Manhattan Review

            Almost exactly nine years ago, I went to New York City for the first time, I went with my friend from college, Matt Johnson, after spending a summer working with him in Panama City. We went to go visit his family, who lived outside of the city, and one day we went into the city, and we saw the new World Trade Center, and we went to the 9/11 museum. We did a little bit of walking around too, and the next day, I went back to see my sister, and I think we were in Brooklyn, but I do not really remember where we were, but we went to a Barcade, and I think a bar called the Three Horseman, where I tried steak tartar for the first time. I did not even know eating raw steak was an option, but it was tasty! I only had pizza once though, and it was not even in the city, so I needed to go back, and even though I have now lived in New York for five years, I had not made a return trip, until now.

            When I first started dating Mya, she said one item on the top of her bucket list was to see a show on Broadway, and starting in December, I started offering to take her, but it never worked out until finally in August she said she could go. My main goal was to go and eat pizza. So we had two clear and easy goals eat pizza and see a show. Mya’s favorite theater performer is Johnathon Groff, and he was in a show at the time, but the tickets were like over $400 a person, so instead she got us tickets to go see Wicked, which cost as much as one ticket for the other show.

            We left around 11 on Saturday, and it took us about four and a half hours to get to the city, and the initial drive to the hotel was all the driving we had to do in the city for the weekend until we left. It was a little stressful with some of the turns and having to get over lanes in jam packed traffic, but besides a turn or two it was not a big deal, and we made it to the parking garage seamlessly. This cost $100 to have the car kept in the garage for two days, but thankfully I have a Hilton credit card, so I had enough points to get out first night at the hotel free. The hotel was right across from Radio City Music Hall, or as Mya says, right next to the American Girl Doll store. We had Wicked that night, so we had a couple hours to kill before we needed to go to dinner. So I of course wanted a slice of pizza, and there was a place right next to the hotel serving slices, so I grabbed a slice of sausage and pepperoni from Abitino’s, and it was delicious. It did not matter that it was just thrown in the oven briefly to be warmed, it hit the spot, and it set the tone for a good start to the trip.

            After that we went through some of the nearby stores like Nike, Victoria Secret, and the American Girl Doll store. All of which were multiple stories, and honestly the one that I think had the least to offer was the Nike store. I was so disappointed. There were three stories, and it felt like they did not have anything special or unique that could not be found at a local sporting goods store. I feel like they needed some special shoe section or limited availability apparel.

            For dinner… we had pizza. Mya always goes to a place called John’s Pizza, which is right outside of Time Square, so we walked through that on the way there, and that was my first time seeing Time Square, and it was packed, and the screens were just as big as they appear in the movies, which is a bit excessive. Thankfully at the pizza place, we were seated immediately, and I made our presence known by spilling my beer almost immediately after getting it.

            The pizza place was in what seemed to be an old church. It had a balcony on the second floor where we sat, and on this massive wall, they had a giant mural of the city, that many people stopped to take a picture from our vantage point. For the pizza, we just had cheese, no toppings. It was tasty, and the aspect of it that stuck out the most was the sauce, but there was not enough of it on there for how good it was. It tasted sweeter than your average pizza sauce, and it had a good consistency, but it felt localized to certain spots, and not spread out as much as I wanted it to be.

            This is my biggest gripe with all the pizza that I had while there. Growing up, before we became pizza snobs, my dad would order pizza from Papa John’s, and he liked to order extra sauce on the pizza, and at the time, I was not a fan of this, but I think all of the pizza I had in New York could have benefitted from extra sauce. Where the problem comes in with this concept is that many of the pizza places serve slices, and if you put more sauce on it, and it is just sitting there in the display case, it will get soggy, and even putting it in the oven will not crisp it up, so that is probably why they do not do it.

            On the way to the show, we stopped at a gelato place, and each got a small serving. I appreciate the thickness of gelato, and even though it is a small serving, it feels like so much more. We ate it while we walked, and then we got in the long line to get into the show. Our seats were good, we were less than 20 rows back, and slightly off from center.

            My only connection to Wicked was watching the first movie, and that is how Mya and I started talking, because I replied to one of her stories last November. So it was fitting that this is the show that we went to see. I was familiar with the first half of the show from the movie, but the second half did lose me a little more because I did not know the songs or what was happening, but I think I got the point. The performers were good, obviously, but my one gripe would be that the lady that played Elphaba was a little over the top and silly at times, whereas in the movie she comes across as a stronger more independent presence, but the Glenda actress was excellent. I do feel like the whole animal rights storyline just gets brushed past though, they try to bring it up a few times, but ultimately it is not the key aspect of the story.

            The next day I got up and went for a run. We were half a mile away from Central Park, and that was one the places I wanted to explore, so I did a few miles in there. It was initially overwhelming. There were multiple paths, and they were all crisscrossing this way and that way, but then I found what I thought was a group run, so I hopped into the crew until I wanted to head back. Being around so many runners made the overwhelming feeling dissipate. It was pretty cool to be in this massive flowing current of strangers. Also, there were so many dogs, and somehow all of them were well trained enough to be off leash. It did not matter that I ran past them or barked at them, they all stayed so well behaved. In the park, there were some cool views throughout, but I did not see nearly as much as I wanted to see on my short run but thus is the pain of being hurt.

            I was given the goal of bringing back a rainbow bagel from Liberty Bagels while I was running, and I got a jalapeno bagel with brisket, egg, a hashbrown, and cheese for myself, which was greasy, but it hit the spot right after the run, and the bite I had of the rainbow bagel with butter was good too, it was sweet, almost like a light dessert, and the bagels made for a pretty meal since mine was green.

            After the bagels, we went to go to the Tiffany’s store, but it was closed, so we went to walk through the small part of Central Park that I knew for thirty minutes. We took a picture on a big rock with a view of the city, then we went through all the floors at Tiffany’s which was impressive. The jewelry there sparkled unlike anything I have ever seen, and I think it was funny that all the people in there treated us like serious customers. Their jewelry does not even have prices on it, and if you have to ask, you can’t afford it.

            We spent the day wandering around the different stores in time square like the M&M store, the Disney store, and others, but funnily enough, the only place we bought something was from Barnes and Noble, where we bought things, we could have bought at home. For lunch we got slices of pizza from two different places. I had a slice of Grand Ma’s pizza, which was rectangular with the sauce drizzled on top, which was just okay, but my second slice had corn and broccoli on it, and I loved that. I have had corn on pizza before, but it was a white pizza, this had normal sauce on it, and the texture of the corn and broccoli on the pizza was perfect. I was glad that I tried something unique.

            I stopped to get a couple of drinks while we were wandering around too. I went to the Other Half location there, and I did not care for the beer that I had, and I got a margarita from a Mexican place in Times Square, which was just your run of the mill margarita, but while we were sitting there, we decided to go and see another Broadway show since that was the main reason why we were there, so I bought us tickets to see The Book of Mormon.

            Before the show, we had early dinner reservations for Carmine’s. An Italian restaurant close to Times Square. They only serve food family style, so the portions were huge. We had Ceaser salad to start, and honestly, I could have just eaten the salad and been happy, it was that good, which caused a problem when we had a massive serving of penne pasta in vodka sauce after, and I wanted some meat to go with it, and ordered a side of meatballs, which were six baseball sized meatballs, which was overwhelming. It felt like we did not eat that much, but maybe that was just because there was so much food. I could have eaten more, but I did not want to feel super uncomfortable during the show.

            I did not really know anything about the show other than that it was religious satire, but it was even more vulgar than I was expecting, but then Mya told me that it was made by the same people who made South Park, so that made sense. The music was pretty catchy. Funnily enough, my least favorite part of the show was when they had the dream about hell, but that was Mya’s favorite part. I really enjoyed all the actors in this one, they seemed like typical theater kids, and they also doubled as believable religious zealots. It was an interesting message about questioning what you believe and thinking about the fact that people want an interesting story more than a believable story.

            Both shows were good, but that is an expensive hobby. Obviously, having to perform live time and again is very impressive and takes a high level of skill, but I think I like movies more, and I only have to pay $22 a month, and I can see as many as I want. Either way, I am still glad we had the chance to go and to see two very different plays, and I would definitely be willing to see more.

            Our last day, we spent mostly just wandering around. We took the subway further south on Manhattan, because they were filming the Devil Wears Prada 2 there, and Mya loves Merril Streep, so she was hoping to get the chance to see her. We found the area that they were filming at, but did not see the exact spot where the set was, so we just went for a walk. I really wanted a donut from a local place, and we walked and walked, and there was nothing. On our walk, we came across a good view of the new world trade center, and instead of a donut shop, I found a Cuban place, which worked out because it was now lunchtime. I do not know what it is about places like this, but their rice and beans are exceptional, like it is such simple food that I eat at home all the time, but they make it taste incredible. The sandwich was good too; it is hard to beat fresh Cuban bread.

            After we went back to the area where we saw the signs for the closed street, and then we found a sign for the set, so we went over there, and there was more production equipment and people with walkie talkies, so we sat on the stoop for a while hoping to see an actress, but alas no one came, so we took the subway back to Times Square, and I got a donut from Am I Donut?, which was expensive, but when I ate them on the way home, they were dense and tasty, so I guess it was worth it.

We finished by getting a slice of pizza from the first place again, and then we headed home. On the way out of the city, we saw a guy in his wheelchair just in the middle of the street smoking, so I had to go around him, and we got honked at, and I was like ah yes! This is New York!