Paper and coffee and bagel in hand - why not, it's New York after all - I set off for a day on the Upper East Side this week. I picked up my friend fresh off the plane and we had a yummy lunch at
Pop Burger before starting our steady ascent up and up and up past shops and galleries and patisseries and all things nice in the brisk New York sunshine. It was a little cold, true, but with skies so blue and so clear, how can you stay angry, even just for a little bit? We got all the way up to 91st street where, at the corner of 5th Ave, is the school I attended on exchange, and then we turned back in time to catch the new Islamic Art galleries at the
Met that are
profiled in this month's Vogue US, a spot (har har) of Damien Hirst at the
Gagosian - every Gagosian across the world is simultaneously showing a retrospective of Hirst's dot works at the moment, from prints to tote bags to large scale works and, well,
skate decks, some more artistic appreciation at my favourite gallery in New York,
The Frick, Henry Clay Frick's personal art collection housed in his re-designed mansion on the beautiful East 70th street, a little light relief at Laduree, decidedly un-New York but hey, you can't blame a girl can you? And, well, the obligatory stop-offs at
Barneys New York and the brand-spanking-new Celine store on Madison, so new it still has exposed wiring on the walls, which doesn't stop you from wanting to spend the big bucks... More on that later.
In short, a day of aesthetic feasting. I never thought I would say this, but there exists in this world something even more beautiful than trapeze luggage totes and bi-colour pochettes and sleek, utilitarian box bags.
And that thing is the Islamic Art galleries at the Met. There was something so peaceful about the rooms and their design - salmon pink walls and cool tiles and symmetry everywhere, in the mosaics and the Arabic script and the gentle curve of arched frames. They have a lot of beautiful illuminated manuscripts and a few absolutely incredible ornamental pieces - ruby encrusted daggers and ornately carved flasks. It was quite wonderful, and I loved that you had to walk through the Assyrian art section to get there. I studied Assyria at school and have always had a fond spot for that oft-forgotten period of Ancient history when Sennacherib ruled the world. The perfect end to the day would have been a little walk back to midtown and catching something at the Paris Theatre, New York's most beautiful cinema and immortalised in Sex and the City and then dinner at
Ma Peche. The Paris theatre always show the most touching and artistic films (they've got the Oscar-nominated silent film The Artist on at the moment) and you can grab a ticket and some junior mints and settle back into plush velvet seats to enjoy the show. Just how movie-going should be.
I don't care what anyone says, I love the Upper East Side.
