A Brew with a View

There is nothing better than a brew with a view. And that's just what I had last evening at a mellow, old-timer bar along Hudson Street in Tribeca last evening. (The joint will remain nameless...I'm not one to plug places, nor do I want others to one day overtake the charming places I choose to visit.) Let's just say, an old pub-like feel, with giant floor to ceiling windows, and a handsome fiftysomething bartender, make for a comfy locale to people watch on the street, but also in high priced loft-like dwellings with large pre-war windows across the way.

Sitting there with a lovely friend from my grad school days in Urban Planning...yes I have a degree...no, I don't know it all...but yes I know what I like...I got a warm fuzzy feeling even though it was a particularly cold night. That window was an eye on the neighborhood, and we were the retina. A slightly drunk retina, but a retina nonetheless. The neighborhood outside was quiet and cold, the inside warm and cozy. Views of an occasional passersby making their ways home, or to the restaurant across the street, or to another drinking establishment down the street, was somehow entertaining. It was evidence that outside, this toney neighborhood, was a living, breathing, functioning place. Somehow, the combination of the built environment and the people who built it, worked. Sure, this is the upper crust, a crust I can't remotely afford, but it worked nonetheless. And that alone made me happy, as well as everyone else sitting along that window.

And the view of the hot guy in the 14 foot ceiling loft across the way was a nice bonus.