Ran up town, looping via the High line and then around the wharfs of Battary Park. Hot it was but another beaut of a day with the Hudson as still as can be. There were a trillion fellow runners (all shape and sizes) out running too.
A quick detour via Soho before meeting the Fam at Baz on Grand Street for brekkie (Jaaqui digging the music). I turned up and there were more pancakes, cream cheese bagels, sausages to feed half of NY and will ensure I have to work at least another year to pay for it all. But who cares, I got granted a run window, 20kms done in 5.15s.
I reckon I saw in total 5 random dudes laid out on the floor comatose at 7 am still. But the shocking thing was they were all well dressed. On that I also saw the fair few of usual crack heads around. The guy in the corner of Starbucks on Spring street looked a mess and could spot him a million miles away. The funny thing was when I went back for a coffee 3 hours later the dude was still there in the same place still kicking his head from side to side. I felt like taking the boys there and saying 'this is what happens when you take hard drugs'. NYC has become tame in many ways vs the edgy NY of 94 I remember but there is a real crack problem here.
A quick shower and then the obligatory saunter around Soho with the boys going nuts over shops I had never even heard of. There was a line as long as you can see outside of 'Bape'. There were these local black kids across the road who were doing somersaults with large grins having already raided the gaf.
I then pushed my chest out and said enough was enough and time for some cultural action so we headed through Tribeca (one of my fav NYC areas) down to the 911 memeorial. It's come a long way and is almost finished and is moving. On the way down we had taken photos of the plaques on the wall outside one of the Soho fire stations which would have been one of the closest to the scene which made the experience a little more moving and tangible for the boys. There were droves of people here on a Saturday afternoon in NYC all paying their respects. Beforehand we had a nice lunch at one of the food markets in Tribeca.
Time then for the boys to push their chests out with Lucas insisting we go back up town (Times Square) to get the Adidas Boost trainers from Footlocker he's been on about for the last 6 months. Tommy had earlier bought some super cool Adidas Matchcourts which I've never seen before, not even in Germany. Ryder also happy as he got his photos with Ironman and Captain America.
The new subway station at the WTC is also pretty cool and the Americans don't miss a trick building a huge mall which you effectively have to pass in order to get to the memorial. I took the cheaper option of a pit stop at Dunkin Donuts.
A good day and another exepensive one, NYC always seemed to be cheap to me in years gone by but is now exepensive. Sneakers are almost more expensive here now than in the U.K. coupled with my boys being SNKR HEADS is a bad combo.
Dinner in Little Italy to finish off and the stroll home.
* Funny moment of the day was when I moaned about my coffee with Ryder spontaneously yelling out 'its a Crapachino!'.
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