Dumbo

Attached to our hotel is a restaurant, the Tick Tock Diner. It must seat well over 100 and this morning it was full. What an experience watching the crowds of mostly tourists get their day going. When you get your bill they hand you a card explaining the amounts expected for tips - 15%, 20% or more. The first time there, the waiter checked at the cash register to make sure Norm hadn't forgotten a tip!
After breakfast we checked out the subway, efficient, pretty easy to figure out but not the cleanest place. We headed to the Tenement Museum in the Lower East Side, got tickets for a 3 o'clock tour and since it was only 11 we had time to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. It was completed in 1883, the longest suspension bridge and the first to be constructed of steel. The cables consist of 19 strands of steel wire bound together and compressed into one cylinder. Really cool except there is huge amount of construction going on right now so it's not so perfect to look at.




On the other side of the bridge is Brooklyn and the area below it is called Dumbo - Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass, of course. Saw a bit maybe too much of the industrial area but managed to wander through some gentrified parts and had excellent pizza at the Dumbo Kitchen. We caught the subway back to Bleeker street to Cones for delicious gelato. Pizza, coke, and ice cream - my 3 favorite foods!
We got back just in time for the tour, Hard Times. A really good chance to see firsthand a four-storey apartment block that was mostly unchanged from the 1870s when a German family of five (the Gompertzes) lived in three rooms and later in the 1920s and '30s an Italian family of four (the Baldizzis) lived in another apartment. Living conditions were harsh and families worked hard to survive.
Needing to walk again we started home, first going to Washington Square. The sun came out and so did the people to enjoy this beautiful green space in the city. This park was once a cemetery and when excavation began they exhumed 10,000 skeletal remains. The marble arch completed in 1895 was built to mark the centenary of George Washington's inauguration.




You actually see the Empire State building through the arch. Neat eh! We walked along Fifth Avenue to the Flatiron building. What an awesome sight! Really amazing how it sits there, where Broadway angles through the right-angle street grid of the city.



Originally the Flatiron was named the Fuller building after the construction company that owned it and was the tallest building in the world when completed in 1902. It became known as the Flatiron for its unusual triangular shape.
Right next door is Eataly, an Italian restaurant. But this is unlike any restaurant you've ever been to. It is huge with many different eating areas for you to choose from -- coffees, desserts, seafood, meat, pizza, pasta.... And I am sure more. We went to the pasta/pizza section. Wonderful fresh pasta, Italian bread and a glass of wine. Life is good!
Then the remaining 15 blocks home. It felt good to be back and put our feet up.



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Location:Brooklyn