Monday – Day 39
August 30, 2012
Today started off baking drop cookies with the girls, and though the drop part didn’t work so much the cookies were still quite tasty.
Following that it was out to walk the streets of New York City. First stop, the bagel store for a giant cream cheese and lox bagel. Just as I ducked into the store it started to pour with rain. Little did it bother me and I just keep walking through the storm, eating my delicious bagel that was so full it was hard to fit into my mouth. I walked along Fifth Avenue and after a brief detour into central park, made it to the famous New York Apple Store, dripping wet. I went inside briefly and was uninspired and thus continued to FAO Schwartz next door. FAO Schwartz is a giant toy store that unfortunately over time has become less impressive, however, still on display was a massive teddy that although tempting I did not purchase.
Note by this point my camera battery had run out and I was left with my phone as my battery charger I had unfortunately left with Gus in CT. Don’t expect nice photos for a few more days.
After that it was down Broadway again and past Times Square. As I was walking down a side street, the number of Jews suddenly increased exponentially and, as I walked down I saw why. Jeweller’s Alley, full of merchants buying and selling gold, jewels and diamonds, many of them Jewish. With store names such as Stein and Sons or Mendel’s Gold Emporium, the Jews had certainly kept up their traditional trade in this part of the city.
From there I walked to B&H, a store whose name stands for “Be’ezrat Hashem” (with the help of g-d), a store run by a certain sect of Hassidic Jews. However, don’t think that this is some little operation. B&H Photo is the largest photo store in NYC and is impressive for its huge range of professional electric equipment, staffed almost entirely by Hassidic Jews.
After that I finished walking downtown to J&R electronics, another Jewish owned electronics megastore and by then was tired enough to return home for an hour before my last trip in NYC.
The night brought me to celebrating Irit Shachari, my house-mother from ISSI’s birthday with a theatre production called Puppet Kitchen in the East Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York. The show was themed ‘divas’ and featured numerous performers expressing their art through puppetry and song. Following that a quick jaunt to a local ice cream bar with fully organic, locally sourced, interesting flavors.
Back to Yoni and Rivki’s I struggled to fix the internet and eventually, for once, defeated, retired to sleep.