New York is so much more than the hustle and bustle of Broadway and Times Square. It’s not too far from Greenwich Village, where you can get the feeling you’re in a small town somewhere in England, the tree-lined streets full of cafes and bars. If it were not for the skyscrapers on the horizon, you would forget completely where you were.
I visited a friend there, some years ago, and for breakfast we went down the street from his NY apartment building…down to the Village. He lived in this huge New York apartment building, I’m not sure how he got the place, but it was enormous. At least by my measurements at the time. And it had a lovely balcony, too. But no breakfast. So we had to go down the street to a bakery, run by a family whom he had got to know. Today, it was the grandmother who was minding the store, and who cut our bagels and served us coffee, which we took outside to the chairs and table they had put on the pavement. Ah New York bagels, there’s nothing like ’em! Chewy yet light, the texture of the bread and the taste is not the same in other places, wherever you buy it. And with cream cheese, dunked quickly in the coffee—that and the sunshine, the cabs cruising the street, and the people walking by—makes you feel like New York is alive around you.
