West Village

So tonight I officially begin my bachelor week in the city. Jen & the girls are already back in MA, so I'm on my own. Now normally when Jen's out of town, I don't do too well. Or at least I don't too much. I generally eat garbage (popcorn as an appetizer with ice cream as the main course), I don't sleep too well and the housekeeping spirals out of control. Oh yeah and I have this habit of watching poorly-acted-exact-same-plotline-low-budget movies on Lifetime. But I'm detetmined to do something with my last 10 days in Manhattan.


So with no real plan, I headed down to the west village tonight. Washington Square Park. Wow. Within 10 seconds of entering the park, I had one person offer to hustle me in chess and someone else offer me a dimebag. At the foot of 5th Avenue, this park is the meeting place of NYU students, homeless drifters, artists, musicians of every ilk, savvy tourists and just about every other eccentic you can imagine. It is New York in exaggerated, almost caricature form. Beautiful Europeans videotape a guy washing his clothes in the fountain. A shmarmy, athletic white guitar player accompanies a couple of black drifters singing Very Superstitious. One drifts away, the guitar riffs on and the lyrics morph into an improvisation about getting ready to go to church. Two brothers play catch under the famous arch where Harry dropped off Sally among so many other movie moments. Up 5th Ave through the arch, the Empire State Building is illuminated all white.


I felt like I could just sit there for 3 hours and be satisfied with the experience, but I also wanted to see more of the village so I wandered around--art galleries, gay bars, vintage shops--a hodgepodge of the highly hip. The Village is different from the rest of the city as the grid doesn't hold rein down there and streets intersect at crazy angles in a way that feels more Boston than New York.


So in my wanderings, I found myself not far from the river. Should have figured this but Hudson River Park is offering Sunset on the Hudson--a free concert series on Friday nights. Saw a guy there named David Ippolito. He was pretty good. Did a combo platter of covers and his own stuff. But more than the music was the fantastic vibe. Can't imagine much of a better atmosphere than sitting on perfect grass with bare feet listening to acoustic music sitting on a peninsula/pier as the sun sets over the Hudson on a warm summer night. People even humored him and sang along--The Beatles' Revolution, Shower the People You Love With Love. It's just a really fun way to spend the evening.

Definitely better than popcorn, ice cream, and the jealous husband returns to take revenge on...oh forget it, you know how it ends.