Friday was art day.  Ian, having things at work he could not get out of, left Carrie and I to our own volition, so we thought to begin hitting the extensive list of small art galleries she wanted to visit while back in the City.  Again the ritual of buying a New York Times and reading it at a coffee shop, and since I wrote about that particular segment of time interspersed in my entry yesterday, I won't go further into it now as there isn't much else to tell about it. 

Except Misty tells me that it sounds like an offer on my house is forthcoming.  So you should get your offer in now to beat out the others!

After the bakery cafe, we walked east, crossing Park Avenue (ritzy!) and turned south on 5th, walking along the edge of Central Park.  Carrie has a general dislike for nature - even parks due to their grass, trees, squirrels and the like, so we dared not enter at that time.  We eventually reached a building directly across from Trump Tower containing the DC Moore gallery featuring the works of Mary Frank.  While I did enjoy Frank's use of both shadowed imagery and geometric structures in several of her paintings, I really preferred her sculptures, especially a "landscape" with figures walking across it cut from the base land, the space they were cut from forming a sort of primal shadow.

We visited three other gallaries before calling it quits, though I cannot recall the names of the featured artists, other than to say one was selling in the hundred of thousands of dollars price range.

On the way back to Casa Del Ian, we stopped by Dylan's Candy Bar, a huge candy store that I had just read about in Fast Company this week.  Known for it's use of exuberant style and classic candy memorabilia, Dylan's was packed with New Yorkers on a bender for some sugar.  I bought some sour balls for the low low cost of $8.50 per pound and then we finished the trek back to Ian's apartment so that we could give our feet a break.

I am fortunate to have not one but three friends living in NYC - in addition to Ian, Lena and Jay, also former Des Moines residents, moved to the City over the summer.  Jay is a Resident at Beth Israel Hospital and Lena, a native Ukrainian, teaches english as a second language.  The five of us, along with Jay's dad who was also in town for his work, went to dinner at a good Mexican restaurant in the East Village.  Good times were had, filled with tortilla chips and habanero-enhanced salsa.

Carrie was tired and Ian had work so they split off afterwards to head back.  After his father went back to his hotel, Lena, Jay and I went to a bar where Jay and I had some Octoberfest while a very tired Lena had dessert and debated pros-and-cons of American living with me.

I took a cab back afterwards and learned that cabbies don't like to break twenties for an $8 fare.  I don't get to see Lena and Jay very often, so it's always a great time seeing them when I do.

Odds are that if you are reading this website, you know me well enough to know about the weekly ritual of watching Survivor with the family.  Since Survivor runs two seasons a year of 13-14 weeks each, that leaves several weeks in between without.  Last winter, NBC aired another reality TV show, another creation of Mark Burnett, the man behind Survivor.  This was "The Restaurant" and focused on Rocco DiSpirito, a semi-famous New York chef, and his opening a new restaurant.  For eight weeks, and covering a period of time of maybe the first two weeks in business, The Restaurant took us between the tables and behind the kitchen doors, showing the drama that happens when a bunch of hopeful actor/model types act it up for the camera in an attempt to stand out on national television - while serving food at an actual restaurant with actual guests. 

And as anyone who watched the show is aware of, they serve Coors Light on tap and take American Express.  Coors Light and American Express:  official sponsors of NBC's "The Restaurant."

While the show itself got pretty tiresome by the end of its eight-week winter replacement run, Carrie and I still wanted to eat at Rocco's while in New York because of its minor celebrity and our corniness factor.  Ian, though having a general disdain for reality TV, walked to Roccos from his work (it's only 7 ot 8 blocks away) and made us reservations, coming along for the ride and agreeing to not be too agitated towards our "star"-struck nature.

So there we were at Rocco's (now called Rocco's on 22nd due to a lawsuit brought by another restaurant in the City named Rocco's).  The first thing we noticed was that the hostess at the door was the same one on the show!  And look! - the bartender is the guy who used to be in the kitchen and had a storyline involving his problems cooking on the grill and another brief one with a restaurant romance.  And that waiter - he was on the show too.  But not ours, bummer.  And hey, there's Mama DiSpirito talking to that table.  Hey Mama! 

I ordered the Chicken Parmigiana and we shared some appetizers of Mama's Meatballs - a famous mainstay of the show and very tasty in their own right - and some calamari.  The meal was delicious, though a bit pricey, and viewers of the show might be interested to know that the food arrived warm - almost too warm, which beats the opposite - and that the cardboard appetizer boats were nowhere to be seen, instead replaced with wire baskets lined with some italian-language newspaper.

While we didn't get to talk to Mama or see Rocco anywhere, it was still a fun experience.  Ian and I ended the evening there playing a game of foosball while we waited for Carrie.  I then took some photos outside, and as we walked off Carrie pointed out that Laurent, the generally-disliked manager from the show, was sitting at the table talking to two others.  Now to see if he and the others are still there when they start filming season 2.

As you approach lower Manhatten, there is an area that looks oddly familiar, with several grey, glass and comparitively stunted looking towers rising up relatively far from other buildings.  Like some modern architectural version of ancient rock formations, these buildings stand out of place in this City of compacted usage.

But then you realize that they are out of place, in a sense.  What's missing next to them is what were once the two tallest structures on the planet.

I approached the World Trade Center site with mixed apprehension.  The events of 9/11/2001 bring about such an upheaval of emotions - the tragedy of the day - and the further tragedy of how the events of the day were used to start forming our country into something it should never be.  Is a place where so many died a terrible death a tourist attraction?  Should it be memorialized in that way?  Or is visiting it more towards honoring those who have fallen and remembering what was, though undeniably tragic, a piece of our shared national history?  Is visiting Ground Zero much different than visiting Normandy or Gettysburg in that respect?

The tone at the site was that of quiet contemplation.  The whole of the area is blocked off by large metal fencing as they begin construction on the new site, with one large scarred building on the south end under repair, a cross made out of original girders, and a large concrete pit - the sublevels of the site.  Along the metal fence are pieces of historical information about the site along with a list of those who died on "IX XI".  Indeed, if you did not know what you were looking for and were not familiar with the area, it might just look at first glance like yet another construction area.  One lady walking by asked her friend, "I wonder what this is about?" before realizing.

In front of the cross of girders is a piece of fence where someone wrote "Love never dies."  In a place where so much hatred could be evoked and in whose name further pain has been inflicted in this world, I found it fitting.