This was the view from two front windows in the living room...right onto 11th Street...
Many of you have wondered about the place I stayed last week in the Big Apple….I stumbled onto the Antique Cafe website, quite by accident while looking for (reasonable) places to stay around the Greenwich Village area….and up it popped. While it is an actual cafe, they also run a B & B operation….renting mostly one bedroom apartments in the downtown area…Clelsea, the Village, and Soho. An apartment for $150 a night? Done.
We agreed to meet the rental guy at the apartment..he biked up right on time, showed us how to use one key to get through the first two front doors, and the other key was to the apartment. Oh, and while we were waiting for him on the street, who should stroll by but actress Julianne Moore with her child. Pretty red hair in a chic chignon, dressed all in black, big black sunglasses…so pretty, so tiny! You’ll be relieved to know I said nothing to her, like, “Julianne I loved you in Shipping News!” No.
From the front door, into the living room....
Our apartment was on the second floor, only one flight of stairs up(no elevator)….and when you walk in the front door….the picture to the right is the view into the living room…pretty, modern….the kitchen, which was modern…full size refrigerator(not that you’ll need it), granite countertops…what there was of them. It’s an urban kitchen…small. My son and Jennifer fell in love with the kitchen(theirs is even smaller)…he said, “Jen, imagine all the things we could cook in here!”…..so sweet.
The thing I really loved about the apartment…I felt like I was a New Yorker for a couple of days. You know how you see other people keying themselves into their apartments, and you wish you could be them? Now you are, for a couple of days.
Inside the 11th Street Cafe...fab coffee, and they open at 7 am!
Things I liked best: Great light and views….more space than a hotel room, very clean, nice bathroom, great location…easy walking to everything downtown…things it could improve on…need more wineglasses (it had one), and a reading light for the bedroom, even tho space is tight. How about a sconce? Another plus…you have your own little hangout just a few doors down…the 11th Street Cafe….one of those sweet, funky little coffee houses that play great music and serve even better coffee, where no one glares at you for reading the NY Times while your nurse your caffe late….loved it. It’s coziness added quite a bit to the neighborhood ambience. Maybe Julianne goes there for coffee sometimes, though for celebrity sightings in the area, no place beats Jack’s Stirbrew Coffee on West 10th….and Jack Bauer, I mean Kiefer Sutherland, has been seen there by my son, along with Sara Jessica Parker, Hillary Swank, Maya Rudolph. And speaking of Jack…. how great is 24 this season????? Talk about your great escapist tv…..I love it.
