Last hurrah

It was hard to comprehend the arrival of September and Labor Day weekend. The summer was awesome & I didn't want it to end.

Friday & Saturday were wash-outs due to the remnants of Ernesto passing through. But Sunday was a pretty, sunny day. Ran lots of errands, then got dressed up to meet Robyn & Paul for a drink at the Jade Bar in the recently re-opened Gramercy Park Hotel. The plan was to check this place out before the Hamptons set returned to Manhattan. However, due to the holiday weekend, the crowd was off. There were a few rocker guys there, but the overwhelming majority of patrons were senior citizen tourists from the Midwest. Not a scene worth lingering in, especially when the average price of drinks is ~$15. The hotel decor is being dubbed as "new High Bohemia." Perhaps the bars will be better in the winter, but on this visit they struck me as having too much wood and velveteen, and overall, the hotel made me long for the Delano.

After leaving the hotel, we went to 10 degrees for some wine, cheese, pate and voyeurism. Then onto Satsko for more munchies.

I met up with Howard and Mike late night at a brand new bar on Ave. C called Royale. It's owned by the same folks as my local Cuban joint Cafecito. It's in the former C Note space, though we wouldn't have realized it unless we asked, because they gutted the place and did a ton of work.