Today was an unusual class day for myself. That was because I would be missing this class session to attend Molloy’s Summer Leadership Conference that was held for three days upstate to help prepare me for my new duties as Resident Assistant in the Fall.
I traveled to the City a few days before we would be having this class session with two of my close friends. They were definitely more excited then myself about our adventure because they are in the city more often then I am but they have never gone in with a set itinerary. The fact that they would be “tourists” for the day made it quite amusing for them. Ultimately they loved the experience and wish they had a city course like this one at their college when they were attending undergraduate schooling.
On our itinerary for the day was traveling to Delancy Street for some ethnic food at the Essex Street Market. Then we will move toward the Tenement Museum, for a tour on the Moore Family. We would stop at the famous Congee Village to have lunch then go through our own walking tour of the Lower East side, The Bowery, parts of Little Italy, and Chinatown. Hopefully we would be ending our day at Ferrara Café, which people rave them as having the best cannoli in all of Little Italy.
Our day started with high energy. Kelly and Joe were excited to come along and I was just excited for the long awaited cannoli at the end of our evening. We met at Penn at 10:35 and headed on the F train towards Delancy Street. We walked out from the subway and noted how beautiful the weather was for the day. We headed over to the Essex Street Market.
“The Market is open Monday-Saturday from 8a.m.-7p.m. Built in 1940 to house pushcart peddlers whom Mayor Fiorello La Guiardia legislated off the streets, the market offers food for all tastes—Latino, Jewish, and upscale urbanite: chicken gizzards, nopales (cactus stems), sherry vinegar, fish cheeks, prime cuts of beef, and artisanal cheeses.” [BG pg. 123] The market was filled with a foreign aroma as we entered. Kelly, my friend who is vegan has heard about the market and chose not to go in. To my surprise, I’m glad she didn’t! The Market was authentic and the places that sold fish, sold the actual fish. Where they sold meat, oh boy, you saw meat. Most of the stands looked like they would be business shops held in the early to mid 1900’s. I was so surprised to walk in to such a cultural and diverse market. Anyone who lives in the city has a wonderful area to shop at this location. Here I purchased two items. I had one chocolate pecan truffle that was over-priced but still delicious from “Shoppe Roni-Sue Chocolates,” and I got a piece of pecan cheesecake from “Saxel by Cheese” which was bitter yet authentically scrumptious.
After the indoor street market, we went to the tenement museum to schedule a tour. The tour the class would be seeing which was about the life of the Moore Family was not being held the day my friends and I went. Instead we settled for a $22 walking tour called “Walk the Neighborhood – Outside the Home.” We started off the tour by group introductions. It was awkward when the group got to my friends and I because we didn’t know how to explain why we wanted to go on this boring tour. Anyway, the tour was revolved around seeing the Lower East Side through the immigrants’ eyes. We discovered the towering Jarmulowsky Bank, Daily Forward buildings, the Eldridge Street Synagogue, PS 42, and other spiritual and secular sites that shaped the daily lives of many immigrants for numerous generations. The tour was all outside and we were not permitted inside any of the buildings. After about an hour and fifteen minutes, we left because the tour was drifting into a more boring direction and because we stood outside some old immigrant library for thirty minutes prior, talking about what Time Square was, to foreigners who didn’t belong on the tour to begin with.
After we left the tour, we headed for food because all of us were starving. We ate at Congee Village located at 100 Allen Street. This was an authentic Chinese restaurant and was absolutely amazing! I ordered the general tso’s chicken, Kelly ordered the steamed plate of vegetables, and Joe had the sesame chicken that I tried and was as delicious as my own dish. The restaurant has a sit-down family style atmosphere, which was awkward because we were the only Americans in the whole restaurant. It was very apparent that this was an authentic place because the menu was not in English and we could barely order our food due to the harsh language barrier between our waiter and us. Although it was a different experience for me, I truly enjoyed it and plan on eating there again.
After we ate, we were not ready to begin our little walking tour. I decided to take us to Washington Square Park to relax for a bit and get some ice cream. “In the early 1950’s Robert Moses, the Parks’ Commissioner and always a highway advocate, decided to push a highway over, under, or through the park to ease down-town traffic on Fifth Avenue, a project that Villagers defeated after a decade-long struggle.” [BG pg. 131] Once we arrived I immediately saw some of my NYU friends and they took us around the Stern Business School Campus. From there we got coffee at the elite NYU Starbucks, one that can only be entered if you are a student yourself or have a friend that attends the school. After Starbucks we went back to Washington Square Park and watched a public show of acrobatic woman forming their own bodies into weird shapes and illusions. At the end of the show, which we all loved, we threw money into the hats of the performers and applauded them for their efforts.
Now onto the walking tour we went. First stopping through The Bowery. “Between Grand Street and Delancy Streets. The Bowery houses a discount and wholesale lighting district that arose to supply the nearby theaters with gas fixtures for the stage and front of the house. Further south, between Delancy and East Houston Street, is the wholesale kitchen supply district, which arrived here in the 1930’s.” [BG pg. 153] The Bowery is where Kelly said she got all her furniture when she attended FIT and even went there for special projects she worked on when needing unique material for garment dresses.
Next was Chinatown. We couldn’t actually pass through the location in which Joe wanted to show us because they were filming a movie on that street. I have been to Chinatown plenty of times to shop and bargain my way through great deals. Canal Street is what is known as the popular attraction for those traveling through Chinatown. “Canal Street marks the southern boundary of SoHo, but east of Broadway. The pagoda-shaped kiosk of the Explore Chinatown Campaign, located in the triangle of pavement near Baxter Street was set up after the September 11 attacks to help Chinatown recover from the ensuing economic damage.” [BG pg. 109]
Quickly passing through Chinatown, we ended up at our final location in Little Italy. We were here for FOOD! “Grand Street in Little Italy still retains some Italian food shops and cafes, offering authentic products, including fresh pasta, cheeses, cured meat, and olive oil. The Ferrara Café founded in 1892 at 195 Grand Street advertises itself as New York’s first espresso bar and oldest pasticceria.” [BG pg. 115] This café, Ferrara Café, is where my friends and I ended our day. I enjoyed more pastries then I should have and had a great time in the café as well. Their cannoli was not the best I’ve ever had per-say, but their cream puffs were to die for.
All pooped out, my friends and I traveled back to Penn and onto the Long Island Railroad back home. They had an amazing time with our itinerary an I was glad to have had some company while making up my class.
I traveled to the City a few days before we would be having this class session with two of my close friends. They were definitely more excited then myself about our adventure because they are in the city more often then I am but they have never gone in with a set itinerary. The fact that they would be “tourists” for the day made it quite amusing for them. Ultimately they loved the experience and wish they had a city course like this one at their college when they were attending undergraduate schooling.
On our itinerary for the day was traveling to Delancy Street for some ethnic food at the Essex Street Market. Then we will move toward the Tenement Museum, for a tour on the Moore Family. We would stop at the famous Congee Village to have lunch then go through our own walking tour of the Lower East side, The Bowery, parts of Little Italy, and Chinatown. Hopefully we would be ending our day at Ferrara Café, which people rave them as having the best cannoli in all of Little Italy.
Our day started with high energy. Kelly and Joe were excited to come along and I was just excited for the long awaited cannoli at the end of our evening. We met at Penn at 10:35 and headed on the F train towards Delancy Street. We walked out from the subway and noted how beautiful the weather was for the day. We headed over to the Essex Street Market.
“The Market is open Monday-Saturday from 8a.m.-7p.m. Built in 1940 to house pushcart peddlers whom Mayor Fiorello La Guiardia legislated off the streets, the market offers food for all tastes—Latino, Jewish, and upscale urbanite: chicken gizzards, nopales (cactus stems), sherry vinegar, fish cheeks, prime cuts of beef, and artisanal cheeses.” [BG pg. 123] The market was filled with a foreign aroma as we entered. Kelly, my friend who is vegan has heard about the market and chose not to go in. To my surprise, I’m glad she didn’t! The Market was authentic and the places that sold fish, sold the actual fish. Where they sold meat, oh boy, you saw meat. Most of the stands looked like they would be business shops held in the early to mid 1900’s. I was so surprised to walk in to such a cultural and diverse market. Anyone who lives in the city has a wonderful area to shop at this location. Here I purchased two items. I had one chocolate pecan truffle that was over-priced but still delicious from “Shoppe Roni-Sue Chocolates,” and I got a piece of pecan cheesecake from “Saxel by Cheese” which was bitter yet authentically scrumptious.
After the indoor street market, we went to the tenement museum to schedule a tour. The tour the class would be seeing which was about the life of the Moore Family was not being held the day my friends and I went. Instead we settled for a $22 walking tour called “Walk the Neighborhood – Outside the Home.” We started off the tour by group introductions. It was awkward when the group got to my friends and I because we didn’t know how to explain why we wanted to go on this boring tour. Anyway, the tour was revolved around seeing the Lower East Side through the immigrants’ eyes. We discovered the towering Jarmulowsky Bank, Daily Forward buildings, the Eldridge Street Synagogue, PS 42, and other spiritual and secular sites that shaped the daily lives of many immigrants for numerous generations. The tour was all outside and we were not permitted inside any of the buildings. After about an hour and fifteen minutes, we left because the tour was drifting into a more boring direction and because we stood outside some old immigrant library for thirty minutes prior, talking about what Time Square was, to foreigners who didn’t belong on the tour to begin with.
After we left the tour, we headed for food because all of us were starving. We ate at Congee Village located at 100 Allen Street. This was an authentic Chinese restaurant and was absolutely amazing! I ordered the general tso’s chicken, Kelly ordered the steamed plate of vegetables, and Joe had the sesame chicken that I tried and was as delicious as my own dish. The restaurant has a sit-down family style atmosphere, which was awkward because we were the only Americans in the whole restaurant. It was very apparent that this was an authentic place because the menu was not in English and we could barely order our food due to the harsh language barrier between our waiter and us. Although it was a different experience for me, I truly enjoyed it and plan on eating there again.
After we ate, we were not ready to begin our little walking tour. I decided to take us to Washington Square Park to relax for a bit and get some ice cream. “In the early 1950’s Robert Moses, the Parks’ Commissioner and always a highway advocate, decided to push a highway over, under, or through the park to ease down-town traffic on Fifth Avenue, a project that Villagers defeated after a decade-long struggle.” [BG pg. 131] Once we arrived I immediately saw some of my NYU friends and they took us around the Stern Business School Campus. From there we got coffee at the elite NYU Starbucks, one that can only be entered if you are a student yourself or have a friend that attends the school. After Starbucks we went back to Washington Square Park and watched a public show of acrobatic woman forming their own bodies into weird shapes and illusions. At the end of the show, which we all loved, we threw money into the hats of the performers and applauded them for their efforts.
Now onto the walking tour we went. First stopping through The Bowery. “Between Grand Street and Delancy Streets. The Bowery houses a discount and wholesale lighting district that arose to supply the nearby theaters with gas fixtures for the stage and front of the house. Further south, between Delancy and East Houston Street, is the wholesale kitchen supply district, which arrived here in the 1930’s.” [BG pg. 153] The Bowery is where Kelly said she got all her furniture when she attended FIT and even went there for special projects she worked on when needing unique material for garment dresses.
Next was Chinatown. We couldn’t actually pass through the location in which Joe wanted to show us because they were filming a movie on that street. I have been to Chinatown plenty of times to shop and bargain my way through great deals. Canal Street is what is known as the popular attraction for those traveling through Chinatown. “Canal Street marks the southern boundary of SoHo, but east of Broadway. The pagoda-shaped kiosk of the Explore Chinatown Campaign, located in the triangle of pavement near Baxter Street was set up after the September 11 attacks to help Chinatown recover from the ensuing economic damage.” [BG pg. 109]
Quickly passing through Chinatown, we ended up at our final location in Little Italy. We were here for FOOD! “Grand Street in Little Italy still retains some Italian food shops and cafes, offering authentic products, including fresh pasta, cheeses, cured meat, and olive oil. The Ferrara Café founded in 1892 at 195 Grand Street advertises itself as New York’s first espresso bar and oldest pasticceria.” [BG pg. 115] This café, Ferrara Café, is where my friends and I ended our day. I enjoyed more pastries then I should have and had a great time in the café as well. Their cannoli was not the best I’ve ever had per-say, but their cream puffs were to die for.
All pooped out, my friends and I traveled back to Penn and onto the Long Island Railroad back home. They had an amazing time with our itinerary an I was glad to have had some company while making up my class.
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