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Walking Off the Big Apple
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New York walking journal, neighborhood guides, maps, lists of affordable hotels, and art reviews with entertaining commentary on the cultural life of the city.
Recent Posts Tagged With 'fifth avenue'
A Day in the Village and on Fifth Avenue
Early this morning I walked around the Village with my dogs, returned them to the apartment, went back out, bought some hot cross buns at Bruno Bakery, and then checked out why a large contingent of firetrucks were arriving near Bleecker and Thompson...
New York Holiday Windows on Fifth Avenue: A Slideshow, and An Appreciation
Strolling the blocks along Fifth Avenue from 49th St. up to 59th Street provides almost everything anyone could want out of the holiday season. Here we find the creative talent of the department store windows - and this year, the smash hits are those...
Beating the True Path to Greenwich Village (from Fifth Avenue)
Where there's a will there's a way. When extensive renovations to the fountain area and the northwest quadrant of Washington Square Park commenced last year, people who regularly walked between lower Fifth Avenue and the Village south of the park fou...
The Golightly Variations: Shopping for the Most Affordable Thing at Tiffany's
In the spirit of first-person participatory literary criticism, I visited the flagship store of Tiffany & Co. on Fifth Avenue this afternoon to see if the store could make me feel like Truman Capote's Holly Golightly, a place to beat the "mean reds."...
The Golightly Variations: Introduction to a Walk
Most know Truman Capote's 1958 novella Breakfast at Tiffany's from the 1961 movie directed by Blake Edwards, adapted by writer George Axelrod, and starring George Peppard as "Fred" and the unforgettable Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly. The movie's ...
Gucci, Prada, and Pucci on Fifth Avenue: Thoughts Outside the Box
Believe it or not, but I can walk into any Fifth Avenue store and not immediately think about the financial markets, class warfare, the history of New York culture, or whatever connection the store may have to literary history. I can walk into Gucci'...
Ready to Wear, If I Can Find It: Shopping for My Personal Style
I often think of my personal style like one of those mix-and-match paper doll books of swappable outfit parts, but in my case the cut-outs consist of a variety of blue jeans for the legs and an assortment of classic tailored jackets for the top. As a...
10 New Books of Interest for the New York State of Mind: On Modernism, Landmarks, the Brooklyn Genius, Pancakes, Pre-Punk History, and more
• New York Dolls: Photographs by Bob Gruen (Hardcover)by Bob Gruen (Photographer), Legs McNeil (Commentary), Morrissey (Afterword)Abrams Image. September 1, 2008.The New York Dolls paved the way for many of the Punk, Glam and New Wavers in the cit...
Strolling the Museum Mile (and a Half) and Contemplating the Current Financial Crisis (Slideshow)
Writing about Edith Wharton and New York in 1900 necessarily involves a discussion of wealth and social class, so strolling down Fifth Avenue from E. 104th Street to E. 70th (an area that encompasses Museum Mile, plus another 12 blocks to the Frick C...
New York in The House of Mirth: Social Class, Money, and Speculations on Wall Street
Many people are under the impression that it takes a lot of money to live in New York, and compared to other major American cities, yes, New York is expensive. But the expense is tied to personal values, tastes and social expectations, the same as it...
The New York of Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth: Introduction to a Walk
From House of MirthAt the beginning of Edith Wharton's 1905 novel, The House of Mirth, Lily Bart strolls up Madison Avenue on the arms of Lawrence Selden, her most indecisive suitor, but toward the end of the story, she walks alone. It's an important...
Henry James' Uneasy Homecoming to Washington Square
Henry James (1843-1916), author of many novels on the college reading list - Washington Square, The Portrait of a Lady, The Wings of the Dove, The Ambassadors, among them, and great stories such as "The Aspern Papers" and "The Turn of the Screw," was...
