Holidays in the City

I'll take any excuse to go into New York City, particularly when I can write off the train ticket. I met my friend and creative director, Heather, at the StoreExpo conference last week, and got to enjoy her company, as well as the company of my college friend Amy and her husband and baby, and my college friend Laura, who hosted me most of the week. After a day in the Bronx with Amy and family (boy, that kid's a fast crawler!), I spent a day at Javits Convention Center, hearing a great keynote on marketing strategy and how retailing is changing, and visiting exhibitor booths. The best part was unexpected: We got to visit retail showrooms in New York City and meet with the salespeople there. We saw some amazing new products, met some great people, and got some ideas (mostly for Heather) about things to use for trade show booths, store design, and merchandising. They even fed us! We concluded our day with friends Laura, Amy L., Hao, and Inna at Shebeen in NoLIta, followed by dinner at Lombardi's, the best pizza place in Manhattan.

The conference also supplied us with a magazine featuring cool store spaces around the city. We spent the following day wandering around Fifth Avenue (after an important stop for brunch at Friend of A Farmer near Gramercy Park, and a walk around the park, thanks to Heather's friend Inna, whose building has a key). Our favorite store decorations were at Henri Bendel, with a whacked-out Alice in Wonderland and rabbit heads on mannequins, painted gold. Heather had been graciously invited to the Empire State Building office of Ronnette Riley, a famous architect whom she worked with on the design of the Apple store in SoHo, so we visited there before a party on the Upper West Side.

We spent Friday at the ABC Store in Union Square. They have have three restaurants there! The store is phenomenal. We went from there to Time Warner Center, where there's a Bouchon and a Bouchon Bakery (mmm), then to Lincoln Center for the New York City Ballet's Nutcracker. With visions of sugarplums dancing in our heads, we called it a night early.

Saturday, Superman met me in the city, and after brunch at Jane, we wandered around SoHo and the West Village, met Laura and her sister to shop at the Young Designer's Boutique, checked out the East Village, and finished Part A of the tour in Union Square. We headed uptown to Central Park, which is romantic and lovely during the holiday season. There's nothing quite like standing next to Wollman Rink, looking up at the bare branches of trees framed by tall buildings, with the lights from Tavern on the Green in the distance. Ahh.

We left the park reluctantly and entered the Fifth Avenue fray. We'll never do it again, but Superman had to see the holiday decorations once in his life. After a walk-by of the tree and ice rink at Rockefeller Center, we'd had enough, but took a fatigued jaunt through Times Square, just to give Superman the complete experience. We ended at Da Enzo, home of the best gelato in New York City, near Penn Station at 494 9th at 39th. After a lovely dinner, we sent Laura to a holiday party and settled into seats on the Wilmington-bound Amtrak, headed home to our cat and Christmas tree.