While reading this week’s New York magazine, I came across this article in the “Artifact” section that focused on some interesting slides that accompanied a recent speech made by Nassau County Executive Thomas R. Suozzi at a conference on….um… how to make “cool” downtowns in Nassau county. Towns that are cool enough that young, single people will want to move to, instead of Manhattan and Brooklyn.
Now I know what you’re thinking- “cool downtowns in Nassau county? Isn’t that like an oxymoron or something?” But there is actually a very cool downtown out here on LI. The wifey and I love going there for its great restaurants, shopping, and fun atmosphere.
That town, however, is Huntington; which, unfortunately for Executive Suozzi, is in Suffolk county. ZING!
The interesting part of this article was the slides which were used to categorize the downtowns in Long Island that are cool, which ones are getting cool, and those with a ways to go. Here is the list from the article:
Hold up! My town, the Village of Great Neck Plaza, is cool? In defense of it, yes it does have ample shopping, good restaurants, very good LIRR access to the city, gyms, and a movie theater. It is a good downtown, but it is NOT a cool one, at least not in the minds of the single young people that Suozzi is trying to get to move to Nassau county. The main reason why it’s not cool is that (wait for it) there is no NIGHTLIFE WHATSOEVER that young, single people would find interesting. Actually, last I checked, there isn’t even a bar in the town.
Granted, that don’t phase me no mo’. I’m married, 32 years old, and way past my prime drinking age. But for young, single folk, that is the common scene they gravitate towards. If they move to VGNP looking for that, they will end up just as bored as the teenagers hanging out at Grace Ave park and loitering at Cold Stone. At least the other cool towns listed here actually have nightlife for the youngs to hang out in. For example, Garden City has places like Novita for people to go to at night, which has a very good cocktail lounge.
You probably know by now that the Dolan family, Cablevision’s overlord/proud owner of NY Rangers (and…um…that other team) are now the new owners of Newsday, the paper of record for the island I call home.
What you might not of heard about was how the family reacted when the paper went to make an offical editorial introduction to the family.
See here for this great article by John Koblin of the New York Observer about how Newsday reporters got treated like they were Knicks beat reporters when they tried to interview the new boss man.
As most commuters will tell you, it usually takes something special to make them come into the city on a day where they don’t have to. I couldn’t agree more, which is why the something special that brought me into the city this weekend was the 3rd Annual Coffee and Tea Festival NYC, which took place at the Metropolitan Pavilion in Chelsea. (Editor’s note- Before Scott got married, he wouldn’t have been caught dead at this event. But times and tastes do change.) The cool thing was that there were many companies from the tri-state area reprezenting, including several tea/coffee places from Long Island, but we’ll get to that later.
So with further delay, the logo for the festival-
Thank you ladies!
First, here are some of the companies and products the wifey and I discovered at the festival that we liked.
Straight outta of Arlington, MA comes Best Friends Cocoa, a company that specializes in, you guessed it, cocoa mix. The wifey and I tried some samples they had at the the show and we were hooked.
Pictured here at the Best Friends booth is Linda Guttman, one of the founders of the company holding a bag of her fine product. Besides the taste, the thing that drew wifey and I to the booth was the marshmallow flavored mix. I love marshmallow in my cocoa, but there is no point buying it cause’ the wifey is a vegetarian and I think they make the stuff with hooves or something. Linda’s product solves this problem because the marshy flavored mix does not have real ones in them and is also fat free. Plus for those who follow kashrut, the product is kosher. UPDATED- Best Friends is available in Long Island at the Fairway in Plainview, NY.
A Long Island company! Real Coffee Corp is based out Farmingdale. As for the coffee, honestly, we didn’t try any because we were immediately drawn to samples they were giving out of this sipping chocolate that they sell:
It’s called Bellagio Sipping Chocolate and it was awesome. Thicker than chocolate milk, but not so thick that it can be used as engine lubricant. So tasty that we ended up buying some to use for fondue purposes. But don’t take my word for it…SEE THE VIDEO!
And the chocolate did turn. Kudos to Stewart Cooper and the Real Coffee guys for bringing this machine out. It was a big draw.
Yes, we did actually drink tea at the show. One of the ones we enjoyed the most was the English tea from Harrisons & Crosfield. UK company with their US office (from Chatham, NJ) at the show.
That’s Meg Schaefer, the Sales Account Manager chatting up some serious tea convo with the wifey. I wasn’t too involved in this conversation, but after trying their tea, I didn’t have to be. It was good quality, nice aroma and tasted like a fine British tea should. As for where you can get it in LI, according to H&C, this site sells the stuff, but according to Meg, she was trying to make inroads with some of the merchants in Huntington. We love Main street, so good luck Meg!
Not a tea or coffee company, but instead, a non-for profit organization that has a very unique mission.
When wifey and I got educated about Cup of Education, we found out that they work to help the people of rural coffee growing communities in Central and Latin America to build schools and to give the kids of these lands the supplies needed- pencils, books and even teachers. As you can see from the picture, this organization is about helping the real people behind the coffee, and not about played out stereotypes.
I’ve heard of these guys before and had seen their tea bar on 14th street, but was never really interested. Plus, I have a finely tuned radar for hyperbole, so I am wary about any tea company that refers to itself as “the future of tea.” Nevertheless, I strolled over to their booth and was pleasantly surprised. They ended up having some nice, exotic tea mixes and the sample tea tasted like Hawaiian Punch, which I thoroughly enjoyed.
Plus they were the only tea company to bring their own DJ to the event. I give them a 10 for style points on that one.
When I think of instant coffee, there are two words that usually come to mind- Total Crap. Most instant coffee is not very good, which is why this awesome company from Mexico blew my mind with their instant grind.
All you have to do is add hot milk or water to this coffee, which is seasoned with brown sugar cane and cinnamon to make a delicious cup of cafe de olla style Mexican coffee. Don’t know where you can find it in Long Island, but it is available on eBay. We ended up buying the last bag they had left that day, so don’t even think about it…
…hate all you want, but the bag is OURS!!!
Speaking of hating, it’s time for me to address the things at the show that were disappointing.
1) Any and all of the food we tried at the show - Except for some olive oil and honey that we tried at Demeter’s Pantry, wifey and I were completely underwhelmed by the food that we sampled. Whether it be cookes, pastries or jams, it all sucked. Thankfully, Chelsea Market was nearby for lunch.
2) Tay Tea - I’ll be honest, I never even drank any of the tea they made available for sampling. Why? Because the tea leaves I smelled that they had on display all had the aroma of toothpaste. I enjoy Colgate as much as the next guy, but I don’t want to drink it. Next…
This machine (automatic tea making machine) is maybe the most innovative thing to come to the tea industry since hot water and they didn’t show up to this festival at all??? Wifey and I love the zarafina and we were shocked by it’s absence.
All in all, wifey and I had a great time and we discovered some new products at the festival that we would likely would not have found on our own back in Nassau. Speaking of which, wanted to give a shot out to another LI company at the show:
serendipiTea - Though we didn’t get the chance to spend much time at their booth, we discovered that they have recently moved to Manhasset, specifically to Northern Blvd near the train station. We promise to check it out sometime.
Okay, by now you are probably aware of the fact that Bloomberg’s traffic plan has been shot down, Albany didn’t see eye to eye with him, his approach was wrong, er, um, zzzz…
Look I can care less about the dramatics and egos behind the fight itself. From my perspective, as a freshly born LI to NYC commuter on a fairly popular line at a high traffic station, the mayor’s idea has the right intentions, but I’m not sure the public transit out in the burbs would have been ready in a year to absorb additional riders on the LIRR, and Metro North that would no longer be commuting by car. Don’t get me wrong, its a shame that the city will now lose potentially $13 billion and of course, the $354 million in federal mass transit funds. But for anyone riding LIRR, these days, many times it feels like this:
and that would not have gotten any better with the plan.
But according to the NYTimes, if the plan did pass, this money still wouldn’t have covered everything:
“But under a new spending plan released Wednesday by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, so-called congestion pricing would cover a relatively small portion — 15 percent — of money needed for transit improvements. That would leave the authority still scrambling for money. The authority said that it would need $29.5 billion from 2008 through 2013 for system improvements (like thousands of new buses and modernized subway signals) and expansion (like work on the Second Avenue subway).”
So regardless of my own desire to get a seat in the morning, this issue must be revived. The issue must be addressed, but in a way that meets the needs of the city and of the commuters. Otherwise, the city will still be full of cars, smog and the MTA won’t be able find the money for all of its capital projects and the maintenance, new buses, subway/train cars that are needed. Do I have the answer? Well…no. Would I be blogging if I did? Umm, no, I would actually be busy.
Particularly there is a project that is already underway and VERY important to me that might be in jeapordy of losing out on funding. Let all LIers pray that nothing happens to this one-
This week’s Time Out NY features the key bars one should visit (or crawl to) when in my old neighborhood, the Upper East Side. For the UES pub crawl, the bars they recommend are actually accurate, but at the same time they remind me of what I don’t miss about the area:
Faux Irish bars-
The smell of Frat -
And general douchebaggery (a coveted marketing demographic) -
However, Time Out did give props to the best bar in the neighborhood, The Auction House. Good baroque atmosphere, nice seating and they play nothing but indie music. The type of place you’d normally find in the East Village, but somehow ended up in the UES.
As for my new hood- Great Neck, Time Out would not get very far because it seems like there are exactly
bars to go to. If anyone out there knows of any in the area that are worth visiting, let me know.
Otherwise, for the double Y chromosome, Alpha male types of the UES- happy drinking!
Okay, so my hiatus from blogging took a little longer than I expected, but with good reason…the wifey and I have moved!
Remember- the origin of this blog was to chronicle my transition from city life to the suburbs, but I left out a key detail when I started this thing back in December. Until about 3 weeks ago, the wifey and I were living in my in-laws’ house.
Now don’t get it twisted! My in-laws are fantastic, most likely better than yours and they were the most accommodating of hosts. We were newly married, the lease was up in the city and we had no place else to go. They let us stay there until we we got our act together and for that, I will be forever grateful.
So in that downtime, we were able to continue saving money and finally fulfill our true objective in moving to the burbs, which was to become homeowners. We were both sick of renting and for us to stay in the city and upgrade to a bigger place, it would have been lots of costs, but little return. We figured out that we had enough for a down payment to buy a place. Don’t get me wrong, I still miss the lifestyle accouterments of the city, but as much as I liked Luigi’s, it was time to move on.
Did you hear the news about a new proposition to build a tunnel from Oyster Bay to Rye, NY ?
No joke. A developer wants to build a privately funded project to created these tunnels so that LIers who want to go to Westchester and/or New England would have a direct way to go underneath Long Island Sound. Over 16 miles long, it would be the longest tunnel in the world.
Besides county approvals and feasibility estimates, my question is: Is this all that necessary? Is there really that much of demand to justify the costs and potential traffic issues this could cause? Personally, I don’t see it, but here is more info, in case you want to judge for yourself.
So after finally taking some years to get over that whole nonsense proclaiming Philadelphia as “the sixth borough,” recently my dad forwarded me this article from his friend Jim, who lives in the Kansas City area. Essentially it is a list of reasons why this writer moved from Brooklyn to KC, which unfortunately did not include The Royals or BBQ sauce.
That’s nice and all, but when will current and/or former NYC area journalists with some connection to some random city in the US stop trying to proclaim their shingle as “the X borough.” Thankfully, this writer did not make that proclamation, but there must be something in the air lately about this KC/NY borough thing for Gawker to have made a stink about it. I know that everyone wants to hang with the cool kids, but is this the identity you want your city to be associated with?
And don’t worry, you won’t ever hear this blogger proclaim Nassau county as the “7th borough” or some nonsense like that. This county will never be that cool. My evidence?
Exhibit A:
Okay, so this pick has nothing to do with LI, but I wanted to give it a shout out to my latest TV obsession: Ninja Warrior!
For the initiated, it is Japanese reality show/contest that puts the strongest and most nimble athletes in the land in a gigantic obstacle course. As they clear the levels, they progress to more challenging courses. It’s like watching a live-action platforming video game, but with English subtitles!
Observe:
The show airs on G4 at 6 and 10 p.m. ET weeknights.
In LI it can be found on:
Cablevision- Channel 174 FiOS- Channel 171 (not exactly prime real estate on the cable map for these two)
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