16 November 2007

crosby, still


today i had the pleasure of wandering around a tiny (and almost invisible) corner of manhattan.

although the moma design store, the apartment, and the more recent additions of sur la table and bloomingdale's imparted a certain caché to crosby street, this is still uncharted territory for many. a narrow thoroughfare sandwiched between broadway and lafayette, it has, in a certain way, the sense of being a 'back side' of two major north-south streets.

i love that name - crosby. the street looks like a crosby. i had an appointment on said street and showed up a bit early. although i know that entire area, somehow this one square block had eluded me (to be frank, i had walked it just three weeks early and was talking so much that i didn't pay it any attention!).

but today, i looked. crosby and howard streets intersect and are at the vortex of a compellingly strange mix - chinatown, soho, nolita all seem to start or end here. it's quiet, and it's hip - vespa soho ... lefroy brooks (our friend jeff would LOVE the oh-so-chromey airplane faucets - recalling a kindler, gentler era of air travel). there's la pizza shop - great hipster footwear - and laicale salon (tokyo, milan). around the corner lies the sweetest art supply shop. there is lucky bakery across from a shop that makes custom-made boots. a holiday inn of all things. carlos aparicio - very smart - as is bddw, a gorgeous and exotic millworking and furniture purveyor.

so nice to know that muji is just around the corner - pearl paint too, and le pain!

how delightful to explore this very compact 'space' on a clear and sunny autumn day, with my mustache, my cahier, my woolen trench coat with the big collar. i felt like kojak for some odd reason ...

hope you can make it down, baby!

h

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