Pocket Change - Shopping Blog

As wikipedia notes, a New York minute is shorthand for a brief, jam-packed period. Such was my experience Saturday. With six free hours and trying to act like a real New Yorker, I hoofed it everywhere. I managed to visit the World Trade Center site, a gash of open space in the crowded cityscape. I nearly had a spectator role in a Bacardi commercial by walking into a filming scene (btw, the folks standing next to me were getting $150 for the day’s work of spectating) and I witnessed one of the largest protest marches I’d ever seen as New Yorkers by the thousands filed down Broadway to protest/support many causes in one teaming mass of humanity. Since NYC is the world’s shopping heartbeat, I also managed to hit three neighborhood hotspots, South Street Seaport; Wall’s Street’s Century 21 emporium, a department store jammed full of deeply discounted imported clothes from the hottest manufacturers;and SoHo, where the desperately beautiful stay at the desperately hip SoHo Grand Hotel and shop till they drop. All the biggest brands and newest, coolest stuff are purveyed in the trendy boutiques lining the SoHo neighborhood while street vendors hawk their wares ranging from art to clothes to suspect name brand items. One of my favorite retail shops was the Campers shoe store which sells the colorful, stylish walking shoes and sandals I first discovered in Spain. The day was topped off with the requisite slice of New York pizza whose thin crust oozed with cheese and sauce and glistened with oil and oregano. Sated, exhausted and foot sore, I slept enroute to JFK in the taxi. A New York minute is a slice of life like no where else. That’s why I love New York.

Mimi