Man on a Mission

Today I left our building on the Cedar Street side with a mission: I needed to get tickets from the TKTS booth at the South Street Seaport because my wife and I planned to celebrate Valentine’s Day a week late by seeing a Broadway show.

I made a quick right towards Nassau and walked up a short block before I made a right onto Liberty, which then merges into Maiden. It was my first snow-free look at the new Louise Nevelson Plaza. Originally, there were a couple of buildings on the location that were destroyed to improve access to the World Trade Center. This particular photo is interesting because it looks like the building was right on that triangle where the plaza now stands.

What I didn’t know is that Louise Nevelson was a woman (thus Louise and not Louis) and a sculptor who lived (and died) in New York City. Those are her sculptures around the park! I had no idea!

But I was on a mission and couldn’t stay too long. I continued walking along Maiden and passed Gristedes and was reminded that when I first started working down here we didn’t have any supermarkets.

In case that wasn’t enough to get the point across about the district’s changing demographics, I then passed by 100 Maiden Lane to see a dad at 10:45 AM helping his little girl on her tricycle. To me, the rapidly growing residential community’s contrast with the brisk workaday environment is one of the more interesting facets of Lower Manhattan life.

As I made a left onto Pearl, a right onto John, then crossed Water Street, I really began to notice how much this area has changed since I was last here. It was my first look at the new Imagination Playground and it was unlike any play space I had seen before. After all, not many playgrounds are designed by famous architects like David Rockwell, like this one was.

Had I ever seen a playground down here? I don’t think so. I watched the kids running around, missed my own, but marveled that you could live down here, walk to a playground and play and then hop on a subway to anywhere. It certainly wasn’t always like this, that’s for sure.

I had a long time to wait on line before I could buy my tickets, but I did and got two tickets to see Colin Quinn’s Long Story Short for Saturday and a lovely romantic evening with my Sweetie. Mission accomplished.

(By the way, did you know you can buy matinee tickets for the next day at the Seaport TKTS booth? That way my wife and I didn’t have to waste our time tomorrow standing on line. You can’t do that in Midtown!)

My next meandering will be in Florida, but since I’m a nice guy I won’t tell you about it, though I am probably enjoying the pool with my kids while you read this.

I’ll see you when I get back, but in the meantime, where should I go next time?