Turtle Bay, First Avenue at 42nd Street

Mary Sargent © 2009 ……….. click to enlarge

This is shot from Tudor City Place looking down on 42nd Street as it ends in ramps leading on and off FDR Drive. And doesn't the East River look lovely today?

See map.

Turtle Bay, Tudor City Place Between 43rd and 41st Streets

Mary Sargent © 2009 …………………………………….. click to enlarge

Remember at the beginning of this walk I said I was meeting FL for lunch? This is the place. Convivio. Pretty fancy for two out-of-work gals, you say? I'll explain. This lunch took place during Restaurant Week in New York. Actually, finding that link, I just discovered it's still going on. Through this week. Anyway, as many of you know, you can get a special lunch at many of the city's best restaurants for $24.07 (that odd price is to point out that New York is open 24/7) and the way to do it is find the most expensive restaurant with the highest food ratings and call as soon as you can because everyone else is doing the same thing.

We picked a winner this year and now we want to go back. We crave it. That's the problem. This is what I had: First course, salad with figs and pancetta, but the pancetta was cut into thick logs. Wow. Main course: orecchiette with plum tomatoes and maybe ricotta, can't remember. This sounds dull but it most definitely was not. The pasta was silky and tender and the sauce was full of flavor. Dessert: Some kind of tart with chocolate ganache and caramel, which I was thinking about for the next week or so. Truly delicious lunch. Don't ask me what FL had – that was two weeks ago and I can't remember.

Now with tax and tip the bill comes to a little over $30 and you might be thinking that's not really a cheap lunch and you would be right. I'm not going to tell you what it costs when you add a couple of glasses of wine. This is what you do about that. Book the latest lunch they serve and stay as long as they'll let you and then call it dinner.



Mary Sargent © 2009 …………………………………….. click to enlarge

And my pedicure. Remember my pedicure? Right down the block. It was a nice day.

See map.

Turtle Bay, 43rd Street at Tudor City Place

Mary Sargent © 2009 ……….... click to enlarge

Tudor City is a large apartment complex, "a city within a city", according to its builder, Fred French, who built it in the late 20s in an area formerly filled with slums and slaughterhouses. Its boundaries are from 40th to 43rd Streets and Second Avenue to First which means that we've been in Tudor City since I crossed Second Avenue a few nights ago. In this Wikipedia article I learned that it was built on a bluff! There's my answer! (The question was why does 43rd Street overlook First Avenue.) And the reason 42nd Street goes under Tudor City is that the cliff was cut through in the late 19th Century. I can't wait to walk on First Avenue on the other side.

Since 43rd and 41st Streets dead end here and 42nd Street goes under, it is very peaceful. The first time I was here, several years ago, it was on my lunch hour, and I was just walking across 42nd Street, getting some more streets for my project (pre-blog). Suddenly I came across a set of stairs right there on the sidewalk, so up I went. It was like climbing a bean stalk and finding myself in another world. It was magical.

If you go, I recommend you go up the stairs. You won't get the same effect walking there on 41st or 43rd.



Mary Sargent © 2009 …………………………………….. click to enlarge

This is one of two parks in Tudor City. Since I was there at lunch time, there were a fair number of people in the park, but I'm guessing you could find some solitude at other times of day.



Mary Sargent © 2009 …………………….……………….. click to enlarge

See map.

Turtle Bay, First Avenue at 43rd Street

Mary Sargent © 2009 …….. click to enlarge

This photograph of the Secretariat of the United Nations was taken at the end of 43rd Street overlooking First Avenue. Did 43rd Street always overlook First Avenue? I tried to find out, but couldn't. Hard to google it.

I'll have more to say about the United Nations when I walk First Avenue, but for now, just know that the buildings were completed in 1950, that the Secretariat was New York's first glass curtain building and that it was designed by Corbusier.

Mary Sargent © 2009 ……….. click to enlarge

Here's the entire building for all you completists out there.

P.S. Tonight I realized I'm in a new neighborhood: Turtle Bay. I'll have more on the neighborhood in the next day or two and I also have to go back and do some relabeling. Work, work, work!

See map.

Turtle Bay, 43rd Street Between Second and First Avenues

Mary Sargent © 2009 ……... click to enlarge

This is just a quiet tree-lined street in Manhattan. With the United Nations building at one end.

See map.

Turtle Bay, 43rd Street Between Second and First Avenues

X

Mary Sargent © 2009 …………………………………….. click to enlarge

This is the entrance to the Ford Foundation building.




Mary Sargent © 2009 …….. click to enlarge

And this is the atrium inside which is open to the public during office hours. The guard agreed it was a wonderful working environment. Galinsky has information about the building.

See map.

Turtle Bay, 43rd Street Between Third and Second Avenues

Mary Sargent © 2009 ………. click to enlarge

Continuing across 43rd Street, I was struck by this tall building with the open top. What was it for?




Mary Sargent © 2009 ………. click to enlarge

Next, at street level, even more striking and raising more questions.




Mary Sargent © 2009 ……… click to enlarge

Now, all together.

Luckily, there was a wall plaque and it read, "Permanent Mission of India to the United Nations". We are, after all, heading straight for the United Nations.

This description of the building is lifted from the Mission's web site:

PMI PREMISES
Designed by Charles Correa, a leading architect of India, the building that houses the Permanent Mission of India [PMI] has a striking personality and embodies the cultural iconography of t he country its represents. The red granite base is vividly contrasted by a grand monolithic entryway in handcrafted bronze. The granite is broken by an audacious square opening high above the entrance that has a stylized version of the Indian national flag. At the top of the building is a double-height penthouse porch, which echoes an Indian barasati. The entire structure symbolizes the timeless richness of Indian architectural forms.

X

Wondering what a barasati is? From Indianexpress.com: "Barsati, in general parlance, and chaubara in typical Haryanvi meant a one-room penthouse — considered to be a romantic structure. They were airy and located at a height to make you actually feel 'on top of the world.' The importance of a barsati or a chaubara could be known and felt only during mild showers or torrential rains. These country dwellings filled the heart with awe and enjoyment."

And here is Galinsky, a site that offers " free access to exciting modern buildings and the means to explore them: photographs, descriptions and practical visitor information." This is their short article on the Indian Mission.

See map.

Turtle Bay, 43rd Street Between Third and Second Avenues

Mary Sargent © 2009 …………………………………….. click to enlarge

Tomorrow I will tell you what restaurant this is. Tonight I must sleep.
------
7/24 - Did you already know? Behind that grimy exterior is the great Sushi Yasuda. The New York Times has given it 3 stars and Zagat declares it New York's best Japanese restaurant, with a food rating of 28 (one more than that of the exalted Masa, the most expensive restaurant in the city). I haven't been to either but I have my dreams.

See map.

Turtle Bay, Third Avenue at 43rd Street

Mary Sargent © 2009 ……….. click to enlarge

Here's another photograph of tall buildings towering over a small one. I mean, a group of small ones. And, in fact, it's the same tall white building that was towering over St. Agnes from two nights ago. Although now I see, it's light brown in the front. Somehow it gives off whiteness.

Mary Sargent © 2009 …………………………………….. click to enlarge

And here is the street level view of this block of tenements – from 43rd Street to 44th. Long may they stand!

See map.

Turtle Bay, 43rd Street Between Lexington and Third Avenues

Mary Sargent © 2009 ………. click to enlarge

Just as the Caliente cab belongs in front of the Caliente Cab Co. Mexican Restaurant, the Elmont Glass and Architectural Metals truck belongs in front of this building.

See map.

Turtle Bay, 43rd Street Between Lexington and Third Avenues

Mary Sargent © 2009 ……… click to enlarge





Mary Sargent © 2009 ……… click to enlarge

Last Wednesday, I was through with therapy at 11:45 (location, Upper West Side) and I was to meet FL for lunch on Tudor City Place at 2:15. That gave me enough time to do a photowalk and get a pedicure.

I took the 1 train downtown, and the 7 across to Grand Central. I wanted to walk 43rd Street from Lexington Avenue to First Avenue where it ends, and Tudor City Place in its entirety, from 43rd to 40th Street.

Midtown from noon to 1:00 is madness, with zillions of office workers out looking for lunch, and in a hurry. However, when I turned off Lexington onto 43rd Street, I was struck with . . . quietness. Yes, right there in middest midtown. Just steps from Grand Central. For some reason, there was no place to get food, so no reason to be there.

There was also not much to photograph, until I saw Saint Agnes Church being dominated by a tall severe white building. And the scene being reflected across the street.


See map.