The Last Days of New York

So on Monday, just to remind us we were heading back to London in two days time, it decided to pour with a kind of rain that can only be described as torrential. Because we hadn’t brought our swimmers and snorkel we ditched our plan to walk The High Line and consoled ourselves with a serve of blueberry pancakes from the Clinton Street Bakery on the Lower East Side. 

Tori had told us about this place and we were under strict instructions not to be swayed by anything else on the menu as it would only lead to order envy. Pancakes and ONLY pancakes. And so we did as told and predictably Tor was right. We probably didn’t need the chocolate and peanut butter milkshakes that we ordered with them but it was in keeping with the chocolate salty sweet theme of calorie badness we’d established earlier in the trip at the Big Gay Ice Cream Truck. Faffing about under awnings and trying not to get any wetter than we already were we then headed to MoMA to meet Bethany, whose convenient membership meant it was five and not twenty bucks to get in.

MoMA is the only museum open on a Monday and so it was predictably busy but we had a good couple of hours breezing through the major art milestones of the 20th century – Pollock, Picasso and the pop boys, including a rare chance to see James Rosenquist’s room installation billboard-esque painting F-111 from 1964-65. This extraordinary painting, that I remember studying in high school, is a brilliant damnation of what the artist has described as “the collusion between the Vietnam death machine, consumerism, media and advertising.” 

James Rosenquist, F-111, 1964-65

The F-111 was a fighter-bomber plane developed and paid for by US tax dollars during the Vietnam War and in Rosenquist’s immersive painting parts of the impressive fuselage pierce through a series of disconnected commercial images that bear increasingly sinister overtones the longer you look at them, from a mess of visceral spaghetti to a young blonde innocent under a hairdryer that looks suspiciously like a missile-head - all in bright cheery hues. It’s an iconic work that was first exhibited in 1965 and to see it here was kind of awe-inspiring.

Doris Salcedo, Atrabiliarios, 1992-93

Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Untitled (Placebo), detail, 1991

We did the Cindy Sherman retrospective in a tidy 15 minutes, Bethany and I spending most of it putting out masters degrees to good use and discussing everything she’s made since about 1980 in a derogatory fashion. It wasn’t great. But we then had a pleasant 15 minutes twirling through the gift shop - of course – and so despite the soggy nature of the day it was good mix of food and culture and set the scene quite nicely for dinner that evening.

Several people had told me about Beauty & Essex and I’d booked us a table at this Lower East Side establishment several weeks ago. Lovely Boy wasn’t too happy about having to put a shirt and his Going Out Shoes on for the occasion but I assured him he’d be in good sartorial company once we got there. And as per, I was right. Beauty & Essex is as regarded for its menu as it is its location, at the back of a very cool pawnshop. 

You enter the storefront, selling antiques, old jewels and assorted musical instruments and head through an unassuming back door and into the bar. A huge chandelier hangs from above and plush dark sofas entreat you to sit back and get smashed on a roster of killer cocktails. Thankfully we had but one drink here before being seated in the restaurant, beneath beautiful old light fittings and a huge glass atrium roof.

The food is a tapas-style sharing menu in a range of culinary styles. We had five plates between us and it’s no exaggeration to say that each of them was exquisite and if the moment was in animation our eyes would have been consistently out of our heads in delight and ohmygodness. Tuna sashimi, beef carpaccio, braised short rib tamales, oven braised chicken meatballs and grilled cheese, smoked bacon and tomato soup dumplings that were so ridiculously good we had to order a second helping. 

And for dessert - warm cinnamon sugared donuts full of hazelnut creme and raspberry jam respectively, delivered in their own beautifully designed box. Holy hell they were good. I’ve had a lot of world-class meals in mind (yes, El Bulli, Fat Duck, I’m looking at you) but this was up there with the best. Great cocktails, incredible food, good service, in a brilliant, quirky, cool but not pretentious environment. We couldn’t have asked for a better penultimate New York night. Oh, and I forgot to mention the free champagne bar in the ladies bathrooms. Yes, seriously.

Side dishes as accessories #love

Tuesday was our last full day and thankfully the rain had all but disappeared, leaving a humid, temperamental, cloudy sort of mess in its wake. In the morning we set off for the financial district once more, this time to visit the WTC Memorial. I remember acutely being here in November 2001, about to start my internship and feeling intensely the grief, vulnerability and horror of New Yorkers everywhere. I also remember wandering around this area and trying to absorb the enormity of what had happened here and standing with great sadness in front of the fences of Trinity Church, overwhelmed as they were with photographs, tributes and missing person posters. Just two years earlier I’d stood at the foot of the twin towers and marvelled at their architectural bravado. Now, well it’s hard to get your bearings amongst all the construction but in the middle of all this rebuilding is the memorial plaza and the two reflection pools – this strange oasis amid the chaos.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from the visit but I’d followed the controversy and ongoing debate around the design competition for years and was curious to see it. The two reflection pools that sit in the footprints of the two towers are enormous, nearly an acre each, and incredibly deep. The second drop in the middle is so deep that you can’t see the bottom, no doubt a deliberate part of the design. The flowing water, the space, the depth all brought a beautiful gravitas to the encounter and I was both moved and impressed by the poignancy and simplicity of the space. 

There was no one way to read these gaping holes, that so many people feared initially would be read as unhealed wounds, but the flowing water had a meditative, soothing quality and a life force that gave space to reflect but that also gently insisted on the inevitable moving forward of time. The bronze lip around each of the pools is etched with the names of all those who lost their lives that day, in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. 

Some people had left flowers and messages but largely they were unadorned. Rows of trees offer shade and space to sit and while it’s currently ensconced in fences, when the surrounding buildings are completed it will be open to the surrounding streets and accessible from every side and its significant beauty will be fully realised. I’m really glad we went to see it and gladder still that politics, religion and frightening ideologues were so deftly negotiated (or indeed avoided) to create a space that can be interpreted, respected and remembered by everyone in their own way.

If the WTC Memorial offers one way to reflect on Manhattan’s architecture – past, present and future – The High Line is another. The initiative of a group of conservationists, architects, historians and local residents, The High Line is a public park built along an historic above ground freight rail line that tracks down 10th Avenue. 

It opened in 2009 and was extended in 2011 and now runs from W30th St all the way down to Gansevoort St in the Meatpacking District. The old rails are visible most of the way and it’s been beautifully restored with a wooden walkway whose width oscillates between the buildings and gardens of wildflowers the whole length. There are benches for birdwatching, a dedicated stream for cooling your feet and art installations along the way – from billboards to sound pieces to a very unique zoo and a very naked peeping man, the last two unofficial contributions…

We had a gorgeous stroll down these 20 blocks despite the malevolent weather above and Lovely Boy rewarded himself with beer and bratwurst at the Standard Hotel’s biergarten at the other end for a walk well done. If we hadn’t lost the best part of Monday to the weather I’d have loved to have spent some serious time around Chelsea and the Meatpacking District but all we got was a walk along 14th St towards the subway. Something else for the Next Time List…

Spot the naked waving man...

The High Line Zoo 

Getting back to Brooklyn we ambled along Smith St looking for Brooklyn bargains and working up an appetite for dinner. I was seriously tempted by the blackboard offer out the front of Beauty Bar – 10 bucks for a martini and a manicure but hard liquor before 6pm is never a good idea, even when the bar is exceptionally cute and the seats are old 1950s hairdryers. Next time.

The view up 10th Ave from The High Line

We’d saved Calexico, an award-winning Mexican joint for our last dinner – another food truck turned permanent residence in Red Hook but getting there, we were told there was a half hour wait for food and no-one, including the staff, seemed to have much of a clue what was happening. Which is a shame, as the guacamole was excellent and bode well for a good meal. Giving up after 40 minutes of mild confusion we went back to the Mexican place of our first evening and had a grand time eating too many mouth-watering soft tacos and enchiladas before rolling home yet again.

By the time our last day rolled around all of Lovely Boy’s list had been ticked – hotdogs, baseball, Times Square, Rockefeller Centre and the rest of the Big Buildings, Central Park, the High Line, the WTC Memorial and shitloads of Mexican food. I still had a couple left, chief among them the Guggenheim. They were mid-instal of their next major exhibition so tickets were half price - which made me twice as happy as the exhibition I wanted to see was the Francesca Woodman retrospective anyway. 

Francesca Woodman, from the House series, 1976

Woodman was a young American photographer working in the late 1970s and early 1980s who tragically took her own life at the age of 22. I can’t remember the first time I saw her work but I was drawn then, and again now, to her haunting images – studies of the female form, explorations of constructed and emotional spaces and self portraits that in retrospect perhaps offer a beautiful and desperately sad insight into her imminent fate as she seems to fight to disappear into herself and her surroundings.

Francesca Woodman.

Another obligatory spin through the gift shop, we then headed back to Brooklyn to check out deKalb market. DeKalb Market is a unique mini market metropolis made out of old shipping containers. It’s a mix of food, design, vintage and homewares and I can imagine when the weather is a little brighter the crowds descend on this place – but on a wet Wednesday afternoon we had it basically to ourselves. Lovely Boy stalked the food while I went in search of last minute Things I Didn’t Know I Couldn’t Live Without. Which, it turns out, was a vintage bauble ring.

By now we only had a couple of hours left before we had to leave for JFK which meant time for one last thing: a visit to the Brooklyn branch of David Chang’s Momofuku Milk Bar. We’d planned to swing by here for dessert the night before but having gorged ourselves on Mexican it seemed insulting to partake of world famous pie and not enjoy it. And so we went back for some candy bar pie. Think chocolate, gooey toffee, nougat, chocolate cookie crust and pretzels on top. It was so fucking delicious we couldn’t even stop to photograph the experience for posterity once we'd opened the packaging.

It was an appropriately sweet ending to our brilliant, inspiring, memorable week.

Getting back to London was totally tiresome but serendipitously I managed my third celebrity sighting in the dying minutes of our trip, clocking Clive Owen as he sauntered through customs at JFK. Holiday well done. See you again soon New York. Yes?

Where was I? Oh yes, The Met.

I love the Met. In all four visits to New York I’ve still not seen all of it but the two constants have been the Impressionist Wing and the apple martinis on the balcony overlooking the grand foyer. As far as first impressions go this not so humble ticket hall certainly sets the agenda for everything else you see/do/consume/bow down before while here. I remember reading years ago that a wealthy widow bestowed a considerable chunk of her fortune to the Met on the proviso that it was spent filling the foyer with enormous arrangements of fresh flowers every week. So Upper East Side. So fabulous.

Long and lazy weekend - the second

So the second long weekend has come and all but gone and I am pooped. Last weekend felt like a mini-break, I think largely because of the weather and impending bonhomie over the then impending royal wedding. This weekend has felt busy. Not bad, but busy. And well-earned after a difficult, distracting three days at work where productivity was hard, hard won. Computer malfunctions and difficult personalities didn't help so much either... 

bunting along the Southbank

LB's long weekend take two didn't get off to the best of starts as he had to go into work to make sure the BBC's websites didn't crash from all the wedding-related traffic. They didn't - just - but my usually unruffled, unfazed lovely boy was all but ruined by the adrenalin, stress and frustration of the day. I usually joke that going to work for LB is like going to camp - he has his friends and every morning they meet for coffee and then they have lunch and some of them go to photography club and they sit in their little teams and do activities otherwise known as work. On Friday LB wanted to pack up his bat and ball and leave camp forever. It was that bad.

Chinatown celebrates the Royal Wedding

I, on the other hand, had a lovely morning on the sofa watching the live coverage of Wills, Kate, Harry and The Dress. Thankfully it didn't rain but even if it had poured I don't think the million odd people who flocked into central London would have been deterred.

Heading into Soho that afternoon it took me a good four tube stops - from Hyde Park Corner to Leicester Square - to work out why all these people were boarding the train with suitcases and tents and a slightly stinky air about them.

I didn't take this photo - a friend and former colleague who braved the crowds did. She also managed to fight the throngs to get this classic photograph.....

But central London was awash, not only with the great unwashed, but flags and bunting and people simply revelling in the good mood - the only verb for it really. And I was in Soho to revel too. Not so much in honour of the royal wedding but weddings generally - and my friend Cleo's particularly. Only a girl planning a big fat Greek wedding with 600 guests would have the chutzpah to hijack Kate and Wills day but it was such a lovely afternoon that veered into a hilarious evening - sodden with cocktails and deafened with karaoke. We started at the Dean St Townhouse for high tea and prosecco before heading to Lounge Bohemia in east London, my old stomping ground for lychee martinis and these:

Before heading to Dalston for sushi and more cocktails before heading to Brick Lane for a private booth and concert bill featuring the inestimable talents of Dolly Parton, Belinda Carlisle and The Spice Girls. There may be video footage of seven women hanging from the walls and dancing on sofas while singing at the very top of their lungs but to the untrained ear it sounds like a herd of cats being slaughtered. But it was a lot of fun. And unlike last weekend with my spectacularly poor ability to hold myself upright after copious amounts of liquor, this time I was fine. I mean, my head hurt a little on Saturday morning but I was undamaged and still holding the contents of my stomach so it could have been worse. Never again...

Saturday itself was a bit of a faff before me and my tired LBB took ourselves back to the BBC for a filming of one of the world's guiltiest TV pleasures, So You Think You Can Dance. After Friday night I know absolutely that I cannot dance (or sing...) but god I wish I could. Even with all the pointless standing about you have to endure with live television there is something quite incredible about seeing someone backflip their way across a stage in time to music.

Bills in Covent Garden

Yesterday LB and I went into Covent Garden for brunch with Cleo at Bills, this cute organic cafe in a hideaway courtyard off Long Acre before meandering through Kurt Geiger and emerging with some new sandals (LB being now a shoe connoisseur after my weeks of sandal-less moaning and some inspired research in response to my brief) and then to Southbank to check out the Festival of Britain. Mostly I was impressed with the huge sculpture of a fox made out of hay but the Bondi girl in me was touched by the efforts at a seaside, with a mock beach and bunting. I can't get enough of the bunting these days but I suspect that's because my wedding-soggy brain is in decorations mode at the moment.

From Southbank we headed home for some perfunctory housecleaning before my still-tired LB reawakened his obsession with Masterchef Australia while I cooked him dinner, a surprisingly delicious laksa.

Today we braved the gale force winds for some culture at the V&A - a really fascinating exhibition of contemporary South African photography. LB found it quite depressing, I found it sad, compelling and quite beautiful in parts so I'm glad we went. Otherwise the high point of my day would have been the hour long nap I had this afternoon.

Street art in Camberwell. Something about frogs and princes maybe?... 

Tomorrow it is back to work but the highlight of this week is undoubtedly and already the arrival of one of my dearest friends from Sydney - making her debut on British soil. I can't wait to see her, I only wish I didn't have to work but I'm so looking forward to showing her London. Let's just hope it behaves, starting with the weather.

The year that was, what's left of the year that is.

There’s literally only hours left of 2010 and as I type I’m sipping a mango bellini, sitting amongst the family in a pretty blue dress. I'm freshly showered after the most enlivening of swims at Bilgola Beach and am looking forward to dinner later and perhaps some dancing on the lawn come midnight with my LB, under the stars with a beautiful north easterly unsticking the heat from the air. 2011 here we come.

For the love of girls

Lovely Boy is currently in Munich indulging in that annual paean of all things male excess otherwise known as Oktoberfest. Beer, schnitzel, pork knuckle and more beer, where atmosphere means a roller coaster and an oompa loompa band and civility doesn't necessarily mean the use of cutlery. I struggle to envision anything less appealing than an overcrowded tent full of drunk men and rotisserie meats but then perhaps I'm just a snob. I prefer to think it's that I'm a discerning female but whatever floats your boat... Either way, I've had a lovely couple of days.

Thump.

So it is back to reality with an ungracious landing, a strange combination of worry and excitement about my dissertation and a fabulous haircut to ease the pain of life sans parents and continental adventures.


Mum left on Friday morning and I was remarkably composed and only cried a little bit seeing her off at Paddington. Previous experience would have suggested epic streams of tears and a right public spectacle but I managed to keep it together with but a few snotty sobs. Yay for maturity.

The last three weeks have just been a tonic, and while not so much gin, there has been plenty of wine, some solid encounters with cheese and generally lots of great eating, exploring and pontificating. Berlin was true to form - good weather, cool bars, interesting art and a plethora of old school locals in socks and Jesus sandals. I love it when cliches come to life, just not so much when they then step on your toes.

Parentals had left me in charge of organising Berlin and to their credit overcame their horror at my having booked us all into a youth hostel. To their immense relief - and with only a minor withering look from me - they checked into the top floor apartment of the hostel, cosseted from the rank smell of mixed sex group dorms by two security doors, and took in what even I knew to be a pretty awesome Berlin view, as far as Berlin skylines go:


I think one of the highlights for me this time around, Berlin tragic that I am, was visiting the East Side Gallery, the longest remaining intact part of the Berlin wall, which was given over to muralists in 1989 to create images of peace and reconciliation. Over the last 20 years the wall has fallen victim both to pollution and morons from all over the world, scrawling all over it with poetic treatises that read, "Jennaya waz here". This year though, to mark the 20th anniversary since the wall came down, all the artists have been invited back to re-paint their work and this mammoth undertaking is there for all to witness and some of the most iconic images have already been brought back to life. It was pretty special to see.


Returning to London for a night and sending Maxy home after a tres posh, tres delicious, (tres) boozy dinner at Terence Conran's new venture, Boundary, in Shoreditch, Mum and I took to Paris, with a vocabulary consisting solely of tres, bon, merci and si vous plait. Thank god for maps and pointing fingers.

The last time I was in Paris was 10 years ago (what's French for "God I feel old?") and I was travelling with my cousin. All I remember from that trip was queuing to get into the Louvre, queuing to get into the Musee D'Orsay, queuing to get into Versaille and John telling me that I had no appreciation for anything pre-Monet.


This time it was totally different. I did all sorts of appreciating - of the sales, the sidewalk cafes, the boulevards, the quality mother-daughter time and the solid hour we spent in Sephora trying on lipsticks in lieu of a visit to any of the major art institutions we might have otherwise patronised in this beautiful, beautiful city. But I figure a colour palette is a colour palette and there is nothing wrong with appreciating the textures, tones and shades of the Chanel cosmetics counter and not the Fauvist wing of the Musee D'Orsay.

Quite by accident we did stumble across a little bit of culture and history - unbeknownst to us we happened to be in Paris on Bastille Day. Thankfully we realised this the day before because had we not the sound of low-flying fighter jets might have troubled us somewhat. We managed to glimpse but the end of the parade - beautiful horses carrying smartly dressed French soldiers (soldiers?), closely followed by the city pooper scoopers. If only they swept up the dog shit too Paris would be even prettier.


Not quite shopped out but with other places to visit, Mum and I then travelled north to Normandy to spend a couple of nights with friends of hers from home. Such a pretty part of the world and the most ridiculously charming house:


We had two nights and a day in Normandy and in the morning we drove to the coast, to Omaha Beach and the American War Memorial. It was a blustery day but the sun was out and the whole experience was incredibly moving and sad and thought-provoking. It's really so hard to imagine that such a beautiful stretch of coastline bears the unseen scars of some of the most horrific violence in modern history.


Nevermind the thousands of graves bearing young boys and men. It was a pretty sobering experience.


Back to the house, we then took off for this quaint little village called Honfleur. Very charming, very floral - and a sale on cashmere sweaters. You couldn't have had two starker experiences.


Eurostarring it back to London (tres civilised) LB and I took Mum to Notting Hill for a final dinner before her flight the next morning. Welcoming us back to London was torrential rain, some old fashioned lightning and thunder and a severe delay on the Central line. Ahh to be back in London.

Next major adventure: Dissertation. But before then, two days next week in Barcelona for a meal at El Bulli with dear friends from home. Sometimes my life is gloriously ridiculous.