New York in February

There's a specific kind of cold that only exists in New York in February. It's not the temperature (Toronto was colder, always). It's the wind. The buildings create corridors that funnel it down avenues at speeds that make your eyes water and your coat feel optional. You walk with your chin tucked and your hands buried and you move faster than you normally would because stopping means freezing.

I was there for work. A few days. I stayed at The Bowery Hotel on the Lower East Side, which is a much better hotel than my trip required. The Bowery is on the corner of Bowery and East 1st Street, right where the Lower East Side meets the East Village meets NoHo. The building has that pre-war brick exterior and the lobby feels like a private library: dark wood, velvet furniture, a fireplace that's actually lit, bookshelves that have actual books instead of decorative objects pretending to be books. The crowd in the lobby is a mix of people staying at the hotel and people from the neighborhood who've adopted it as their living room. You can't always tell which is which.

The rooms are big for downtown Manhattan. Warehouse-style windows that let in more light than you'd expect from a street-level building on the Bowery. The beds are good. The bathrooms have subway tile and deep tubs. The floors are original hardwood and they creak, which is charming for two nights and would be maddening for two weeks. Request a room above the fourth floor if street noise bothers you. The Bowery is not a quiet street.

February in New York strips the city down to its bones. No tourists on the High Line. No hour-long waits at brunch spots. The restaurants want you there. The bartenders have time to talk. It's the city at its most honest: cold, dark by 5 PM, and completely itself.

I ate at Balthazar on Spring Street one night, which I realize is not a cutting-edge recommendation. Balthazar has been open since 1997 and everyone knows about it. But there's a reason it's still packed on a Tuesday in February after nearly 30 years. The room is the thing. It's a recreation of a Parisian brasserie that's so accurate people forget they're on a street in SoHo. The mirrors, the tile, the brass, the noise level that somehow makes conversation easier instead of harder. I sat at the bar alone, ordered the steak frites and a glass of Côtes du Rhône, and watched the room work. The steak was good. The frites were better. The bread basket they bring without asking is warm and crusty and you'll eat three pieces before your meal arrives. I've been going to Balthazar on and off for years and it never disappoints and never surprises. That's its own kind of excellence.

The next night I walked to Dhamaka on Essex Street, which is a very different energy. Indian food that doesn't cater to Western expectations. The menu is regional and specific: dishes from parts of India that most Indian restaurants in America skip entirely. The goat brain masala is on the menu and it's not there as a dare. People order it. It's good. I had the jackfruit biryani and a lamb chop dish that arrived still sizzling and had a char on the edges that made the whole thing taste like it was cooked over an open fire, which it was. The room is loud and small and the waiters are busy and the food is some of the best Indian food in the city. Reservations through Resy. Book a week out.

During the day, between meetings, I walked. That's the other thing February New York is good for. The streets are empty enough that you can actually walk at your own pace instead of being swept along by the crowd. I went through the East Village down to Tompkins Square Park, which in February has about six people in it instead of the usual sixty. Cut through the Lower East Side, past the old tenement buildings on Orchard Street where the fire escapes are so dense they look structural. Walked the Williamsburg Bridge because I hadn't done it in years and the view from the middle of the span looking back at Manhattan is still one of the best in the city. The skyline from that angle, with the Lower East Side in the foreground and Midtown rising behind it, looks different from every other vantage point. It was about 25 degrees on the bridge and the wind was vicious and I stayed for about four minutes. Worth it.

On the way back I stopped at Katz's Delicatessen on Houston Street because I was cold and hungry and it was right there. The pastrami on rye is not a secret recommendation. It's been written about ten thousand times. It's also still the best pastrami sandwich in New York. You get your ticket at the door, you wait in line at the counter, and the guy cutting the meat gives you a sample while you wait. The sandwich is enormous and costs $28, which feels like a lot until you're holding it.

McNally Jackson on Prince Street got an hour of my time one afternoon. Independent bookstore, well-curated, the kind of place where the staff picks are actually interesting instead of whatever the publisher is pushing that week. I bought two books and a coffee from the cafe next door and sat in Washington Square Park for about ten minutes before the cold won and I went inside somewhere.

The New Museum on the Bowery, a few blocks north of the hotel, had an exhibition running that I walked through mostly because it was right there. Contemporary art in a building that looks like a stack of off-center white boxes. The art was mixed (some of it excellent, some of it stuff where you read the placard and you're still not sure what you're looking at) but the building itself and the views from the upper floors are worth the $18 admission.

Three days. Worked, ate, walked, flew home. February New York.