NYC⇢MA Adventure, Day 3: Summer Streets, Lower East Side, St. Vincent

This morning we are up and out late. It's already 10:50 and we're on the 4 train to the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge where the New York Summer Streets festivus takes place. I think we expected a lot of a festival in which the New York Streets were closed off, but there wasn't really much to it. There was a climbing wall.

The last bit of the festival involved the Park Avenue tunnel that had been closed to traffic so that pedestrians could walk through it and experience the sounds of the ocean, accompanied by eerie subterranean lighting.

We had hurried to make it, to be able to enter the tunnel and experience this before it closed, but the experience didn't rise to the hoopla made of it.  Some liked it though.

We visited Grand Central Station, and lunch happened at the food court in the lower level where it was every man, woman and child for themselves.



Followed by a visit to the New York Public Library where there was a children's book exhibit comprising everything from Good Night Moon to Marvel Comics.

Extracting Rowan from the building took some time so we waited in the courtyard outside the library where Griffin vaulted the chairs and tables.

Worn out from playing tour guides, Patty, Drew and Fiona left us to our own recognizance and off we went to find Manhattan's Lower East Side and Chinatown.

On the Lower East Side, a group of people opening a restaurant had a table set out where passersby could sample their wares, or at least what their wares might be in the future. Griffin had a slider and we all had shrimp. I also had a crab cake, washed down with lemonade.

We went into the Essex Market where I bought a Kombucha from the Japanese stall called Ni. Everyone was pretty unimpressed with the Essex Market. I think they were expecting something more than a grocery. We also went to Economy Candy, which was a bit more of a hit.

We took the 6:30 pm F train from Essex and Delancey Streets into Brooklyn, to the Prospect Park Bandshell where St. Vincent is giving a free concert in the park.

Once on the train, Pam asks me repeatedly who we are going to see perform, and its like Abbot and Costello's Who's on first?

"St. Vincent," I reply.

"Who?"

"St. Vincent."

"Not where. WHO?"

Sigh. It's St. Vincent.

Drew brought blankets from the house and we set up on the lawn across the street from the fenced off bandshell area. We had long since given up on standing in the miles long line to enter the bandshell area proper and anyway, this was a more laid back spot from which to enjoy the music and the food that Drew and I grabbed at the local market. We also played the guessing game that Rowan had learned while working as a Junior Ranger this summer which was so much fun, it continued into the walk home to Drew and Patty's.