Eat. Do. Buy.
These are a few of our favorite things.
Buy.
Flavor Paper
After a decade or two of derision, wallpaper is back! From the humble Rockaway beach bungalow to the Brooklyn brownstone to the Soho penthouse loft, everywhere you look there’s a resurgence employing wallpaper in modern home design. But we’re not talking about your Great Aunt Mildred’s wallpaper. What we’re loving is the stuff the artistic geniuses at Flavor Paper are churning out, all printed in-house with signature big bold prints, patterns, florals and toile. They even have scratch n’ sniff. If you want to kill a few hours on the web, check out the amazing selection of their patterns online or head over to their Boerum Hill Flavor Lair to see them in person. Wallpaper is totally baller. Who knew??? (Answer: Great Aunt Mildred).
EAT.
Virginia’s
Hopefully we’ve earned enough cred with you by now that you’ll trust us when we state perhaps the best new restaurant in town is located on East 11th Street way over at Avenue C. Given that Virginia’s is staffed both front and back of house with alums from Per Se, Locanda Verde & Roberta’s it’s not really a shocker, but it certainly takes Alphabet City dining to soaring new heights. The interior is delightfully minimal and uncluttered and the food positively shines. We ordered a ton and there wasn’t a single misstep: crispy shortbreads, seared cuttlefish, grilled white shrimp, fresh diver scallops and pillow-soft gnocchi. We even ordered the gnocchi a second time because we fought over the first plate. When’s the last time you did that?!
Speech & Expression. Worship. Want. Fear. These are the essential four freedoms Franklin Delano Roosevelt enumerated in the January 6th, 1941 speech that would come to shape our nation. In late 1973, New York City changed the name of the two mile long “Welfare Island” in the East River to Roosevelt Island and plans were made for a memorial to commemorate the great president. Influential architect Louis Kahn was enlisted to design the memorial and he was carrying the finished plans with him when he suddenly died in Penn Station in 1974. Over 35 years would pass before construction finally began, but the resulting Four Freedoms Park memorial was worth the wait. It’s constructed of 140,000 cubic feet of granite and punctuated with a humongous bronze head of FDR. The overall effect is being on the bow of a ship pointed straight down the East River, and it’s grand! Do yourself a favor and take the vertigo-inducing tram over the river to enjoy this amazing piece of civic green.
