The Highline « make something

It has been exactly a month since I took a little weekend trip to NYC with my friend Marie Beath, so it’s about time that I actually got around to organizing and posting these photos!

We rented an apartment in Gramercy for our stay and it worked out perfectly. The location seemed to suit us and the bonus was that we were located a few blocks away from the Shake Shack. The Shake Shack is new to me, but is a outdoor burger joint in Madison Square Park. Known for their awesome food, they are also well known for their incredibly long line ups. You can check their website’s shack cam to check out how long the line up is in advance of heading over. Luckily since we were so close, we were able to sneak over at odd times to get our fix. Cheese fries & vanilla shake!

Quite a bit of our trip centred around food and eating all sugary things that crossed our path. I am in love with New York food trucks. They are absolutely not like anything we have here in Toronto. I’m talking about organic ice cream and coffee (Van Leeuwen), dumplings (Rickshaw), natural slush (Kelvin), and tacos (Endless Summer). There are lots more. I’d love to do a tour, just sampling all this delicious truck food.

When we weren’t eating, we actually covered lots of ground, Central Park to Soho, Chelsea to West Village to Nolita and even a day in Williamsburg. Here are a few of my favourite highlights….

Ace Hotel : Our trip started and ended here, actually. Stump Town coffee, breakfast at The Breslin and buying Japanese socks at the Opening Ceremony shop.
Momofuko Milk Bar : A slice of grasshopper pie and birthday cake ‘truffles’.
Grand Central Terminal : One of my favourite buildings in New York. I just love the restored constellation ceiling.
Eataly : Italian food emporium. This was our Friday night excitement. Seriously.
Green Market in Union Square
The Highline
Art Galleries in Chelsea : My favourite street for gallery hopping is West 24th Street between 10th & 11th Avenues. This is where the Gagosian, Mary Boone, Marianne Boesky and Luhring Augustine galleries are located.
Magnolia Bakery : We walked by at a moment when there was no line!
Purl Soho : I got to go check out their new larger location and browse all their lovely goods
Coclico : One of my favourite shoe shops. I lucked out with an awesome pair of grey wedge shooties
Cafe Gitane : Side walk table, watermelon juice, goat cheese with pomegranate molasses and bread + couscous = heaven.
Juliette in Williamsburg : Met up with Canadian gal pals, Natalie & Jen, for delicious brunch in their garden room.
Mast Brothers Chocolate in Williamsburg : American craft chocolate. I didn’t realize, but they do tours of their factory on the weekend. This is on my list for next time!
The Strand : I don’t know how many hours I have spent wandering the aisles of this incredible book store.
Don Hills : Dancing at an open bar fashion week party until the wee hours of the morning. Surprise (to me) concert by Crystal Castles. Fun!

I’ve posted all my photos from the weekend here, including my daily photos of Marie Beath with her soy latte. Can’t wait for the next girls weekend!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Okay, here we go! The first installment of our trip to New York last weekend. I decided to organize my NYC photos by location. This way if you’re wanting to check out any of these places, you’ll know what area they are in. We flew Porter airlines, which is just a lovely way to get to New York. I even enjoy the train ride through New Jersey to get to the city.

We stayed at The Standard hotel in the Meatpacking District. We chose it primarily for the location. It’s incredibly convenient to where we like to shop and eat and very close to the subways. The hotel room was great, small but really the perfect size with a seating area, as well. The floor to ceiling windows with views of the Empire State building were definitely very exciting. The downside was that the hotel is now the centre of major tourist and social activity. It was a zoo in the area on the weekend and we had some ‘loud party people’ as neighbours. Also, we ran out of hot water in the shower a couple times and had to ask to switch rooms. They handled this situation poorly and while there were other great things about the hotel, we won’t be staying there again. C’mon people, hot water is not optional!

The hotel stands right above The Highline, that has re-purposed the old elevated train tracks into the most incredible outdoor space. All weekend long, I looked down onto The Highline from our room. It wasn’t until the last day that we ventured up there on foot and it was pouring rain. Even still, we were amazed by how beautiful every detail is appointed. When it is completed, The Highline will extend twenty blocks. I recommend it as a must-see if you visit New York, it is so inspiring. Unfortunately, my camera battery died the last morning and I didn’t get a single photo! Oh well, next time I’ll be sure to document it.

We did a lot of eating in the area. So much great food to be had. Particular highlights were the Van Leeuwen Ice Cream Truck. Artisan ice cream in a truck that travels around the city? Brilliant AND delicious. An old classic is Tortilla Flats, that offers Margaritas with 10 different varieties of Tequila, great Tex-Mex food and a super fun atmosphere. We also made sure to check out The Spotted Pig for lunch on our last day and I’ve already tried to re-create the lunch I had, it was so good. I want to go back again, as there were other things on the menu I really wanted to try.

I created a little slideshow for you, if you want to see all the photos from this area.

Oh yeah, the weather was 24 degrees Celsius over the weekend. It was like summer and we were worried about getting sun burned! We definitely felt like the universe conspired to give us some extraordinary weather for our well deserved getaway.