vip in the city

Trinity Church blooms

I missed this year’s Sakura Matsuri (Cherry Blossom Festival) at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden when the 200+ cherry trees along Cherry Walk, and in the Cherry Cultivars Area and Japanese Garden explode in clusters of magnificent pink and white. But here’s a link to the lovely timelapse video of the 2008 blooming season, created by the BBG’s web manager Dave Allen from over 3,000 digital photos — one taken every three minutes from April 18 to April 26, 2008. Set to original music by Jon Solo.

Hanami – Hana = flower, mi = see — is the cherished Japanese cultural tradition of viewing cherry blossoms, a festive time when family and friends gather beneath the full-blooming trees to celebrate the beauty of spring. Check out other Garden visitor photos on the BBG Hanami Flickr pool.

Manhattan has its blooms, too, which though not as abundant, are still beautiful. On warm spring days like today, the financial district drones emerge from out under the fluorescent lights to steal a few moments in the sun among the weathered headstones in the Trinity Church graveyard.

Flickr preview: my photos from Bay Ridge’s 17th of May Parade on um… the 18th of May. Gothamist approved!

Tags: cemetery, cherry blossoms, Financial District, flowers, Sakura, Spring, Trinity Church

Pub lunch

The crowd waiting inside the foyer at Adrienne’s did not bode well for a speedy lunch, so we ended up at Ulysses, just a few doors down — another in the Poulakakos family-owned Financial District empire. (See also: Bayard’s, the three Financier Pâtisseries, Harry’s Bar, and the 24-hour Gold Street.) This pub on Stone Street is a packed to the rafters with suits during happy hour — and increasingly on weekends — but at lunchtime, the scene is decidedly more laid back.

Since opening five years ago on Bloomsday — that’s June 16 to those for whom James Joyce’s masterpiece is but a faint or nonexistent memory — Ulysses has stayed open nightly until 4AM, and served a Sunday brunch buffet, making it a beacon of activity in a neighborhood which still tends to empty after the closing bell. (Those late nights may be numbered throughout our increasingly sanitized city, though, as 2AM closings become the new norm.)

The bar boasts a 130 foot long wraparound bar — the longest in the city — and a slicked up Irish pub vibe, with blue glass, dark, gleaming wood and plenty of cozy nooks; as spring approaches, Ulysses takes over a section of the historic cobblestone street with outdoor tables that increase in demand with the temperatures.

The menu is a solidly pleasing assortment of carving station and raw bar offerings, Irish (bangers & mash, cottage pie) and Greek (gyro, Aegean salad) specialties, and other pub fare. Monday is Lobster Night: a 1-1/4 lb. lobster, sweet corn and potatoes for under $20, while it lasts. Guinness on tap, too, of course… along with about 50 other brews.

We do love the Irish… pubs.

Tags: Financial District, Stone Street, Ulysses

Rising up

We crossed the West Side Highway at lunchtime this afternoon to attend the “Winter’s Palate” tasting festival at The World Financial Center — the cooler weather version of last July’s “Summer’s Palate.”

Except that when we arrived at the Winter Garden, the atrium was suspiciously quiet, save for the usual scattered assortment of suits and tourists. Where were the promised lobster ravioli and sushi, silky gelato and mini-burgers, “prepared to please the most discriminating palates”?

After making some inquiries, we finally got our answer from the staff at Godiva Chocolate: the event had been canceled, but apparently not removed from the WFC’s online Calendar of Events. Grrr.

Well, there’s always Ho Yip to fall back on.

View of the construction activity at Ground Zero:

This spring, the frame of the Freedom Tower will rise above street level for the first time, with steel that has made its long journey from Luxembourg (where the columns are forged and cast) to Lynchburg, Virginia (where they’re cut to size), to a final home in Lower Manhattan.

Watch the progress of the project via live webcam.

Tags: construction, Financial District, Ground Zero, World Financial Center