Food with history and a musical - Day 9

Thursday, June 15, 2017
New York, New York, United States
We ventured onto the Subway this morning, scary, but successful. We bought Fast Tickets -$9 + $1 for the card and we were good to go. We even managed to get on the right line and go the right way, to Canal St in Little Italy. We had booked a tour with Ahoy, NY Tours and Tasting. We met at Ferrara Bakery on Grand St. This is the oldest Espresso Bar in America. We had a coffee while we waited. My cappuccino came out looking like it had meringue on top. Amusing, but the coffee was good.
We met with our group. Our guide, Liz, was born and bred in Queens. There was a couple from Philadelphia, a family from Chicago (who are avid Offspring watchers and feel an affinity with Australia because of Nina and friends) and a lady from Brazil. Our first tasting was cannoli in the bakery. It was good, crispy shell and sweet, creamy ricotta with chocolate. While we ate, Liz told us about the history of the Italians in NYC and how the different regions of Italy were represented on different streets and treated each other as foreigners.
Our next stops were close together, Avella Dairy on Grand, the oldest Italian cheese store in America where we had homemade mozzarella and prosciutto. Then next door to Piemente Ravioli Co, making pasta since 1920. We had ricotta gnocchi and a delicious tomato sauce. A little further down the street we popped into Di Palo's Fine Foods, a gourmet food shop, operating within the family since 1910. We had a 2 cheeses and some olives here. It was an inviting shop, with a great variety of small goods on sale. As we stopped and tasted Liz gave us the history of each place and how the neighbourhood had changed.
We then made our way into Chinatown for the second part of the tour. We walked to the once notorious Doyers Street,where rival gangs once fought, to the Nom Wah Tea Parlor for a selection of Dim Sum offerings - pork bun, shrimp dumpling and egg roll with jasmine tea. These were delicious and we had a chance to sit and chat for a while.
We kept walking through Chinatown, learning about the prejudice the Chinese faced when they arrived and how all immigration was stopped In 1882 due to "alternative facts" and anti-Chinese sentiment. It wasn't until the 1960s that it was reversed. Our next stop was pork dumplings from Tasty Dumpling (and they were tasty) on Mulberry Street, near where the Gangs of New York book was based.  This was the most dangerous neighbourhood in New York in the 1900s.  We finally stopped at the park the government created when it knocked down the houses in an effort to stop the crime. It is frequented mainly by aged Chinese who live in the tiny flats that were built as a replacement. This is there "other living room". They gather each day and socialise. There were many card and tile games being played, some look like they had high stakes! We finished our tour in the park with an almond cookie from the tea parlour.
The tour had been really informative and enjoyable and we were treated to some delicious food.
One of the streets we had walked down had a view of the World Trade Centre. Chinatown was greatly affected by the 9/11 tragedy, due to the proximity. The area was shut off for some time and many businesses went under.
We walked to the 9/11 Ground Zero memorial. The 2 giant pools with their cascading fountains are beautiful tributes to all the people who lost their lives. There were quite a few names with roses on, indicating that it would have been their birthday today, which I found really moving.
After spending time there we went into the World Trade Centre and had a look around, marvelling at the food delights in Eataly and enjoying a coffee at Nobletree.
Ken was on the lookout for a google home entertainment thing so we spent some time wandering in and out of shops looking, managing to get the Subway back and finally finding the item in a shop near Hudson Yard. We walked home and sat for a bit before getting organised to get to the theatre.
We had tickets to A Bronx Tale at the Longacre Theatre. A 20 minute walk and we were soon sitting waiting for the show to start. It was a great musical, directed by Robert De Niro, with some fantastic talent. We had some young girls sitting in front of us who were so enthralled by the whole affair that they couldn't sit still and gushed over the romantic scenes. It would have been charming if they weren't ruining our view!
We wandered home, stopping for a pretzel along the way. Another packed day done.
 Steps 21,185
Kms walked 16
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2025-02-10

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