Pleasures of the City & More Third Places

I have two more third places in New York to add to my list of coffee houses. One is also an addition to my post about favorite institutions in my neighborhood: the garden and cafe at the Cooper-Hewitt Museum.

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Frankly, the Cooper-Hewitt has been boring for several years now, but they have new leadership that seems to be making a difference. And in the summer in New York, the garden is great. If they had free WiFi (or any WiFi), they'd be close to perfect on a beautiful city day.

My biggest problem at the Cooper-Hewitt now is that some of the furniture in the garden are chairs and settees I've only known from photos, and actually sitting on them was a big disappointment. I'm talking about those big armchairs and love seats that look like molded, cartoon versions of overstuffed club chairs from the 1920s (you can see a yellow love seat in the picture on the right). I always thought from the photos that they would be made out of something like foam rubber, and very comfortable. In fact, they're made of fiberglass, and are very uncomfortable. They also age badly in the weather: instead of a patina, they get a scummy coating.

The other place is quite different. It's a hip tea room in the East Village that belongs to the pop-star Moby, and it's called teany (tea NY).

The East Village and the Lower East Side are both full of interesting storefronts now, and are good places for city walks.

The older stores are usually sort-of Haight-Ashbury funky, but the newer places are usually either Minimalist Modern (like teany), or new Traditional constructions. One that's not on my list, even though I haven't been there, is Ini Ani (found via archidose — they also have places I do like).

Look at the photos at archidose. They illustrate perfectly one of the problems of the pseudo-avante-garde idea that you have to reinvent the wheel every time you design a building or even a room — it takes a lot of talent and imagination to do that, and not every architect, particularly every young architect, is up to the task, even though they may be good designers otherwise. The emphasis on invention also hurts judgement: cardboard walls with cup lids are kitsch.

I'm supposed to go on an East Village / Lower East Side walk soon with my friend Neil Takemoto, a longtime New Urbanist who runs the cooltown blog. He has some good posts on third places and what gen-xers like.