vip in the city

Candy everybody wants

Veterans Day was one day earlier, but my office was observing the holiday today, which gave me another reprieve on a day when almost everyone else I knew had to work. My afternoon of leisure consisted of a vegan lunch at NoLIta’s Wild Ginger followed by a visit to the new Papabubble shop to watch the pretty candies being made.

Once we entered the rather plain storefront on Broome, we were enveloped by a wonderful smell: that steam-cooked mixture of corn syrup and sugar. Inside the shop had the appearance of a sleek candy laboratory: all white subway tiles, brushed metal counters and beakers of colored oils.

Papabubble was empty this afternoon but for us and three employees: one cashier, and two candy makers who were hard at work, pulling and shaping large, malleable blocks of sugar. As the pair moved quickly in tandem to run the candy through the extruder, the woman looked up from her work. No doubt sensing our fascination through the plexiglass barrier, she asked if we’d like to sample some fresh candy. Would we?! She obligingly cut off a couple pieces from the end with a pair of scissors, and I popped the warm, chewy, cherry-flavored piece into my mouth. Holy moly, what do they put in these things… crack cocaine?

Maybe, because I was hooked. (First one’s always free, right?) Afterwards, I spent an inordinate amount of time perusing the shop’s left wall, where shelves of the cheery-looking glass jars ($14.50 and $25 — refillable at a discount) and bags ($7.50 for 4 ounces) of hard candies were spotlit to glittering effect, like bits of Venetian Murano glass.

At the front counter, gorgeous lollipops of varying sizes — $4 to $15:

For the more economically-minded, the shop had a few aesthetically-inferior candy “irregulars,” ranging in size from a golf ball to wider than a palm. (This hefty disk was marked “$ five bucks.”)

I wonder how they get the letters inside the candy for the New York mix (center)? And is each borough represented by a different flavor?

Tags: candy, Papabubble, SoHo, sugar

Scenes from Providence

On the way back to New York City, we spent a few hours in Providence, since none of us knew when we would be driving this route again any time soon. All those years to and from the Cape, and I don’t think we ever made this stop.

We hit downtown just as the Veteran’s Day celebrations were winding down; the day’s highlight was the dedication of the newly constructed World War II Monument for which several news vans were on site. The $1.3 million memorial features a main columned rotunda, flanked by two angled walls of granite, engraved with the names of the 2,562 Rhode Islanders who died while serving during World War II.

A parade, which began at the Rhode Island State House, had preceded the dedication ceremony but by late afternoon, most of the crowds had already dispersed.

We came across this random bit of risd detritus in an abandoned shopping cart:

The First Baptist Church in America, founded by Providence-founder Roger Williams; his National Memorial is located just a few blocks north. The 80-foot square church, completed in the Spring of 1775, was the largest building project in New England at that time. (The 185-foot steeple was added after completion.)  Its construction benefited greatly from the British closing of Boston’s ports in retaliation for the Boston Tea Party, which freed up many shipwrights and carpenters who eventually made their way to Providence in search of alternate work. Capacity of the meeting house was 1,200 people, then equal to one third the entire population of Providence.

Views of architect/planner William D. Warner’s $270 million 10-year waterfront project, which began as a 1982 study into reconnecting Providence with its lost waterfronts. Warner’s “Waterplace Park” (with its dozen low, graceful, arched river-spanning bridges), the nearby $435 million 1.3-million-square-foot Providence Place shopping and entertainment complex, and the NBC television series ”Providence” (er, seriously?) all have been credited with giving this city of 175,000 a new cachet.

Tags: parade, Providence, Rhode Island, river, skyline

Cape Cod autumn

The skies had cleared considerably since yesterday, leaving behind just a clear, biting cold. Last look at Mill Creek:

The West Yarmouth, MA post office, which earlier this year was the scene of a crazy, trash-related accident…

… and back over the bridge.  Farewell, Cape Cod.