The view from our room at Wingate by Wyndham Midtown. Perfectly located within walking distance of so many attractions, the room was comfortable, the staff helpful and accommodating.

Since 1884 Bryant Park is situated behind the New York Public Library in midtown Manhattan, between 40th and 42nd Streets & Fifth and Sixth Avenues. Although I love Central Park and others in the east village, Bryant has been my favourite since D discovered it whilst roaming around and killing time while I attended a media seminar in Times Square.

The park itself invites is set up in a relaxing fashion with chairs available to pull together and face the sun.

The perimeter of the park is as picturesque as the park itself with many historic buildings that can be viewed through the trees.

The Bryant Park Grill features new American-style dining set against the stunning backdrop of Bryant Park. Seasonal patio and rooftop dining provide great views of the park. It is located behind the library, on Bryant Park’s Upper Terrace between 40th and 42nd Streets.

A bronze bust can be seen just to the west of the Bryant Memorial. Sculptor Jo Davidson created a bust of the American writer Gertrude Stein in 1923, now in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art. The Bryant Park bust is a cast made from the original.

The lawn is lush and green and the flowers change seasonally but Bryant Park is more than a garden. When you first discover it, nestled in its canyon of skyscrapers, it’s like an oasis–a refuge of peace and calm. But Bryant Park is a city park, full of historical monuments and urban amenities. The park is a social place where friends meet, eat lunch, chat, stroll, listen to music, work on the wireless network, or simply sit and think. Winter, summer, spring, and fall, New Yorkers love this park.

Six flower beds border Bryant Park’s Lawn to the north and south–two on the shady South side and three on the sunny North. They are planted seasonally with 100 species of woody shrubs and herbaceous perennials and 20,000 bulbs.

Today’s version of Bryant Park–with its gravel paths, green chairs, and jaunty le carrousel–is a recent invention. Though the space has been called Bryant Park since 1842, the park has had a checkered career. By 1979, it was the site of frequent muggings and drug deals and was avoided by knowledgeable New Yorkers. An almost ten-year effort, begun in 1980, transformed the park and its reputation.

Along the Northern and Southern sides of the park are twin promenades bordered by London plane trees (Platanus acerifolia). This is the same species found at the Jardin des Tuileries in Paris, and contributes a great deal to Bryant Park’s European feel. These trees can grow up to 120 feet in height.

At the western gateway to the park is the pink granite Josephine Shaw Lowell Memorial Fountain, dedicated in 1912. This was the city’s first public memorial dedicated to a woman. Lowell (1843-1905) was a social worker and founder of the Charity Organization Society. Charles Adams Platt designed the fountain.

Pétanque is a French game of “boules” (French for balls), where each player strives to throw metal balls as close as possible to a smaller wooden ball, named the “cochonnet”. Most games are played in teams, and are staged on the gravel area near the Sixth Avenue and 42nd Street corner. Tournaments are played on the gravel paths around the Bryant Park lawn. Game strategies include “pointing” when a player throws his ball to have it roll as close to the cochonnet as possible, and “shooting” when a player aims for the ball of an opponent, hoping to move him out of a favorable spot.

I get out my novel and perch my feet on an extra chair while D loves to linger over a New York newspaper. We pretend that we are New Yorkers.

Since Bryant Park s right next door to the New York Public Library, we often stop in there as well. When we first visited we found the reading room that looked like it was right out of “Ghostbusters”!

Sculptor Edward Clark Potter created the lions, which were carved in pink Tennessee marble by the Piccirilli brothers. They were later nicknamed “Patience” and “Fortitude” by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia.

The New York Public Library building was designed by John Merven Carrère and Thomas Hastings. The magnificent Beaux-Arts building sits on a terrace that was designed to elevate the building above surrounding streets, to provide gathering places for people, and to provide a setting for public sculpture.

The fountains on either side of the library’s entrance are Truth” on the (South) side and “Beauty” on the (North). They are the works of the major American sculptor Frederick William MacMonnies.

Feeling a little peckish by this time, we find a New York deli called Ben’s. Read all about it here.

Kath’s quote: “The true New Yorker secretly believes that people living anywhere else have to be, in some sense, kidding.”  ― John Updike

Love never fails.

Circumstances with booking our “free” flights to New York meant that D (Air Miles) had to depart the evening before me (Avion) and spend the night on an airport bench in Ottawa, whereas I slept in our own bed, flew through Toronto and met him at La Guardia. After I had boarded my flight from TO to NYC, I was just about to turn my phone to airplane mode, when I got a call. The Doc from a walk in clinic who had seen me regarding an unexplainable pain in my left side, sent me for an xray and was calling to say that they were concerned about two spots that were detected-one on my kidney and another on my pancreas. I reeled with that information and could not get to NYC fast enough to process the news with D. I told him within minutes of my touching down.

D is excellent with logistics and had figured out the most economical way to get from La Guardia to Newport where we were staying at an Air BnB. The bus had been packed and we could barely hear the stops that the driver was calling out. As a result, we missed our connections and ended up somewhere in Harlem. A lovely older man could see that we didn’t belong there and offered to help us figure out how to get back on track.

After finally reaching our destination, we dropped our bags and headed out again, this time from Newport to Manhattan with very clear directions. We loved the congested streets of NYC with all of its hecticness.

Our first stop was a place to buy a bottle of wine. Between the news en route and the difficult journey to our room, we both needed a glass of wine.

We picked one up along with some bread and cheese and headed to Central Park

where the sun was just going down on the other side of a row of skyscrapers.

The October sun was warm and beautiful.

Just as we were about to place our picnic blanket down, I spotted a beautiful white rose on the ground. I took it as a message that all would be well. Now, months later, I can report that there was no spot on my pancreas, even though there was indeed something on my kidney. I am scheduled to have the “something” surgically removed this week.

I mistakenly put the cart before the horse.

After our lovely picnic, we decided to wander through the park and see if there was something more substantial to share for our dinner. We had another light meal at Tavern on the Green and was well pleased.

Still later, we walked the streets of the lower west side back towards our subway stop and came upon Benash’s Deli for our dessert stop.

We ended our first evening in New York with this tall, cool, cheesecake that was the icing on the proverbial cake!

Kath’s quote: “I suspect music is auditory cheesecake, an exquisite confection crafted to tickle the sensitive spots of… our mental faculties”. -Steven Pinker

Love never fails.

Sometimes when I am organizing my expenses (which I do quarterly) I realize that I have dined at an amazing place that I have forgotten to write about and share the adventure with you my loyal readers. Such is the case with this iconic place.

On our arrival day in NYC en route to Milan and then Tuscany, we had a picnic in Central Park in the late afternoon just as the sun was “setting” behind the urban landscape of skyscrapers. We stayed in New Port that evening and we were reluctant to leave all of our favourite sites in Manhattan.

So we wandered through the park and decided that it might be nice to stop for a thirst-quenching beer. We thought of crossing the street to the Upper West Side when we accidently came upon Tavern on the Green.

There was a private reception taking place in the courtyard and because we had already had our picnic, we didn’t want to go to the dining room for a full meal (besides we were dressed for a picnic, not Manhattan dining). So we opted for the quaint Beer Garden appointed with picnic benches overlooking the “green” and the beautiful and historic apartments of the Upper East Side (think The Dakota) as the backdrop.

October evenings are still fair in NYC and it was the perfect choice.

I let D do the beer selecting and whatever it was he chose for me was refreshing and delicious. Nothing quenches my thirst like a cold beer. You?

The food menu showcased simple fare and we selected a Polish Kielbasa

and Potato Latkes. The latter were a bit overdone and greasy for our liking but hey, it was our first evening in NYC, we were not inclined to make a fuss and send them back.

Simple food, served in a garden in Central Park in one of our favourite cities in the world. What could be wrong with that?

Kath’s quote: “There is nothing yet which has been contrived by man by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern.” –Samuel Johnson

Love, that is all.