There’s a tin my family has been using to keep sewing pins in for 20 years.  It originally held black currant pastilles – one of my favorite tastes as a kid.  Seeing the tin the other day I became determined to find the pastilles once again.  I googled the brand Allenbury’s, which seems to have changed to Grether’s.

Googling “Grether’s Black Currant Pastilles New York” yielded some fancy pharmacies such as Thompson Chemists, New London Pharmacy, and my local, Zitomer!  Also a website, www.pastillesforless.com.  (Really?)

I can’t remember going into Zitomer for at least fifteen years but lately keep noticing the giant “Zittles” sign in the second floor window- sounds like a Yiddish nickname but also makes me think of zits.

So I went to Zitomer- turns out the candy counter is right there if you enter through the 76th Street entrance, whose awning also bears the name “Z-Spot.”

Just a note of caution- when I asked the lady behind the counter for Grether’s Black Currant Pastilles she handed me the sugar-free kind without noticing- luckily I was paying attention- I damn sure was for $9 and some change for a 110g tin. (The 110g tin is no cheaper on the Pastilles for Less site which claims to be “Your DISCOUNT site for Grether’s Pastilles!”

The 110g tin contains 44 pastilles, or 22 servings.  It’s been three days and I have one pastille left.  Yikes, this could become an expensive habit.

New  tin, old tin:

In other fancy pharmacy news, Boghen Pharmacy on Park Ave and 88th (One of the few Park Avenue store fronts) has tasty meds!

Below “Tasty Meds” it reads “We flavor kids medicines!”

At 4:15pm on this unseasonably warm winter day, noticing it was getting dark out, I rushed over to the 90th Street entrance to the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir, the best spot to watch the sunset.  To my surprise, hords of tourists were gathered there photographing themselves in front of the view which is so remarkable I really shouldn’t have been surprised.

More on Sunset Gathering

The U.E.S. Journal has acquired two original engineers’ photographs of subway construction under The Upper East Side in 1914.  Visit the “old photos” section of P.U.E.S. to see more…

Under 60th and Lex, 1914.

I saw this for sale on Overstock.com several years ago and thought it was so weird I dragged the images to my desktop.  I just came across them again this week.

Allow me, if you please, to paint a picture for you.  This picture will be painted in the pinkest of hues, and the mintiest of greens.  These colors will burn brightly and they will burn shortly, and their breath-taking incandescence will be a momentary flicker of exalted heavenly light, before it passes into the drab nothingness of urban spleen.

Vanity plate on 73rd and Madison Avenue sent by David Shamoon.

I was just walking up Fifth Avenue from The Met with notorious Upper West Sider, Theodore Ward Barrow, when Mr. Barrow exclaimed, “Look at that pink!”  There was a beautifully intense pink glow on the pail stone buildings extending up the East Side of the Avenue.

We stopped for a moment of appreciation and I took out my camera to take a photo of the pink contrasting with a light green roof.  Mr. Barrow said, “If you post this on your blog you have to note that the Upper West Side has equally beautiful sunsets.”
Granted the sun sets in the West, and sometimes I have a view from my roof of The Upper West Side backlit by a brilliant glow but I can’t say I’ve ever really been struck by the sun setting while actually on The Upper West Side.  I’m sure there’s a decent view on the Hudson, but anyway, I’ll have to see it to believe it.  Therefore I challenge Theodore Ward Barrow to a sunset-off!

Rudy Burkhardt, Pedestrians, New York City, 1939
Photo via Met Museum

There’s a show up at The Metropolitan Museum of Art of which I’ve come back to three times because I enjoy it so much, maybe I can convince you to come see it too…

New York, N. Why? (1940) is a handmade scrapbook of silver-gelatin photographs Rudy Burkhardt took in New York City between 1937 and 1940 accompanied by 7 sonnets by the poet and dance critic Edwin Denby.  The Met owns the only copy which has been unbound and hung on the wall in sequence for this exhibition. More on Come See: New York, N. Why? at The Met.

Kinda weird since there aren’t as many Judith’s around these days.
Leiber on the West (Left), Ripka on the East of Madison Avenue at 61st Street.