Toronto! New York! Boston!

[Gracelette]

LPTJ, my summer looks like this:

1-7 August - On holiday in Toronto
7-17 August - On holiday in New York
17-19 August - Half work, half holiday in Boston

What I would like from anyone who can help out:

* Heads-up on any gigs, art things, festivals, parties or other happenings in any of those cities on the dates I'm gonna be there.

* Any steers of good food places, museum places, shop places, picnic places and anything else I should check out in any of those cities.

* Offers to meet up for beer, cupcakes, hanging outs in any of those cities.

I know my way around NYC pretty well but I know nothing and nobody in Boston or Toronto and, aside from a couple of days hanging out with a friend who's driving up from Ann Arbor to Toronto, I'll be on my own so any steers, heads-up, etc. will be gratefully received.

This is especially true for Toronto because I am visiting with a view to seeing how I like it as a place to possibly move to in a couple of years.

Who posts here who is from Toronto? ieatrats? sasha? Do they even post here any more? Also, if you know anybody in those cities who can help out with any of the above, please send 'em in my direction.

Thank you!

[edison]

I suppose I don't need to point you towards Oh My Rockness for rock shows in NYC? Anyway, from what I gather you can't make it to the free National show on the 17th, but you've still got The Thermals, or Ted Leo for free, and loads other stuff. I have nothing useful to say, I guess, except that I'm very jealous (I'm going to Brazil in September, which I suppose is not bad either, though!)

[Andrew_TSKS]

i'm thinking ieatrats is from montreal, and ellaguru is from toronto, but i might be wrong about both.

[Mike24]

made a map

it's got some basic stuff like the art gallery, royal ontario museum, best shopping, best sushi, best sandwiches.  If you let me know what area you're staying in I could probably be more helpful.

[difficult]

My god Mike, that makes 3 of us here with my last name!

[ellaguru]

Well, you can come see the Hold Steady with me on the 6th in Toronto if you want.

Let me know what sort of things you like to do when you're on vacation, and I'll see if I can't point you in a direction for the Toronto leg of your trip.

I don't know much about NY or Boston, but when I was last in New York (when I say "last", doesn't it sound like I've been there more than once? Because I haven't), I took some friends who had been living there about a year to this place, and they decided it was the best place they had been there all year. So I guess my travel intel wasn't all that bad for that trip. It was pretty fun, but I've only spent four or five days there, so what do I know from recommendations?

Toronto I know pretty well, though.

[jordanmichael]

Can we have an LPtJaparty when you get to NYC?

[Gracelette]

Can we have an LPtJaparty when you get to NYC?

Hell yes we can. Anyone else up for that?

Mike - thanks so much for the map! I shall be making a paper version of that for sure. I'm going to book my accommodation next week so, when I know which hostel I'll be at, I'll let you know.

And I just checked out the Royal Ontario Museum's website and they have an antique typewriter exhibition on when I'm there!

ellaguru - I may well be up for the Hold Steady on the Monday... depends on whether my friend is around then or not but I'll let you know for sure.

"Let me know what sort of things you like to do when you're on vacation, and I'll see if I can't point you in a direction for the Toronto leg of your trip."

I think that for this part of the vacation, I would like to know about secondhand bookshops, coffee shops that sell nice cakes, sushi places that will not kill me, places to go for picnics and walks in the shade, and the best bodies of water, be they lakes or rivers or seas. Also if there are any good fresh food/farmer's markets to check out, that'd be good too... even if I don't actually buy much, I am trying to get a sense of what stuff is going on if I were to move to the city... and nice food market stuff is important to me.

Thank you!

[ellaguru]

Excellent, I'll give you some thoughtful and insightful suggestions over the weekend, when my brain is somewhere closer to being in gear. You'd think early morning yoga would sharpen my dizzyingly keen intellect (sound of body, sound of mind and all that), but no, my mind is fuzzy, dull and suited for nothing more complicated than work.

Fortunately, I'm at work.

But, yeah, tomorrow or Sunday I'll give you some ideas.

[milesofsparks]

yes to hanging out in NYC!  definitely.

also, I'll try to think of good things in Boston, but I'm kind of in an anti-Boston mood at the moment...

[hannah]

I hope to be in NY july 31 - aug 13, but I haven't booked plane tickets yet

[ellaguru]

I think that for this part of the vacation, I would like to know about secondhand bookshops, coffee shops that sell nice cakes, sushi places that will not kill me, places to go for picnics and walks in the shade, and the best bodies of water, be they lakes or rivers or seas. Also if there are any good fresh food/farmer's markets to check out, that'd be good too... even if I don't actually buy much, I am trying to get a sense of what stuff is going on if I were to move to the city... and nice food market stuff is important to me.

Okay, Grace, I've written you a novel this fine morning. Don't say I never did nothin' for ya:

As far as parks go, the best one is the one near me. It's called High Park, and it's our little attempt at Central Park or whatever. It's about half as big as Central Park, so still pretty impressive for wandering about – big enough that I basically always get lost at some point when I walk around in there, and I live, like, a ten minute walk away, so I'm there enough. And it borders on Lake Ontario, so there's the beach, too (although Toronto basically fucked up the west end of it's beachline by deciding that we could really spruce up the place by putting in a ten-lane highway. The beach on the east side of the city – the area's called “The Beaches” if you're from Toronto, but called “The Beach” if you're a genuine Beach-local – is much, much nicer. You'll just miss their street jazz festival by a couple of days, which is really huge and fun). But yeah, High Park: it's a really nice walk from Roncesvalles Street (which is where my house is, and where there are several swanky coffee houses, and close to a bunch of decent antique stores on Queen St.), along the boardwalk on the beach, back up through the park, and then a second cup of coffee in Bloor West Village (which is a little too yuppie for me, but nice). Obviously, parks and beaches are more daytimey things, but for evening activities, they do Shakespeare in the park all summer. This year it's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Oh, and I almost forgot Toronto Island. Go to Harbourfront, which is right downtown. Harbourfront's an okay spot for a wander, especially in the evenings. Every weekend there are some pretty great free shows down there – a couple weeks back it was Buckwheat Zydeco, last night Shout Out Out Out Out. The weekend you're here it looks like it's reggae weekend. Anyway, from the Harbourfront you can take a ten minute ferry ride to Toronto Island, which is really pretty and has both an amusement park and a nude beach. Something for everyone.

Toronto is pretty lame for secondhand bookstores – at least at the big/impressive end. I like Elliott's, which is on Yonge St. The other places I get used books are generally smallish, and sorta just neighbourhoodish. There's generally a decent, small hip bookstore in most of the decent, small hip neighbourhoods, but we have nothing City Lightsish.

For markets, there are two things you want to do. You want to go to St. Lawrence Market (for all your fresh foods/farmer's market needs). And you want to go to Kensington Market, which is a street market – two cheese stores, lots of niche foodstuffs, plus all the chic retro & used clothes you might possibly want to shake a stick at. If shaking sticks at clothes is your thing. It's also the location of two of our nation's finest TV shows, the King of Kensington and Twitch City. Note: for best results, it is highly recommended that you hit Kensington during the day on a Sunday. They shut the whole area off from cars and there are generally some bands in the street and stuff. You might want to wander through the Distillery District, too. It's more touristy/arty, but it's pretty, and Balzac's is a fine place to sit with a coffee. You can get a way better coffee 20 minutes north at Jet Fuel, but that neighbourhood's a bit sketchier.

Actually, though, lots of the neighbourhoods have great access to fantastic food shopping in a resident-way, if not in a touristy way. Within, say, two blocks of my house there are several fresh fruit/vegetable markets, a few delis, a couple bakeries, a health food store and an organic butcher (I'm assured that there will be no subtherapeutic antibiotics or growth promoting hormones in the bacon I'm about to start cooking in a few minutes). If you want something more exotic, there are a couple of Chinatowns (our main Chinatown, on Spadina/Dundas near Kensington Market, is pretty different from the Chinatowns in most areas in North America. It's a working Chinatown, not a touristy one. So it's smelly and busy and not very gussy. I like that better, myself, but everybody's different. Also, Little India can be interesting, but only as a survey and in tandem with going for Indian food or something – it's a little out of the way, and there's not enough to hold your attention for all that long.

I don't know where one gets the best sushi in town. I know our sushi here isn't as good as it is in, say, Vancouver (or, y'know, Tokyo). But it's pretty decent, and you can't swing a dead cat in this town without hitting at least three sushi joints. And a roti place. And two falafel huts. It's a good town for food. And way multicultural - Toronto has the second highest percentage of foreign-born residents on the planet (just behind Miami, and, unlike Miami, our foreigners are from everywhere), and all those foreigners brought their cuisine with them.

Coffee shops: There are some decent cafe's in the areas I've mentioned: Kensington, Little Italy (obviously), at the Roncesvalles/Queen end of High Park. Toronto is only just getting a little more sophisticated on the cafe front, though. We ain't Europe over here.

For evening hijinx, Little Italy is the swingingest area. It's on College Street. Lots of bars, people, etc. There's live music at the Orbit Room, otherwise mostly canned. Queen Street West and Queen Street um, extreme West[?] is also decent. Individual bars I recommend: the Communist's Daughter is pretty great, but tiny. Go early. Also, Smokeless Joe's, if you like beer. They have pretty much all the beers. The beer menu is several pages long.

Last: links to our best little weekly, called NOW magazine. Good source for whatever recommendations you need.

Anyway, lots of info (I feel a little like Andrew writing a post too long for anyone in their right mind to read through), but a week's a long time to hang in town you don't know. Hope some of it helps.

[Gracelette]

milesofsparks - awesomeness, we shall hang out!

hannah - get your ticket! then we shall hang out too.

ellaguru - thank you so much for that... your post will be printed out and carried around with me - I am very excited indeed to hit up some of those places.

three weeks to go! and I might be about to slide in a couple of days in Montreal too...

[milesofsparks]

milesofsparks - awesomeness, we shall hang out!

plainenglish also mentioned that she would try to come down if there were an LPTJ convention here in August.  cupcakes!  beer!  last plane inside jokes!  I look forward to it.

[ellaguru]

I might be about to slide in a couple of days in Montreal too...

If you're doing that, I can help you out with Montreal some, too. Not as much as a local (if there are any Montreal locals around these parts, I bow to their wisdom), but I lived there for about a half a year, a few years back, so I know how to find my way around some.

Adding: Montreal is really fun. More fun than Toronto. Possibly a worse place to live if you value things like "getting ahead". Or "not freezing to death". But fun. It's also more fun than Boston (probably. I've only been to Boston for a long weekend one time, so what do I know? But Montreal's raison d'etre is fun). It's less fun than New York, but it's way more fun for the buck. Like, 85% of the fun for 50% of the funds. Anyway, I recommend it, if it's swingable.

[Gracelette]

nyc peeps = the damn canadaian web browswer doesn't support my email or my spelling.

yes! tedleoless picnic is fine - somewhere shady with trees or i will bring a parasol. someone choose a location. prsopect park? greenwood cemetery?

i will try to email again later.

no credit.

in toronto damn!

[hannah]

I won't be in NYC the day of the Ted Leo show and therefore the day of its picnic substitute, so if anyone wishes to do something another day, too, like in the evening next week, that'd be awesome!

[Greg Nog]

Prospect park is fine.  If anyone's still up for the Ted Leo, we could always picnic at McCarren Park, which is right next to the concert.  Otherwise, I've got no problem with a trek out to Park Slope.

[coldforge]

UGH that's fucking FAR

[hannah]

Well, so is Los Angeles. Oh, and Bologna.

GUILT!

[Greg Nog]

Dude, it's probably easier for you to get to Prospect Park than it is for me, given the way the subway lines run.

[milesofsparks]

UGH that's fucking FAR

so suggest somewhere else.  we're all indecisive and whatnot.

[ellaguru]

Man, Grace, you picked a hot week to hit Toronto. It's been freezing most of the summer (well, 22-25 degrees), and this week it's pretty durned hot. I've been hiding out in my barely-air-conditioned apartment.

You said you were probably hooking up with a friend while you're here, but if you end up all alone and lonely in a strange city and in desperate need of company for a beer, let me know. I'm pretty much always in desperate need of a beer.

Mmmm, beer.

[jess]

Hmm, I will think of some recommendations for Boston stuff. If there's any particular types of things you're looking for or areas you'll be in, let me know. I live right in the city, and I'll be around if you want any company at some point.

[Gracelette]

Right - I appear to have got Gmail, at least, to work, so I've emailed y'all except for Jess cos I don't know your email, dude, but it would be rad to meet you so email me. I am staying way downtown in Boston (near Summer Street) and will be tied up all of Saturday 18 but I'm gonna be knocking around on the Sunday cos my flight doesn't leave until 11pm so if you'd like to hang out, that'd be grand.

Also - Mike24 can pick a sushi place. Dude - that Sushi Island is INCREDIBLE - best sushi I've ever had. I thought I was eating flowers instead of fish. Amazing!