Bosie Tea Parlor & Bar

Dainty sandwiches, delicate pastries, and crumbly scones with clotted cream and preserves, Bosie serves decadent high-tea at reasonable prices.  Set in the West Village in lower Manhattan among criss-crossing cobble-stoned streets reminiscent of England, the glass-fronted parlor is cozy, inviting and -modern, reflective of the times, more Dickens than the Edith Whorton many tea parlors today aspire to.  

Seating is at the bar, at a handful of tables in the front, or, my favorite, in the back in comfy upholstered chairs.  The shelves behind the bar and at the back of the parlor are lined with large copper tins of loose-leaf tea, the flavors circling the globe from African Rooibus and English Breakfast to Ceylon and Japanese matcha.  All are selected and developed by the parlor's tea masters and feature original blends such as Caramel Chocolate Rooibos, Apple Crumble, and Chocolate Hazelnut.  The separate tea menu is a small book with pages of choices, and the tea is served in a cute little pot with enough for a few servings. 

The delectable entrées include, triangular sandwiches of chicken curry, cucumber, and crab; chocolate and matcha eclairs; darjeeling and lemon meringue tarts, crepes, and macarons of various flavors including chocolate, rose, and salted caramel.  All can be ordered à la carte or as a tea service for two where the pre-selected assortment is presented on a three-tiered cake stand.  So Victorian!

For those who'd like to be transported even further to another world, a selection of wines is available.

More information:
http://bosienyc.com/

In the vicinity:

After tea, take in a movie at the nearby IFC Center, or explore the surrounding boutiques and shops.  CO Bigelow Apothecary, the nations oldest pharmacy on 6th Avenue and 8th Street is a delight.  Dating back to 1838, the apothecary doesn't seem to have changed much.  Step inside and enter into a different age.  A pharmacy occupies the back, a cosmetics counter the front and a superb selection of organic and imported body-care products fill the surrounding shelves.  Take in the fine lotions from France, the exotic soaps from Italy, and the beautiful hand-crafted products made in the USA, the best of the best all assembled under one roof rather like a World Expo.

Riverside Church

Overlooking the Hudson River near Harlem, Riverside Church is an American slice of Medieval France.  Modeled after a 13th Century Cathedral in Chartres, the Basilique Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Chartres, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Riverside Church is a National Historic Site.  Built in 1930 by J.D. Rockefeller, the church is a pastiche of architectural styles.  The tower is Gothic and so is the nave which incorporates two balconies under its soaring arches, seating 2000 altogether.  The walls are inlaid with stained-glass windows and a labyrinth, adapted from one at Chartres, is painted on the chancel floor.  The chapel is Romanesque -think smaller arches, lower ceiling, and boasts an intricately carved baptism pool.

Physically the building is an amalgam of the two continents as well.  Limestone for the walls was quarried in Indiana, while many of the stained-glass windows are from Belgium.  Two beautiful rectangular stained-glass windows in the Nathrex depicting scenes from the life of Christ are 450 years old, allegedly the oldest in any American Church, and are sourced to Flanders.

Perhaps the church's hybridism explains its liberal philosophy.  Interdenominational, Riverside has been a stage for political debate and activism through out the years.  Martin Luther King voiced his opposition to the Vietnam War there, and other notable speakers include Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, Fidel Castro, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor instrumental in the Christian opposition to the Third Reich.  More recently, the church was active in the Occupy Wall Street movement and donated 100 tents to occupiers and provided shelter to protesters evicted from Zucotti Park.  At the time of visiting Mayor DeBlasio spoke about reforming Pre-K education. 

Mayor Bill DeBlasio speaking.

Also a site for theater and the arts, the church has hosted dance performances, documentary showings, and the NY Family Arts Festivals, an interactive event with arts and crafts, and performances.  

Visiting:

Riverside Church is open to the public and offers free tours on Sunday after mass at noon.  Tours can be reserved during the week for a $10 fee.  

A small cafe on the premises serves coffee, soups and snacks.  For more variety head south along Broadway for tons of cafes, bars and restaurants, including chains like McDonald's.


More information:
http://www.theriversidechurchny.org/


Sights in the Vicinity:

North of Riverside along the Hudson is Grant's Tomb, burial place of Ulysses S. Grant, 18th President of the United States, and his wife Julia Dent.  Northeast, in Harlem, the area around Malcolm X Boulevard and 125th Street is home to rows of lovely brick buildings and many beautiful small churches.  
South of Riverside Church, along Broadway, are Columbia University and Barnard College.

Spot Dessert Bar

Spot, St. Mark's Place

Featuring Asian flavors like green tea, yuzu and coconut milk, Spot melds the east and the west in delicious dessert tapas.  Indulge your senses with their specialty Chocolate Green Tea Lava Cake -chocolate cake with molten green tea ganache served with green tea ice-cream on a bed of walnut crumbs.  Scoop some ice-cream and cake, savor and swoon.  Okay, maybe swoon is too strong a reaction, but this tapa is one of my favorites.  The green tea tempers the sweetness of the chocolate balancing out this dessert perfectly.

I've also tried their Smoked Coconut Cheesecake and Kabocha Brulee Cake. The cheesecake served with coconut ice-cream was light and tropical with citrus hints.  And the Kabocha tapa, pumpkin cake topped with condensed milk ice-cream, drenched me with sweetness.  If you like sugar explosions, you will love this.

Also served are cupcakes, flavors include Vietnamese coffee, apple crumble, and red velvet;

macaroons of vanilla green tea, taro and passion fruit among others; as well as cookies, cakes, specialty coffees, teas, bubble teas and special Spot drinks such as Homemade Mango Soda, Thai Iced-Tea Float, and Hot Matcha Latte.

They have two locations.  In St. Mark's Place Spot is cheerful and intimate, a lovely place to visit

with a date or friends.  The restaurant style service was fast and friendly.  Keep your eyes peeled on the street as the bar is below ground and easy to miss.  In Korea Town Spot is on the third floor of Food Gallery 32, a lively self-service place with spacious seating -great for groups or the solo diner.

http://www.spotdessertbar.com/

Museum: The Hispanic Society

A less visited museum in northern Manhattan, The Hispanic Society is a hidden delight.  Dedicated to the culture of Spain, including a large part of Portugal and Latin America, they showcase paintings, sculptures, textiles, ceramics, jewelry, furniture, texts, and door knockers -resist the irresistible impulse to sound them!

The most compelling part of the museum though, the jewels, are the Sorolla murals.  An entire room is dedicated to large canvases, 12-14 feet in height, by Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida and ring the room like a mobius.  Depicting local life in various regions of Spain with each area's unique flavor and traditions, the murals are part of a series Sorolla was commissioned to paint towards the end of his career.  I first saw the paintings in Southern Spain where they were on loan and was captivated by the luminous scenes.  Impressionism and its focus on light came to mind, but unaffiliated with any school of style, Sorolla's use of light is unique -representational and palpable.  I could almost feel the hot pulsing sun of the sultry afternoons depicted.  Sorolla reportedly loved being outside and all but one of the paintings in the series were completed outdoors.  Paintings by other notable artists include El Greco, Diego Velázquez, and Francisco de Goya.

The museum is located in Audobon Terrace, a historic landmark of American Renaissance buildings dating from the early 20th Century.   The ornate courtyard dominated by an El Cid statue also houses the Hispanic Society's Library, the Numismatic Society, the American Geographical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Church of Our Lady of Esperanza.  At the time of visiting all buildings other than the museum and church were closed to the public.  


Roughly a ten minute walk south of the Hispanic Society is Riverside Church, a historic building completed in 1930 and famous as a site of liberal activism.  Martin Luther King announced his opposition to the Vietnam War here, and other notable speakers include Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.


More information:

The museum is free to visit. 
Visiting hours:  http://www.hispanicsociety.org/hispanic/visitor.htm  

Alternative Movie Theaters

For independent movies, foreign ones, or just to see something other than the ubiquitous Hollywood releases, I like to visit The Film Forum, The Angelika and The IFC Center.  In tune with the smaller scale of the movies, the theaters are cozy and intimate.  All three are in lower Manhattan roughly south of Greenwich Village and North of Tribeca.  From Union Square it's a lovely walk down Broadway passing through areas with cobblestone streets, brownstones and cute boutiques, as well as international and national chains like Zara (Spain), Superdry (Japan), and Gap (USA).

                                               

The Film Forum   

Originally started in 1970, the cinema moved a few times due to circumstances and challenges before opening on West Houston Street in 1989.  The only autonomous non-profit cinema in New York City, they bill themselves as a 'cinema of ideas'.  In other words, come here for interesting movies, absorbing documentaries, beautiful art movies, and cool old films.

At the time of visiting, showings were for the newly released German documentary More then Honey, which explores the decline of bees worldwide; the Danish thriller A Hijacking, about a commercial vessel overtaken by Somali pirates and the fate of the captain and crew in captivity; and a retrospective of the films of Yasujiro Ozu, an acclaimed Japanese director (1903 - 1963).

More information:

Tickets are cash only and are available for purchase at the Box Office on the premises.

The small cafe offers soda, popcorn, specialty coffees, and a small assortment of desserts including brownies and bundt cakes.  Enjoy them in the foyer which has a few seats and a bar table.

For something more substantial head north up Varick Street for myriad restaurants and eateries including Ayza wine and chocolate bar, and Just Delicious serving soups and salads.

http://www.filmforum.org/

The Angelika

A small art house chain with two theaters in NYC and five nationwide, the Angelika shows foreign and independent movies.  Their flagship theater in Soho on West Houston Street opened in 1989 and has six screens below ground where a small kiosk serves pop-corn, soda and snacks.  A bright,

airy cafe dominates the first floor and with ample seating and a relaxed atmosphere is a lovely place to meet, eat or just chill.


At the time of visiting the following movies were playing:

Before Midnight, the third installment of the series Before Sunrise and Before Sunset; Stories We Tell, a genre-twisting personal documentary by Sarah Polley investigating family secrets; Twenty Feet From Stardom, a look at the unknown, unsung role of back-up singers behind some of the great musical legends of the 21st Century; and The Attack, based on Yasmina Khadra's novel, follows the life of an Arab surgeon in Tel-Aviv who sets out to prove the innocence of his wife accused of a suicide bombing that left her and 19 others dead.


More Information:
Tickets can be purchased online or at the box office, cash or credit.

The Angelika's cafe is open to the public, a movie ticket is not necessary for entry.  Menu offerings include muffins, scones, sandwiches, wraps, desserts and some vegan and vegetarian selections.  Drinks include iced and hot specialty coffees, teas, chai, hot chocolate, smoothies and milkshakes.

http://angelikafilmcenter.com/



Village East Cinema

The Angelika's sister theater is housed in an historical building dating from 1926 when it opened as The Yiddish Art Theater.  The staged plays attracted notables such as Charlie Chaplin, George Gershwin and Albert Einstein.  After many transformations over the years the building, designed in the Moorish revival style, was restored and revived as Village East Cinema in 1992.  Featuring ornate decorations and 7 screens including a main auditorium with balcony seating and an oversized screen, the cinema is a pleasure to visit no matter which screening room you end up in.

Showings are for independent movies and select blockbusters.  At the time of visiting playtimes included Monsters University, an animation movie by Pixar; What Maisie Knew, a contemporary interpretation of Henry James' novella; Kon-Tiki, depicting Thor Heyerdahl's historical journey from Peru, South America, to Raroia, Polynesia, to prove the islands were settled by South Americans; and the documentary Searching for Sugar Man, which casts light on the disappearance of Sixto Rodriguez, a Mexican-American musician whose album bombed in the US but found fame in South Africa's anti-apartheid era.  

More information: 

Tickets are available for purchase online or at the cinema's box office, cash or credit.  A lounge area with cheerful couches is below ground, and a snack bar on the first floor serves soda, pop-corn, candy and specialty coffees.  For a meal or drink there are a plethora of restaurants, bars and cafes in the area including Angelica Kitchen which serves "organic plant-based cuisine," Bar Veloce just a few feet away, and Spot Dessert Bar in St. Marks Place.

http://www.villageeastcinema.com/




The IFC Center

Owned by AMC Networks and related to the TV channel of the same name, the IFC opened in 2005 replacing The Waverly Theater, an art house famous for midnight runs of The Rocky Horror Show. The IFC, according to their site, is dedicated to showing "the best in independent film."  They feature foreign and independent movies and documentaries, classic movies on weekend mornings, and cult

movies Friday and Saturday at midnight.


At the time of visiting, movie show times included the documentary Dirty Wars, an expose of America's underhanded tactics in the War on Terror; Crystal Fairy, a Chilean comedy/love story where a brash American boy hunting for a hallucinogenic mushroom in Chile meets a free-spirited local girl and invites her along for the ride; Museum Hours, Austrian, a lonely Canadian woman and an Austrian museum guard find love among art; High Anxiety by Mel Brooks, a parody of suspense movies and a tribute to Alfred Hitchcock, for the weekend classic; and Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones' second adventure by Steven Spielberg, for the cult midnight spot.


More Information:
Tickets can be purchased online or at the box office, cash or credit.

The kiosk on the first floor serves organic popcorn with natural butter, soda, tea, coffee, hot-chocolate, popsicles, and other snacks.  For something else just wander the surrounds and trip over cafes, restaurants and bars.


http://www.ifccenter.com/