Spa Castle

Recently the wife and I took a break from parent duty and spent an afternoon at Spa Castle in Queens. To put it bluntly, this place is great!

Nestled in the somewhat remote neighborhood of College Point, from the outside Spa Castle looks like nothing more than your usual nothing special building. But inside is an amazing world. You walk in the door and pay your $35 daily fee (it's more on weekends) and are given a small watch like thing to put around your wrist. Then you go into the locker room, put your shoes in a small locker and your regular clothes in a bigger locker. Then you changed into a uniform, basically a pair of shorts and a Spa Castle t-shirt. If you want to swim (and, trust me, you want to swim), you wear your swimsuit underneath your uniform. T

hen you ascend the stairs into the spa, and you come into Nirvana.

Spa Castle has three stories: a main level with a Sauna Alley (there's like seven or eight different saunas you can visit), a sleeping area (I kid you not!), as well as a small food court and the massage stations (you have schedule one if you want one, and they cost extra). Then there's another small level that has places where you can rest as well as get foot massages (again, costs extra). Then, above this level, is the level where you can swim. Well, not swim exactly -- wade. There are indoor and outdoor pools that have all sorts of jacuzzi jets and handle bars so you can wade, get pelted with hot water, and just sit around. Best of all, there's one pool where you can sit on chairs in front of tables and order drinks!.

If you or some friends or a loved one would like a fun day to relax, refresh and enjoy yourselves, Spa Castle is definitely worth the money. Some suggestions: you don't really need to spend more than about four hours there to get the full benefits. Also, the food is very expensive so, if you can eat before or afterwards, I'd suggest that. Also, the massages and extra services are costly as well but they are really good and worth getting. 

We went on a Friday during the regular work week and it was pretty crowded so I would imagine that the weekends are insane (plus more expensive). I'd advise going on a day off work with your friends. Also, while Spa Castle is technically a Korean place, there's a nice balance of Asian, white, black and Hispanic people there -- it's practically like a Benetton ad. 

So Spa Castle gets a big thumbs up from Mr NYC!

In last 2010, on the now cancelled show "Bored to Death," there was an episode set at Spa Castle. It was called "Escape from the Castle" -- but, believe me, if you go, you won't want to escape. 

Dolan Elevated to Cardinal in Rome Ceremony

Memo from NYC

Tonight on PBS is the season finale of the British show "Downton Abbey." If you've never seen it, it's a costume drama about the complex lives and loves of a British noble family in early 20th century England -- and the lives and loves of their servants. It has a great cast, gorgeous production values, and is a lot of fun. The show was a big hit in the UK and is now a big hit here. Mr NYC is, for one, a big fan.

It's fast becoming the water cooler show of the Yuppie set -- think "Sopranos", think "Sex and the City", think "Mad Men."

But as good as "Downton Abbey" is, haven't we seen this show before?

Well, yes. It was called "Upstairs, Downstairs" and it ran for five seasons in the early 1970s. At the time, it was as huge a show as there has ever been. It was about a wealthy British political family in -- guess -- early 20th century Britain, and their servants. It was a high class soap opera but so much more. "Upstairs, Downstairs" was the first show to ever reach more than a billion viewers worldwide (the second show to do this was "Baywatch" in the '90s) and it won lots of Emmys.

Last year the wife and I watched the whole series on Netflix, right after seeing the first seasons of "Downton Abbey." And while "Downton Abbey" is good, "Upstairs, Downstairs" is truly great TV. 

What makes it great? Because it was a stark, unsentimental, visceral look at the English class system, and how it warped and distorted and corrupted the lives of both masters and servants. They all seemed trapped by this system that was bigger than all of them, and they were all quietly dying inside. Also, the performances in "Upstairs, Downstairs" were so powerful, you truly believed that the masters had been rich and privileged all their lives and the servants came from poverty. The sexual, familial, and social tension in every scene of the show was almost unbearable. That's great drama.

With "Downton," on the other hand, you get the sense that the masters and servants are all great pals and that this English class system is actually quite a great thing. And the masters and the servants seem, for the most part, indistinguishable from each other. 

As the author of this article says about "Downton Abbey"

Edward Gorey, that beloved and prolific purveyor of doomed Edwardians, once told an interviewer that his mission in life was to make everybody as uneasy as possible, because, he said, “that’s what the world is like.” What “Downton Abbey” offers, by contrast, is a utopian version of the past that’s custom made for the present sociopolitical morass. It presents a system so perfect that it can weather any upheaval, smooth out any wrinkle, absorb any shock. It refers incessantly to the coming collapse of the social order and then sets up its conflicts like bowling pins to be swiftly knocked down and neatly swept away.

And drama, like life, is never neat. So while we can all enjoy "Downton Abbey", I would urge all Mr NYC readers to get "Upstairs, Downstairs" on Netflix now. 

Its Gets Grimmer

The drip, drip, drip of bad news for sleazy Staten Island Congressman Michael Grimm just gets drippier.

Turns out that this law-and-order guy associates with criminals and is a deadbeat.

If this guy's political career survives, it'll be proof that there's no honesty in public life anymore.

History of NYC in Ten Objects

The public radio station WNYC is doing a special upcoming segment on the history of NYC in ten objects -- ten objects that have come to define the evolution of our city. Right now you can go online and see some of the objects that listeners have submitted.

There are some interesting and certainly worthy suggestions -- Greek coffee cups, water towers, the Times Square New Year's Eve ball, hot dog carts, even the legendary Andy Warhol "The Velvet Underground and Nico" album cover.

I like all of these things but there's one item missing -- granted it no longer exists but it used to define what it meant to be a New Yorker. And virtually every New Yorker had one -- if not more than one -- in their pocket at any time.

Of course, I'm talking about ... the subway token!

Personally, I think our city is poorer without them. 

Bloomberg at 70

Yesterday our fair mayor turned 70 years old.

Happy belated birthday Mike.

Also, in just under two years, he'll be out of office. So what does he have planned for his final days in office?

Read all about it here.

Jeremy Lin Inspires Basketball Mania

New York Post sinks to a new low ...

Can you believe the New York Post did this?

New York Post Outs Greg Kelly's Accuser With Front-Page Photo

It's shameful. Outrageous. Disgusting. 

Or business as usual for these people. 

Of course, this paper is owned by Rupert Murdoch which also owns Fox News and those papers in Great Britain that hacked the phones of dead people. This is a journalistic organization that has no morals, no ethics, no sense of common decency. This is an evil company. 

It will be a great day in NYC when Murdoch and his minions no longer own a newspaper -- or anything -- in this town. 

Hookah Central

In that Mediterranean village on the East River called Astoria, located about 5000 miles west of the actual Mediterranean in the borough of Queens, is a stretch on Steinway street known as Little Egypt. There are several Egyptian restaurants there serving hardcore, no nonsense Egyptian food that, having sampled it a few times, is very delicious. There are also Egyptian specialty stores

And then there's the hookah lounges.

These are the places where Egyptians congregate, talk about the politics and their memories of the old country, and smoke hookah -- a hashish boiled in water, the fumes of which are then smoked through a big glass pipe.

This small article is about what is, allegedly, the first hookah store in the United States and how it captures a little bit of Egypt in NYC. I've never tried hookah myself but, if you're curious, you should check out Little Egypt in Astoria and take a small trip across the world via the subway.

Frisk This

Of the many controversies swirling around the NYPD, the biggest one that will probably be an issue in the 2013 mayoral race is the policy of Stop and Frisk.

This is basically where cops stop people and search them for drugs, guns, knives or anything else that would prove they are menaces to society. Many who are caught with something are either arrested or issues summonses. Those who are not found with anything are just annoyed and inconvenienced. 

The NYPD and the mayor -- backed by most of the newspaper editorial boards and powers-that-be in this city -- support the practice and tout it as a key crime fighting tool. Those who are mostly the targets of frisky cops obviously don't like the practice and question its effectiveness. And, not surprisingly, blacks and Hispanics are overwhelming the people being stopped and frisked. 

This policy and its controversy is clearly one of those issues with huge potential to become a wedge issue in this city's politics. Wealthy people and white people will probably support the policy while poorer and minority people won't. It's one of those policies that just about everyone who isn't affected by it supports. But if anyone is affected by it, they hate it and want it stopped. 

It's too bad that in the second decade of the 21st century, issues like this still emerge to divide the city. 

A couple of articles in this week's Village Voice show the human side of stop and frisk, and how people react to it. If it's something that happens to other people, you don't care. If it happens to you, then you crusade to stop it. 

In 2013, Stop and Frisk will either stop -- or the cops will be more frisky than ever.