Greenwich Village

Today was our apartment cleaning/doing laundry day. I slept in until 7:30 and it felt so good! It was supposed to rain but just stayed kind of gloomy all morning. The laundromat is just around the corner. It's been a long time since we've been to one. Anyway, it costs $3.50 to wash one load (that's 14 quarters!) and we did 2 loads. The dryers are only 25 cents but you only get 8 minutes for that. Came back to the apartment to eat a quick lunch and decided to go out exploring. We didn't get away until almost 1:00 so we figured we could do Greenwich Village (West Village) in a few hours.

The streets run at all angles there and it's hard to even follow a map. We finally found our way to Washington Square Park which is surrounded by NYU. Hadn't been walking too long when we came to the White Horse Tavern. It has been serving drinks since 1880, and is one of the last remaining wood-paneled bars in New York. Dylan Thomas used to hang out there.

Couldn't get a very good picture because I didn't want to be too obvious!

We continued trudging after a little "refreshment" and the next stop was along Bank Street with cobblestone streets and is the center of the Greenwich Village Historic District. So many pretty places. From there it was to #10 St Luke's Place. Anyone recognize the next picture?

If you guessed Claire and Cliff Huxtable, you're right! It wasn't actually filmed here but they used the outside in lots of scenes. They always said they lived in Brooklyn but that wasn't true either!

Then it was just about a block or two to our next stop at 75-1/2 Bedford Street - Manhattan's narrowest house at just over 9 feet wide. It was built in 1873. It was home to Edna St Vincent Millay in 1923-24, and later, John Barrymore. We heard a tour guide there telling everyone that it is for sale again and that 2 years ago it sold for $3.7 million. The house next door to it was built in 1799 and is the oldest house in Greenwich Village.

Conrad is standing in front of the house and you can tell how wide it is by the changes in brick on each side. The house to the right is the oldest house.

After that we just sort of wandered around. We did walk down MacDougal Street which once used to be a beatnik haven. It's an interesting area to explore and there are so many NYU students in the area. It's probably one of the cheapest places to eat in NYC! They know the students are poor!!

We headed back home after dinner to relax a little. The trains were so crowded. I couldn't believe how many people packed in to one car. I don't remember if I told you or not but yesterday we decided we are true New Yorkers. We got off the A train to catch the G and it was already in the station and we RAN to jump on and made it! The G train is the one closest to us and it doesn't run as often as the A and C that we usually connect with.

As for our walking report we didn't do too bad considering we didn't start until 1:00 but we walked 6.97 miles so we feel we can call it 7 miles! Not bad....

There is an 80% chance of thunderstorms tomorrow so we think it will be a museum day. Haven't decided which one yet so check back tomorrow.

Linda and Conrad