Yes, my attempt to blog the American trip entirely by New York musical references continues apace. Look out for future classics from Kajagoogoo, the Wu-Tang Clan and Anton Bruckner, possibly.
We walked off the hummus and chimichangas on a stroll alongside the Hudson to the Lincoln Center, a place best known for the quality of its free toilets, says Mrs RM. I enjoyed the view from the grassy knoll.
The 9/11 memorial at Fire Department 40 is striking.
In a mood to “Do New York” we headed east to the Empire State Building, passing several ancient pubs.
No, I wasn’t allowed to nip in to Demsey’s for a Bass, we had a queue to join.
Oddly, the queue for the Empire State Building was about 7 minutes, rather than the 3 hours suggested by the touts aside. Of course, the official ticket for the elevator ride costs the same as City’s last game in Barcelona. The views from the away end at the Nou Camp aren’t dissimilar, to be fair.
Worth every cent. I sang the song at the top.
Anyway, enough tourism for Mrs RM. She needed a beer. I devised a little circular pub crawl for her, ending at Texas Chicken shack.
Bad Seed Cider is your hipster cider place, providing much needed gentrification just off the scruffy Atlantic Avenue.
We should have had the limited range of murk, but it’s a “hard” cider house, so we felt obliged to sit at the bar and have the taster flight.
Yes, you’re right. Sitting at a bar with hipsters drinking a flight of jam jars is Mr & Mrs RM’s idea of pub hell.
They didn’t even have any scratchings crisps. No food at all.
The barmaid and other customers, who were lovely, said we could pop over the road and bring back some crisps. But we’d already finished the flight. In about 5 minutes.
“GOSH ! You must have been thirsty !!!!” said an astonished barmaid. Not the first or last time an American expressed astonishment at the pace of our drinking.
I showed Mrs RM the Nostrand Pub I’d been to on Day 1.
This time the Ale Wife was on. Possibly from the jug.
With Mrs RM to compare murk for company, it all clicked.
And the music, wow !
B-52s, obscure Numan, New Order’s “Village“, “Happy House“, “Atomic“. “Genius of Love“.
Half an hour of a very American take on 1980s pop.
Half an hour ? Must have been drinking slowly. Or perhaps it was the free pretzels.
Worked for me, even if most of the custom was in that crucial 22-29 demographic. They were all drinking beer too.
With all the silly rules, it could have been a craft bar in Shoreditch,
retiredmartin 
That tree’s nearly as big as the one in the Combermere’s toilet.
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Ha! Yes that came to mind, only reason I took the photo.
I do wonder what you’d think of American places like this, Paul. But not for long.
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America isn’t near the top of my list of places to visit.
Far better that the nicest of Americans come over a couple of times a year to join us in some of our favourite Proper Pubs.
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Most Americans are nice Paul.
I’ve just sold my crib near St Pete Beach on Florida’s Gulf Coast and all my neighbours were sound people.
Okay,the country has a higher level of weirdos than most and they have a funny view on drink – I was once gently admonished about my health by a fellow barstooler at a pub near LAX after putting away half a dozen pints in an hour.
He must have been all of 25 stone.
Looking forward to a grog and ganja tour around the vineyards and legal weed-growing fields of Northern California and Oregon in August.
Thanks for your Glucosomine tip – a chap in my local also says it transformed his knees.
Spoke to my brother over the weekend in the West Country whose a retired orthopedic surgeon who recommended keeping on the allopurinol and I have a scan on them next week to have a look.
As you know, getting old is a bastard
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We agree Paul. See you soon. We can’t wait to read about Plymouth. And I don’t mean Massachusetts.
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P P-T,
Yes, I hadn’t meant to suggest that most Americans aren’t nice.
A couple of years ago an old friend of mine emigrated having married, on the QE2, a young Florida woman and is happily living in the American Saint Petersburg – and his computer skills and diligence meant that he easily got a good job over there.
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We went up the Rockefeller Center instead of the Empire on recommendation, as you can get a 360 degree wlak round, no queues, just as tall and of course, you can see the Empire State Building!
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The free Staten Island Ferry was another tip I would have passed on to young Martin had I known he was going.
Great for pics of the Statue of Liberty.
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P P-T,
Not many people know that the Statue of Liberty was presented in 1884 as a gift from the French Grand Orient Temple Masons to the Masons of America in celebration of the centenary of the first Masonic Republic and that she is holding the Masonic “Torch of Enlightenment” which represents the “Sun” in the sky.
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👍
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“Of course, the official ticket for the elevator ride costs the same as City’s last game in Barcelona.”
It was only the invention of the elevator that made skyscrapers viable but not many people know that the electric motors needed for them were soon used for trains and that heralded the electrification of many railways worldwide.
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“Spot your favourite craft bars” – I can’t because you are directly above it! I can’t believe you went to the Empire State Building and didn’t go in to Heartland Brewery.
I concur with Tandleman’s comment on Rockefeller over Empire State.
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I was trying to remember where I’d been at the foot of the ESB (Asahi are apparently negotiating initiallising the name so as to promote Fullers) when I saw mention of Heartland. I went there once (over 5 years ago I think) and the hassling by waiters was the worse I have encountered in the USA. They really don’t like you taking any time in deciding what to eat – why not just throw a burger at people coming in and cut out the middle man?
If you are still out there, have you got to McSorleys yet? It was a clear favourite when I used to go to NY for work a few years ago.
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Thanks for this: “There’s your Kaja reference Mark” –Must confess I wasn’t Kaja-knowledgable enough to catch the reference! But I googled it and have decided that in missing that particular song I didn’t miss much. 😉
I’m guessing a bar with no food at all is a NYC thing. I haven’t encountered that anywhere else– usually they’ve at least got popcorn or chips or something along those lines.
Really enjoying these posts!
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Oh, I had to add: Looks like you lucked into an exceptionally clear day for your trip to the top of the Empire State Blg. I’ve been up there a couple times, but never saw everything so clearly as that.
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Yes, we saw how clear it was and just thought “now or never”.
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Top 3 New York songs:
Frank Sinatra “New York,New York ”
Kaja – “Big Apple”
Beastie Boys – “No Sleep till Brooklyn”
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