Fabric and Fun

Today’s step count: 14, 919 steps for 6.1 miles.

Today’s step count is a little misleading because we were still walking after midnight for another 3/4 of a mile. (I can only mention things like this after I’m back safe so my mom doesn’t worry.)

When we first went to Times Square on Sunday, Jaime spotted a fabric store on the second floor of a building and then we passed a sculpture of a button being sewn and a second of a man at a sewing machine which is when Jaime realized we were in the Garment District. Jaime is a huge Project Runway fan and there is the fabric store of all fabric stores featured on the show called Mood Designer Fabrics. She looked it up and it is only a few blocks from us, so our agenda for the day was fabric shopping and then the concert for First Aid Kit at Radio City Music Hall in the evening. This is why you travel with people you share interests with. Who else would have been stoked for fabric shopping and a concert!

Of course we could not just jump right in. We had to have coffee first. I noticed a coffee shop on the block behind our hotel called Arvaci Coffee. Besides coffee, they specialized in pastries and croissants, so not a hard decision. We headed over and witnessed an unusual outburst from a random woman. We decided to split a bacon and cheese quiche and a chocolate croissant. I got a lavender latte and Jaime went with a dirty chai latte.

It was so good! The crust was light and flaky and did not overwhelm the bacon, egg, and cheese. The chocolate croissant was one of the flakiness I have ever had.

It was a cloudy day, but we were pretty confident we could spend the three hour window for rain in Mood, so we headed the two blocks there. As we backtracked up 37th street, we encountered the strange woman again. This time she appeared to be smoking, but then a man yelled at her for doing crack. Did not expect to mark “see a crack head” off of the NYC checklist, but we did.

Mood is three floors of fabric and related products. We passed several formal dress shops advertising sample sales, stores dedicated just to notions like buttons and zippers, and so on. We toyed with stopping, but we wanted to dedicate the most time to Mood. Mood is 3 floors of the long rolls of fabric, some the leftovers from designer collections.

To get there, we entered a lobby and then took an elevator to the store. I was also looking forward to a day of not sweating so much, but we were “lucky” to be there on a broken AC day. Ugh. We were still like kids in a candy store, just sweaty kids.

You enter on the middle floor. This floor in mainly fabrics for formal dresses and fine silks. We saw some price tags for $600 a yard. These were things that had to have had the beadwork done by hand. I cannot imagine cutting into that fabric. We saw lovely silks and there were plenty I liked, but all I could think of was the dry cleaning costs, so I think of this floor as the dry clean only floor. They also had walls of buttons loose in boxes that Jaime when ga-ga over. Just for fun, I looked at the wall of elastic cords for an elusive size/type that my niece Abigail had needed for her 4H project, but never found and Mom had to improvise. Not only did I find it, but I found it in every color under the sun.

We decided to go up first thinking we would get the hottest floor out of the way, but ironically, the floor of wool suiting, fur, and faux fur ended up being the coolest. There was a corner back in faux fur that was the perfect temp. Let me clarify: this floor was the coolest, but not cool so we continued to sweat. If I had todo business professional, I would have gotten so much in this section. The suiting fabric was amazing. For years I had been seeing a pattern in the books at JoAnn’s for cutting out knitted material to sew together a sweater instead of knitting it, but I had never seen a bolt of knitted yarn. Mood had shelves and shelves of them.

The bottom floor was upholstery, leather, denim, and cottons. This was floor for me. All the fabric has normal washing instructions and it was made with clothing in mind, not like JoAnn’s where 95% of their stuff seems to be for quilts and children’s clothing. I showed some self-restraint and bought only enough for one blouse and corduroy for pants. I also went crazy with some free leather swatches for jewelry making (my purpose, not theirs.) It was so much fun and if it weren’t for the broken AC, we might have stayed there all day.

Now with the main show finished, we went into some of those specialty stores. We both got fun buttons and interesting catches for belts. When it was time for a late lunch, we stared heading back towards the hotel. Jaime mentioned that on a site called Atlas Obscura it mentioned a really good latino restaurant tucked into a loading dock. As soon as she finished, we walked right by it!

I was a bit worried about the top dish being goat stew. I have never had goat and I’m not big on stews, but I agreed to try. We went down a hallway and there were just three long tables that had to have been surplus from a school with India-themed plastic tablecloths. There was a turn in the hall and Jaime went to check it out for more seating, but it was the elevator for this still functioning loading dock. We had roasted pork with beans and yellow rice and bottles of an unknown brand of what we where told was sparkling apple juice, but even though different colors, tasted more like a mild cream soda. El Sabroso was he most hole-in-the-wall place you could ever find.

Satisfied with our haul, we decided to go get a better look at the Big Button sculpture. As we walked a man was selling samples of clothes on the sidewalk. We looked at the clothes and he started yelling at us that they were only $10. Jaime asked about sizes while I was casually looking at some white pants with black lines making a large grid. I assumed sample sizes would just be the 0 sizes, but he looks at me and in his choppy English says, “Extra large, 2X, 3X because you have a stomach.” Thanks, dude. I asked for an XL and held it up to my waist. He had me all nervous that it ran small, so I did get the 2X. When I got back to the hotel, they did fit great. Stupid stomach. Jaime got a beautiful brocade skirt and she looked at a camel colored pencil skirt that he tried to sell her a tiny one that was too small and then tried to talk her into one probably double the size she needed.

We then walked the rest of the way to the sculpture and enjoyed some people watching before heading back to our room to get ready for the concert.

We made the mile walk to Radio City Music Hall so we would get there around 7pm when the doors opened so that we could take in the inside of Radio City Music Hall. It was breath-taking! I was not ready for it. The far wall was a beautiful mural and even the drinking fountains were carved marble.

We were in the second mezzanine, one row up from the railing. It was a huge space. The opening act was Weather Station with a female singer who had a coffeehouse vibe and the band included a saxophone player, so also strong jazz influences.

I had never heard of the main act First Aid Kit. Jaime is a fan and she likes indie stuff, so maybe none of you have either. They are a Swedish duo of two women. Their music is upbeat tempo singer/songwriter style with that underlying country melancholy. It was a great show!

Since we had eaten so long ago, we planned on eating from a street cart called The Halal Guys. For the optimal NYC experience, we had to get falafel. So at 10:45 at night, we had falafel from a street vendor by Radio City Music Hall. It was peak New York.

We now had the walk back. The avenue we were on was pretty crowded, so we felt safe. It was turning down the streets that felt sketchier. We found one that was decently crowded and would get us to Times Square. I enjoyed the irony that Times Square was the safer feeling spot since last time I was in NYC was the early 90’s when it was all XXX theaters and peep shows.

We got to 37th street and turned for the sketchiest part of out walk to the middle of the block to our hotel. When we saw the coffee shop, I realized I had us turn a block too early. It was shorter to go the rest of the way up the block and over, but when we spotted the dudes hanging out outside of one of the liquor stores we didn’t feel safe going in during the day, we decided to backtrack.

Obviously, we made it back safe and I did not get us murdered or mugged, so we can leave that box unchecked of NYC experiences.