Our final day in Manhattan was a rainy one. NYC is dreary in the rain and boy did it
rain. I had to stop into a luggage store
near Times Square to buy an umbrella.
The jacket that I am currently designing would have come in handy.
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| Subway at 23rd |
I spent the late morning and early afternoon in the Garment
District. One thing about me is that I
hate to look ignorant; I naturally tend to act like I know what is going on
even when I don’t. I decided to try a
new tack at Mood Fabrics: instead of pretending to be an old hat I threw up my
arms at a salesman and admitted that I’m out of my element and in need of some
help. The guy’s name was Noel and he
walked me through everything that I needed to do. I ended up with the edging and ribbon that I
needed and also took home some good swatches.
Bummer about the rain in New York is that every coffee shop
is filled to the brim with like-minded people seeking shelter from the storm. After attempting to squeeze into a couple of
Starbucks (Starbucks, by the way, has completely conquered New York) I ended up
walking through Macy’s trying to dry off.
After seeing the cool boutiques in Soho Macy’s was a bit boring: racks
of the same old stuff.
I went into a number of trim shops but found nothing that I
couldn’t just order online, so I jumped on the subway at 34th and
headed downtown to get a coffee at Eataly.
The subway system is kind of like a rabbit hole: you go in looking at
one type of landscape and come out in an entirely foreign one. Every time I emerged from the subway stairs I
had to take a five or ten seconds to orient myself. When I came up at 23rd, near
Eataly, I popped out into a deluge, I mean a regular Typhoon, and it took me a
bit longer than usual to figure out which way to go. Unfortunately several hundred other New
Yorkers and tourists had the same idea and Eataly was jam packed with dripping
customers. I did manage to get a coffee,
which I drank standing up.
I met Melony back at the Ace hotel. The lobby of the Ace is a happening spot to
be sure. It has free internet and serves
food, so it seems like all the hip guys and gals stop by there to
download. The dimly lit space is
perpetually awash in a fluorescent glow.
Mel and I finally found space on a couch and we whiled away an hour
eating a sandwich and looking at our Windows phones. Our plane left JFK at 7:00 and we grabbed a
cab at about 3:45. Nearly two hours later,
after a scenic trip through Queens and some lessons in aggressive driving
techniques, we walked into JFK. The
plane was delayed because the pilot had also been stuck in traffic.
Oh before I forget, just as we were driving into JFK I
spotted the nose cone of the space shuttle Enterprise peering out of her
temporary hanger. As an aerospace
engineer this was the icing on the cake of a great trip.
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