Stout

You'd probably think that a restaurant/bar in the Penn Station/Madison Square Garden area would be a madhouse -- and you'd be right. That said, as midtown madhouses go, Stout on West 33rd street is one of the best.

Stout is big. Really big. It not only has a huge bar area but also a couple of spacious dining rooms -- separated from the bar -- where you can sit and eat comfortably. We got there at about 6:30 on a Tuesday night, at the height of the after-work bar scene, and got a table right away. There's also a really big bar area downstairs where I went to a party once, and the people weren't all jammed in together like in most bars in this town. One could drink and walk around comfortably. Also, it has a decor I really like, a non-pretentious old-time pub look.

Their selection of beers is really good too, and they even have daily special brews. I had a lager that I forget the name of but enjoyed immensely. Their food, particularly the burger and fries, is above par for bar food, and comes in sensible portions. Best of all, the service was excellent, and we had one of the friendliest and nicest waitresses that I can remember in a long time. Considering that she was working in a midtown bar at the height of happy hour and waiting on a lot of people, I was doubly impressed.

Stout even has good bathrooms. In one of them they had a hand-drier that was so intense it completely dried off and warmed my hands in about 5 seconds. I also liked that Stout had TVs everywhere so you could get your ESPN fix and the music, while loud, is not deafening like at a lot of other bars.

So if you find yourself in midtown and are looking for a place to hang with friends, you really can't do any better than Stout. Mr NYC highly recommends it.

Homeless Expats

Homelessness is a chronic problem in NYC, and it obviously gets worse when the economy is bad. For decades the city government has struggled with ways to deal with this problem, including shelters, drug rehab, subsidized apartments, you name it. Rates of homelessness rise and fall but the homeless have never entirely disappeared from our streets.

But maybe that will change.

Mayor Bloomberg has developed a program where the city tries to hook up homeless people with family members who live out of town. The city literally buys them a ticket out of New York and, in some cases, provides money to the families who have agreed to take in their homeless relatives.

So if you're homeless in NYC these days, the city will do everything it can to give you a helping hand ... to leave it.

This plan sounds both sensible and mean. Sensible: it dispatches the homeless from our streets and our shelters and reunites them with family. Mean: it basically says that the city can't and won't do anything more to help these poor souls and shifts the burden of taking care of them to others.

Sensible and mean ... so is life.

Green Day @ Madison Square Garden

t down your iPhones, put down your cameras; this is a fuckin' memory, so live it!"

Green Day played a lot of their old stuff and new stuff. They played a lot of stuff, even bizarre covers like "Earth Angel." They were on stage for almost three hours (9-12) and the music and hijinks's were non-stop. Amongst the hits: "When I Come Around", "Holiday", "20,000 Light Years Away", "Basket Case", "Boulevard of Broken Dreams", "When September Ends" and, of course "American Idiot" (during the encore. They played MUCH more stuff than that but I can't make this the longest posting ever.)

There was moshing, jumping, fist-pumping, screeching galore. It was a real rhubarb.

The show ended on a sweet note when Billie Joe, solo with a guitar, crooned "Time of Your Life." Ahhhhhhhhhhh ... It was quite a refreshing way to end it.

The songs were interrupted by the band's various gags. This usually meant that BJA brought people on stage (usually very young people) to jam with the band (although at one point he performed a mock exorcism on a young boy. I guess he thought it was funny). At one point another young man was playing Tre Cool's drums under the watchful eyes of Monsieur Cool himself. If it had been me, I would have froze but this young drummer drummed admirably.

Also, when one of the girls selected from the audience got onto the stage, she literally assaulted Mr. Armstrong, hugging and kissing him and practically throwing him on the floor. "Ah," he must have been thinking, "'tis good to be a rock star."

MTA Danger!

Early yesterday evening I traveled from Queens to Manhattan. The N train crawled ... and crawled ... and crawled ... at a snail's pace through the tunnel between Queensboro Plaza and Lexington Avenue. A subway train stopping and starting and going slow through a tunnel is nothing new. Usually there's a signal malfunction or congestion that causes the problem. But this was something different.

Very different.

Just before the train picked up speed again, I saw, through the window, four or five track workers standing right outside the train. They were face-to-face with the window, only inches separating them from the train. You could see that they were petrified, quaking under their orange vests and hardhats. Considering what a hot day it was and what they were wearing, this must have been pure torture for them.

Something clearly was very wrong.

Clearly someone goofed. These men were not given enough time to clear out of the tunnel before the train came. It was a miscommunication of some sorts or just downright imcompetence. The result was a very dangerous situation.

How could this happen? After all the track workers who have been killed in the line of duty, how could such a situation be allowed to arise again?

I cannot imagine that this was business as usual. This was clearly a highly, highly unsafe situation and I'm sure the Transport Workers Union would never agree to let their members labor in such unsafe conditions.

But at this moment I was thankful, not for the MTA which is run by a bunch of hacks, but the subway workers who literally give their lives so that we can get around this town. They have brutally tough job and they should be protected at all times.

I hope something like this never happens again.

Philly Follow-up

My post about my recent visit to Philadelphia invited a comment from someone named Caroline at gophila.com who wrote:

"Wow - you saw a lot of great things here in Philadelphia and really hit on why it's a great city.

Next time, come back, see the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Liberty Bell (and the rest of the Historic Philadelphia) and sleep over in a hotel to see even more the next day!

Thanks for sharing your travels."

My pleasure and I hope to see all that -- and more -- next time.

Mr NYC in Philadelphia

Recently I took a day-trip to Philadelphia or Philly, "the city of brotherly love", home of the cheese steak and current best team in the American league.

Some people also call it the sixth borough of New York City but I won't wade into that debate.

That said, I had a nice time during my brief visit to Philly and discovered a few cool things.

First, like NYC, Philly is a great city for walkers; the streets are wide and clean and the architecture is beautiful so there's lots to see. The area around Independence Hall is really beautiful and there's also a gorgeous park nearby.

Second, we went through the cool Italian market on 9th Street between Wharton and Fitzwater. Like a farmer's market, this is an outdoor area that sells like of fresh pasta, cheeses, sausages, etc. and has a real old-world feel. If you're in the mood and have the time for some Italian eats, it's definitely worth checking out.

Third, you MUST visit the Eastern State Penitentiary. This is one of the oldest prisons in America and the first "supermax" facility where all the inmates stayed in solitary confinement. Al Capone was a resident there once and they even filmed part of "12 Monkeys" there. You really get a sense of what prison life was like back then.

Fourth, we went to Independence Hall where, on July 4, 1776, we declared our independence from Great Britain. While great to see, the tour only lasts about 15 minutes and the tour guide's explanations of everything is less than overwhelming. Still, it's free, you just have to get tickets ahead of time.

Fifth, we had a GREAT dinner at a place called Southwark. The service was friendly, the food wonderful, the atmosphere old-timey but not stuffy. If you ever find yourself in Philly and want dinner at a classy place, I can't recommend this more highly.

I'm afraid I didn't get to see the Liberty Bell or go to the Museum of Art but I still felt that I great trip.
So Philadelphia is a great place to go. And it doesn't and shouldn't exist in NYC's shadow. It's a great city with a wonderful culture and an interesting history all its own.

Walter Cronkite's Funeral

Like this is a big surprise ...

Further Delays Possible for Second Avenue Subway

Electing a black man president of the USA has turned out to be easier than getting this desperately needed subway line built. If it happens in my lifetime, I'll be amazed. Maybe my grandkids -- or great grandkids -- will get to ride on it one day.

The Modern

Recently the wife and I went to dinner at The Modern. The Modern is Danny Meyer's funky restaurant in the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) that opened in 2005 and specializes in Alsatian cuisine (meaning it's kinda French, kinda German). It was an interesting dining experience but I have to say that my impressions of it were rather mixed.

The decor is very stripped down and sleek. The lighting is dim. The Modern's interior doesn't really look that different from any other "hip" New York restaurant although I think this is the first time I ever had dinner while sitting in a leather swivel chair. One cool thing is that the restaurant looks out on MoMA's sculpture garden but your table has to be near it -- and ours wasn't.

Now the service is great and friendly. No complaints there. My water glass and bread plates were always full. Best of all, they recommended some very good wines (a delicious Riesling and a glass of some kind of red wine) to accompany our meal and that was much appreciated.

But the food was a mixed bag. We had the Chef's tasting menu and it was good if not exactly memorable. As hor'derves, they gave us roasted fava beans (tasted like baked pumpkin seeds) and little balls of goat cheese (personal favorite of mine). We had a very good, if not exquisitely delicious, ravioli with snails and a little egg. For the first time I had lobster cappuccino which is basically a cup of cappuccino with tiny bits of lobster and and lobster juice. There were some good seafood dishes including one with white fish and salmon but, again, it wasn't amazing. That said, the dessert was really good -- ice cream and lots and lots of chocolate.

This is not the kind of meal you can get in just any restaurant so I give The Modern credit for originallity. However, if you've eaten at Nobu or per se, it falls short of that standard and that's what The Modern begs comparison to. So if you're looking for an interesting dining experience, I reccommend it but, if you're looking for a mind blowing meal, I can't quite go there ... yet.

P.S. My view is shared by Frank Bruni who wrote this review of The Modern in 2005.

Remembering Rocky

Wacky governors and Vice-Presidents have been in the news a lot lately -- including one particularly bizarre Governor who might have been Vice-President. We've heard all about the various financial, ethical, and zipper problems that Blagojevich, Palin, Sanford, and Spitzer have suffered in the last year. And whether its the sinister, creepy Dick Cheney or the gaffe-a-minute Joe Biden, our Vice-Presidents have been providing lots of comedic fodder to keep the American people amused. All this talk of Governors/Vice-Presidents got me thinking about the last New Yorker who ever served in high office. That would be Nelson Rockefeller, "Rocky" as he was known popularly known, who was Governor of New York from 1959 to 1973 and then Vice-President under Gerald Ford from 1974 to 1977. His last name tells you everything you need to know about his background. Born to amazing wealth and privilege, Rocky was at the very top of the very top of the ruling class. Elected New York State Governor four times, he tightened drugs laws, created the SUNY system, conserved huge amounts of land, built massive construction projects, and took Robert Moses out of power in 1968. He ran for the Republican nomination for president three times but lost in 1960 and 1968 to Richard Nixon and in 1964 to Barry Goldwater. Just goes to show you that money can't quite buy everything. Rocky's private was also a bit ... rocky. While he was still governor in 1962, he divorced his first wife and then married his mistress Margaret "Happy" Murphy the next year. As you might imagine, this was a considered a huge scandal at the time. In an era when America was still very much in a conservative 1950s frame of mind, venerated politicians -- and a Rockefeller no less! -- simply did not dump their wives and marry younger women. It was considered quite gauche and had a lot to do with Rocky not getting the GOP nod in 1964 (which many people at the time felt he was owed since he didn't get it in 1960 and Nixon had then subsequently lost the general election to JFK). Rocky quit the Governorship in 1973, returning to his life of privilege and considering another run for president in 1976. But history came knocking on his mansion door. After Gerald Ford became president in 1974 when Nixon resigned because of Watergate, Ford tapped Rocky to be his Vice-President. Rocky was confirmed by the Congress in December 1974 and served until Ford left office in 1977. Sadly for Rocky, Ford dumped him from the GOP ticket in 1976, replacing him with Bob Dole and thus ending Rocky's political career. Rocky returned to NYC and lived here for the last two years of his life. The circumstances of his death have became somewhat legendary. The official version is that he was found dead in his office on January 24, 1979 slumped over his desk while working on a book. In reality, he died on that day in his townhouse while engaging in an ... amorous embrace ... with his 25 year old secretary. So here's to good ol' Rocky, the last New Yorker who served in national office. He political career was impressive, his service to our state and nation admirable, and his private life worthy of the tabloids. And compared to our modern day politicians, he was unquestionably a giant.