's to say that visiting a few bars isn't as equally valid an experience as visiting the Metropolitian Museum of Art? It was fun just to walk around the streets, ride in a couple of taxis and talk politics over a drink.
Anyway, it was a great day out for me and my two hosts were excellent guides who also bought all the drinks, so I owe them big - thanks guys if you're reading this. Unfortunately I don't know if I'll have a chance to see them again before I head back to the UK but hopefully I'll catch up with them time later in the year - maybe in New York again, when the weather is slightly warmer!
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