brooklyn gal for a while

NYC was being a jerk this weekend

Here it is, autumn in NY . . . it was Open House New York this weekend . . . the makings of a beautiful weekend, right? No, this city was pissy. First there is the train debacle. It seemed any train I wanted to take was being re-routed, coming once an hour, or completely stopped. This meant over an hour and a half to get home Saturday night (midtown to Park Slope). Then on Sunday I had plans to check out the Crystler Building, a green bakery in the east village and maybe the HighLine park. After looking at the bakery and where I was (basically Macy's), reading LA's text that the information about the bakery was available everyday, I knocked it off the list of sites for the day and headed to the Crystler by foot. I was stopped twice for a row of 12 police cruisers passing, all with sirens on(loud. very loud). I kind of think it was the same group and perhaps they were lost? It seems ridiculous that 2 dozen cars would be headed in opposite directions minutes from each other . . . perhaps it was a left turn difficulty?
When I got to the shiny tower, there were some people milling around outside, but when I stepped inside the building, the tour had been cancelled for the day. There are only 2 days a year with this tour, and it was cancelled for one of them.* I did learn that there was a tour at Grand Central Terminal and headed over. I learned that people had been waiting for an hour and that no one had seen the guide yet. hmmm, it was too nice of a day to wait for an unlikely-to-show guide, so I headed outside.
While I was walking east, everyone was stopped and staring behind me, so I turned, to see a cab half hanging over the railing of the bridge above. And a crane was raising to . . . help the cab? but wait, there were so many bright lights on the crane . . . it turns out they were filming Will Smith's latest flick.
At this point I gave up on Open House and decided shoe / paper shopping were a more productive endevor, and started walking toward Union Square. I was crossing along the crosswalk (I had the little man) in the upper 30s a dude with a walkie talkie grabbed my arm, yanking me back. Bewildered I looked around, and at him. There were no cars around, no other people around, and all the guy said was no one can cross here. No reason given. Perhaps it was still the movie "set", but I was re-routed an additional 2 blocks before I could cross the street. So first the trains were a waste and now, I couldnt even walk around town.
When I finally got on the Q back to Brooklyn, emerging at Pacific, I was greeted with the Flatbush Avenue street fair. Walking up Flatbush to 8th Ave, the aromas of several tasty delights teased my nose, and caribean, latin, and hip-hop tunes blended together. Treating myself to a buttery corn-on-the cob, I was glad that at least Brooklyn could redeem itself from its past days behavior.

*apparently they only have one guy that gives the tour and his voice went out after multiple tours on Saturday.

posted by gordian knot @ Monday, October 09, 2006