Best This is My Neighborhood This Weekend

There was this moment Saturday where I realized, to my total amazement, that my week and a half long battle to get my bedroom set up was finally over and that I had won the battle.  When I got over the shock I decided to go out and have my first good walk through my neighborhood.  I'm not a stranger to the Little Italy/LES/Nolita/Soho area but now it's my hood.  It is so great to be living downtown again, I wake up happier each morning.

Lunch at the establishment formerly known as the Dumpling House on Eldridge.  Four dumplings and a beef scallion pancake for $3.  Now I know what you're thinking: Yes, the prices have gone up.

Ran into my roommate.

Ran into my neighbor.

The next day I walked to church through sleepy Sunday morning Soho.  At 9:30 in the morning hardly anyone was brunching at all.

Clean up after yourself.  You're disgusting.

After church I walked by the new West Village Frankies location on Hudson street, a block west of Magnolia Bakery.  This restaurant is going to make a billion dollars.  And see that guy sweeping on the far right?  I do believe it's Frank Falcinelli, one of the owners and namesake Franks.  A man of the people.

Some day that will be me in the front window tapping on my iPhone.  The way things are going, it will probably be an iPhone 7.

Later in the day I had my first visitors, Jeff, his visitors (Courtney and Brooke) and Ben.

They were hanging this gigantic flag on Mott street.  A little sign said it was the Ground Zero Flag.  I'm not sure what that means . . . I mean of course I understand what those words mean, but when you see a gigantic flag hanging off the side of an apartment building in the Chinese part of Little Italy and you're told that it's the Ground Zero Flag . . . what are you to make of that?

I do not understand why you like your dumb birds so much but okay, if you love them so much you can have them.

Ginger Scallion Noodles at Great NY Noodletown.  Inspired the Momofuku Noodle Bar noodle of the same name.  Don't worry, these were vicarious Vacation Rules noodles.

Seems a law has been downgraded to a suggestion.

I saw this and didn't understand, I thought there had been an incident.  Later on I came to understand that there were police barricades at all the streets along Canal.

This is my block.  This is where I live!  My bedroom window is there by the fire escape on the upper left hand side.  This is where I live!

At night I couldn't help but go up on our roof to see what I could see.  To the north:

To the South: (On the left, the WTC lights.  On the far right, the Freedom Tower as it now stands lit up Red, White, and Blue.  Only the blue part is visible.)

A better look:

Today in church one of our senior members told the story of how, on 9/11, he took the pitch black stairs up to the 34th floor of his neighbor's apartment building to rescue her (she was old and had just had a knee replaced) as they both lived/live a couple of blocks from Ground Zero.  "When you're in your 70's you don't have many opportunities for glory" he told us.