For Year 4: 2014/2015 To Do List

Like I mentioned in my last post I had considered not writing this blog anymore, especially this particular annual list. I thought that now I had conquered a fair amount of the restaurants and attractions in my hometown, even though there are plenty more I would do, I didn’t think I needed to keep a list anymore. I debated the pros and cons of such a list. My goals are not what they were when they first appeared in “For the Keys to My New York City” post that appeared in April 2011 (see link under For Past To Do Lists below). Back then I hadn’t done nearly half of the amazing things I have since I began this journey.

These last few years if I just sit back and think of the first things that come to mind these are the things that rush into my head:

• Locanda Verde

• Intrepid

• South Street Seaport Museum

• Tenement Museum

• Kazi’s Deli

• 92Y

• The New York Times Travel Show

• The Holiday Train Show

• Countless Broadway plays and met their celebrity stars

“…….I was in love with New York. I do not mean ‘love’ in any colloquial way, I mean that I was in love with the city, the way you love the first person who ever touches you and never love anyone quite that way again.” – Joan Didion

Once I had made my first list I felt excited and eager to cross things off immediately and beginning writing about my experiences. However over the last year or so I had begun feeling obligated to this list and not exactly restricted by it. Since I am always reading and doing research in one form or another I always have something I want to do in the back of my head and sometimes for various reasons they get done before the goals on my list. It is not that the ideas on my list were more or less important they had just gotten there first. In fact many are rollovers from a prior year that hadn’t gotten accomplished yet. I never cross anything off unless I do it. However I have changed that rule this year and made some minor tweaks and edits to ensure that any repeats from last year to this are worthy of being on my to-do list. You will notice they are mostly restaurants in the food and dessert category.

Every year when I sit down to evaluate this list I reread my N.Y.C. guides and go through the many emails and printouts I save throughout the year when I see something that interests me. Putting those on my to-do list ensures that it has my attention and will get done. I would hate to miss out on something I would love that is so close by simply because I had forgotten about it.

“Every true New Yorker believes with all his heart that when a New Yorker is tired of New York, he is tired of life.” – Robert Moses

I take my experiences very seriously because I believe they are the reasons to get up in the morning. Looking at a list of exciting and new opportunities for me to write and explore for a whole year more is exhilarating. I get revitalized all over again like it’s the first time. I want to put them in order of what I can get to first and starting mapping out my calendar to see when I can get started. The further progress I make the further I want to go down my list. It’s a sense of accomplishment, satisfaction, and glory.

I take get pride in the results of this year’s list and am eager as ever to see, taste, photograph all that is in store for me.

I hope you find something here that inspires you to make your own list and even add some parts of mine to yours.

2014/2015 To Do List:

I. Plays/Shows

a) All the Way on Broadway starring Bryan Cranston

b) A Raisin in the Sun on Broadway starring Denzel Washington

c) Madame Butterfly

d) Elephant Man on Broadway (coming in the fall) staring Bradley Cooper

e) Bill Maher (comedy festival in November)

f) Mary J. Blige (whenever she ever comes to NYC)

g) Rihanna (whenever she ever comes to NYC)

II. Activities/Lectures/Exhibits

a) Slavery and Underground Railroad Tour

b) FDR Four Freedoms Park

c) Weeksville Heritage Center

d) Brooklyn Historical Society

e) Harriet Tubman Statute in Harlem

f) Harriet Tubman’s House

g) Collyer Brothers Park

h) Morris-Jumel Mansion

i) Alexander Hamilton’s Grange (house)

j) Old Stone House

k) Teddy Roosevelt’s Sagamore Hill

l) FDR Home in Hyde Park & FDR Presidential Library

m)Vanderbilt Mansion Historical Site

n) Grant’s Tomb

o) The Conference House in Staten Island

p) Raynham Music Hall

q) Lyndhurst Mansion

r) Plymouth Church

s) Jay Heritage Center

t) Woodlawn Cemetery

III. Food

a) Meals

· Carbone

· Hill Country

· Lasagna Ristorante

· S’Mac

· B & B WinePub

· El Toro Blanco

· Blue Hill

· Kefi

· Lafayette

· Gorilla Grilled Cheese Truck

· Phil’s Steaks Truck

· Luke’s Lobster

· Beacher’s Handmade Cheese

· Buttermilk Channel

· Triomphe

· Craft

· Landmarc

· Rye House

· Mighty Quinn’s BBQ

· Waterzooi

· Patsy’s

b) Desserts

· Blue Spoon Coffee

· Sugar, Sweet Sunshine Bakery

· Sullivan Street Bakery

· First Prize Pies

· Holy Cream/Doughnut Ice Cream Sandwich

· Laughing Man Coffee

· Momofuku Milk Bar

· Levain Bakery

· Pies and Thighs

· Sugar and Plumm

I am an ambitious lady and I intend on making my mark on this city all the while allowing it to reveal the best side of its self to me so that I can reveal it to you.

I hope you will continue to check back in as I post blogs from the list as I check them off and then again next year when its time for a whole new list. Time goes by faster and faster each year.

For Past To Do Lists: