Read Day 1: Tony-Winner Sunset Blvd, a bad Bodega Breakfast sandwich, and the Joker Stairs?
Read Day 2: Tony-Winner Cole Escola starring in Oh, Mary! directed by Tony-Winner Sam Pinkleton, the Tenement Museum and Italian food.
Read Day 3 Part 1: John Proctor is the Villain, The View, and Auction art
Now we’re at Day 3, Part 2, and there’s still so much to cover.
I’m still wearing the same outfit from the previous post. I mean, Aubrey and I are fashionistas with incredible taste, so I wouldn’t put it past us to do an outfit change. We were in the business of doing things, though. Not looking cute, even though we both did.
I’ll do better at pictures next time, y’all, I promise.
Okay, so we feasted our eyes on some incredible art… now what?
30 Rockefeller Center
This is probably an unpopular opinion, but to me, 30 Rock is more NYC than any other landmark. Yes, yes, I know it is because I have been obsessed with television and most importantly, Saturday Night Live for the bulk of my entire life. My dad and I were huge late-night television fans, and Saturday Night Live was the king. (David Letterman was a veryclose prince, too. And then Conan also.)
Now, I did try to get us some standby tickets for that night’s show. I didn’t get ‘em. We saw the folks who did luck out waiting in line for the dress rehearsal as we looked for the entrance.
Just seeing the marquee made me feel all giddy, y’all.
Yes, we tried to eat dinner at the Rainbow Room. No, it was not open to the public. Yes, there was a wedding at the time. No, we did not attempt to crash it , although I think we 100% could have.
Since we weren’t going to watch SNL, we could at least hit up the gift shop… where I could get Mickey a lil gifty gift. The gift shop in the lobby was huge and filled with shirts and hats and snowglobes and pins and pens and all kinds of stuff. I eyed a couple of hats: one black on black that read “SNL 50”; the other navy blue and worn with an embroidered Stefon upon it.
I mean, it has everything. (yes, it came home with me)
We wandered around the store so long that we worked up an appetite. Like, 30 Rock is like a maze of a mall. At least the part we ended up in was. There were small, human-owned stores and restaurants, way more than there were corporate behemoths, and I really dug that.
I spied a sign from a candy store that I’d been following on TikTok since well before they opened. That’s right!, I reminded myself, she opened a second location inside 30 Rock! We should follow the maze of tunnels (that somehow had windows?!) until we find it!
But first, we had side quests:
- a bathroom
- a food something
The bathroom was easy. There was good signage throughout and even some maps! So, we found it, it was unremarkable and I don’t know why I am telling you about it.
The food wasn’t as easy. We didn’t really know what we wanted to eat or what vibe we were going for.
We shouldn’t have worried. The vibe found us.
Ace’s Pizza
Sure, we were having pizza again, but who gives a hell? We did not. It felt like an old-school Pizza Hut, and they served Detroit-style pizza, and I could use a little taste of home, you know.
Well, we sat at the bar, of course, and made friends with the bartender/server/owner (?!) right away. We peppered him with questions like we were conducting an interview.
The cups? Red Pizza Hut plastic (I think red. I have aphantasia and have no visual memory.) The drink? Faygo, of course. Rock n’ Rye, please.
We got the vodka meatball pizza, and it was, honestly, heavenly. Thick, chewy crust with a crisp bottom. Cheesy ricotta and a delicious sauce. Sliced meatballs on a pizza are A+ in my book. And these were near perfect.
We lingered at this pizzeria for a hot minute. It was hot out, the AC was cold, and the conversation was great.
By the end of the meal, we were all friends, and he was asking us to visit his Brooklyn vacation next time.
It’s on the docket for my next visit, for sure.
Our hunger sated, we ventured out on our quest to Lil Sweet Treat.
Lil Sweet Treat
Okay, if you know me, you know that I have had a lifelong love affair with candy. I even own my own lil candy company!! So, when I started TikToking, a lot of my feed was filled with Candy. And I wasn’t mad about it.
One of these Candy Accounts belonged to Lil Sweet Treat, a NYC candy shop that hadn’t even opened its doors yet. It specialized in my favorite sort of candy: fruity, chewy, and sour. Imported from all over the world, too.
I watched her build this lil candy shop for months on end. I watched a community sprout up around this lil candy shop. I watched her sell out her grand opening and had to close for a bit because she was totally out of candy.
Then, I watched her build a tiny second location inside 30 Rockefeller Center.
Then I was inside of it.
Look how happy I was.
We left with a VERY STUFFED bag of candy and made our way to the next stop. My favorite thing in the bag (and what might be my favorite candy ever) were these things called Hitschies that are like long Skittles but with just incredible flavor. They come in a sour version too, apparently, but they did not have those on my visit.
If ever you are stumped for a gift for me, look no further than Lil Sweet Treat. My order? Hitschies, especially anything cola flavored. MMMMM.
Our Final Play
At some point in the day, Aubrey came across front row tickets to the closing night of an Off-Broadway play at the Atlantic Theater Company (Linda Gross Theater). It was called Grief Camp, and we snagged the tickets and headed in that direction.
We made a slide in for a drink, cause we got there really early. It was a Thai place, and I do not recall the name. I do, however, recall that we both ordered margaritas for some reason. I mean, yeah, I was on an NYC tequila kick, so that made sense. But margaritas at a Thai restaurant?! Who were we?
Oh, yeah, we were two bitches with impeccable taste who were about to go sit front row at an Off-Broadway play.
The play was titled Grief Camp and was written by Eliya Smith and directed by Les Waters.
You guys. I just looked up the director and saw that he was 73! And a Tony Nominee?! This surprises me bunches. I got the vibe that this play was a bunch of newcomers getting their feel for the big time stage. Not a septegenerian 2022 Tony Nominee.
Let’s see about the writer now. This was her off-Broadway playwriting debut. Okay, that tracks.
And you know what? It gave me so much hope and inspiration that this is something I could do.
The play itself was fine. There were some things unclear and some things that definitely could have been polished, but there were also sparks of brilliance, like a scene where the grief campers sat in a line at the front of the stage and ate important food items one at a time. I assume these were last meals of the folks they were grieving, or maybe even the things they themselves were eating when they learned of the death. Either way, it really worked for me on stage.
The other flash of brilliance came near the end when Blue (played by Maaike Laanstra-Corn) sang a song, very earnestly, to the audience.
More odd or surreal moments like these would have served this play better.
As well as some storytelling through the costuming. A lot of the costumes felt more like what was around and not like what these characters would actually wear. Especially the swimsuits.
So, yeah, this play obviously took place at a camp and, yeah, at camp it rains in the summertime.
This camp was no exception. Most of the time, we saw it outside the camp doors and heard and felt the rumble of the storms throughout the theater.
But one time, one time that we weren’t expecting, two characters were randomly fishing for some reason, and the rain was RIGHT IN FRONT OF US.
Like, splash zone close. As my cute pink dress became polka dotted with faux rain, I just started laughing. I tried to hold it in. I did. It just felt so wild in that moment. I was in the front row of a off-Broadway show and I was getting RAINED ON.
Then, I did the wrong thing and that was turn to look at Aubrey, who was also becomeing polka dotted and was also laughing.
It was silent, don’t worry. We didn’t want to be rude.
This was probably my favorite moment from this play. It felt like pure joy to us, but I don’t think pure joy was at all what they were going for on the stage.
After the show, when the lights came up, we did inspect the rain spot to see how it worked technically. It was a pretty neat feat, but felt wholly unnecessary to the plot.
The play was over. We were hungry and ready for our final stop.
AI Pasta
That is A (Fonzie) I (Eyebooool) pasta. Not Al Pasta, like it’s a clever play on al dente or something.
Okay, so, the play was over, our clothes had dried and we were hongry again. We just started walking towards the subway with no plan in place, only adventure in our hearts.
We walked past one place with cheese wheels in the window and peeked in with curiosity, but weren’t curious enough to make the decision to eat there,
So we kept walking… and saw nothing. So went back to the cheese wheels place.
I mean, I love Italian food, so I wasn’t mad at it. And I’d always wanted to try one of those places where they make the pasta in the wheels.
I still do.
I wasn’t very hungry, so I just ordered an appetizer: arancini. I love rice. I love cheese. I love fried things. I love dips. This had all of it. I couldn’t wait to pop one into my mouth.
Aubrey ordered the fettuccine cheese wheels pasta, topped with broccoli.
“Is it okay if the broccoli is cold?” the server asked.
”………..yes?” Aubrey replied.
We sat down and waited for our food to arrive, and kind of just took the place in.
We saw the framed art, obviously AI.
We saw the signage, also obviously AI.
We wondered if AI had told these people to buy this restaurant and do these things.
Then the food arrived.
I took a bite of my arancini (AKA Rice Balls) and was greeted with zero rice. Just, like, an interior cheese coating and crispy outer shell. I bit into another one to be sure.
I’m pretty sure I might have been manically laughing at this point.
“there’s no rice in my rice balls,” I show Aubrey.
She is scowling at her pasta, “this is so bad.”
”I think I’m done,” I pushed my riceless balls away.
Aubrey gnawed on her pasta a bit more, and then we dumped the lot in the trash.
On the way out, I took a closer look at the wheel of cheese. It was completely hollowed out, as if they bought a hollow rind of cheese to make it look like they did the cheese rind pasta, when in reality they just put fettuccini alfredo and cold broccoli in a cardboard bowl and called it a day.
Oh, the way we roasted this AI pasta restaurant on the subway ride home.
Here’s what you can expect for the final day in NYC:
- a breakfast sandwich I can’t stop thinking about
- bagel babies
- broadway books
- a well-timed drink
- the walk
- random subway stories that fit nowhere else
If Grief Camp was worth anything it’s that you can do it.