My Favorite Streets.

Few things make me happy. One of them is walking down a street that I like. In the last NY Mag that I bought, at the beginning of the neighborhood guide (or at the beginning of "Urban Villagers" because the whole issue is supposed to be a neighborhood guide), Justin Davidson mentioned how we "follow the same immemorial cow path through the city's endless array of routes because it means passing better shops or getting a glimpse of some especially whimsical gargoyle." This is true but it's so much more than shops and gargoyles. If I wanted gargoyles I would have stayed in PA and stood at the County theater starting across the street into the Nejad Gallery's attic window, for forever. Obviously. Note: I don't have favorite streets, as much as I have favorite blocks.

1) E. 9th Street between 2nd and 1st Aves. The cutest boutiques, vintage stores and junk shops ever, plus tree-lined and always lit with xmas lights. And what, pray tell, is on the corner? Veselka. Quiet overall and like all numbered East Village streets, one-way, but 24-hour sensibility is around the corner.
2) St Marks between 1st and A. Dead ending into Tompkins Square Park feels like being reeled into a movie set sometimes. Such a contrast between this part of St. Marks and, well, the shitty part we know and love, down which I once led my mother, who then sputtered, "I just walked through the dregs of the earth!" Such a contrast. Trees instead of tattoo parlors, yogurt, falaf and burrito chains, and pipe tables. And really nice looking stoops. I imagine this is the part where WH Auden wandered around in his bathroom garnering his reputation as a neighborhood eccentric.
3) All of E. 5th St. Tea and townhouse or faux-townhouse buildings.
4) Rivington St between Essex and Clinton, but also kind of between Essex and Forsyth. ABC No Rio and El Somb and other fond memories. The cafe on the corner of riv and clinton used to always play Patti Smith, and they are generous with coffee and baguette. Crazy Belgian boutiques. Any additional info will just be a LES stereotype...

And any more streets would not really be favorites.

angelique

Few things make me happy. Most of them I have encountered or perceived while stimulated by immense amounts of caffeine. And probably also sugar. But, there is no question about the difference between my indifference to most things and the sublime joy inspired by others, like CAFÉ ANGELIQUE.

I have drank coffee far and wide, many a cup. But nothing compares to a simple café au lait chez Angelique. I used to go there every day when I had class near it last year in the mornings. I would order my coffee and pastry in preparation for my semester in Paris. (Like I needed preparation for the fucking google of calories I was about to consume over the subsequent 4 months). I have since struggled to recreate the magical, phenomène madeleine moment with other coffees, other pastries, lattés, cafés crèmes, pains au chocolat, macarons, du café viennois, et ben, je n'ai rien atteint. That's just it--I was trying to re-create a unique and original experience that cannot be re-created. Thus is the epiphany I had when I revisited my long lost favorite café on Bleecker. I will try not to describe like such a horrible romantic, but their chocolate almond croissants are unparalleled, and they dillute that lavazza coffee with hot milk for me at an also unmatched ratio. Such singularity. But maybe it's just familiarity. Maybe I find it so ideal because it matches a standard which I deemed satisfactory in the past, defining an expectation I am happy to satisfy. Like solving a cross-word puzzle that I made up myself.

Also they always play what I imagine was played on college radio in 1994.

I will have two classes near my favorite place next semester. oh how fate brings me back to the tested receptacles of my esteems.