this roadtrip has seven days: day three, part two

Day 3, Part 2: New York, NY

Time for an afternoon rest spot...in this case, Washington Square. The picture of the arch is the winner of the "most postcard like picture of the day" sweepstakes.

Left: Roll over Karl Marx, and tell Engels the news. Discovered on 6th Avenue, it's no shocker that this ad for Forbes was perched on a environment-depleting vehicle.

Right: Still my favourite bookstore name of all time, a remainders store located in the West Village on Carmine St. Finds on this trip: an overview of taboo-breaking films by Joe Bob Briggs (Profoundly Disturbing: Shocking Movies That Changed History) and a guide to sexual slang over the centuries.

Speaking of bookstores, after a stroll around the West Village, it was back over to Broadway for a peek into Strand. I don't dispute their claim of 18 miles of books, given how tight some aisles are (though they are a far cry from the old basement location of Dawn Treader in Ann Arbor, where sideways movement was the only kind possible).

Left: One could have mistaken the listening booth section of the Union Square Virgin Megastore for the auditioning area for American Idol...or at least this dude did. Heads turned all over the store as he wailed away, slightly off key, to whatever was pumping through the headphones. Staff were amused, content to let him sing and punch away to the rhythm (standard next to him might have resulted in accidental bruises).

Right: Broadway and 17th St, from the north end of Union Square.

One thing I forgot to mention about that night's dinner - one didn't have to worry about running out of toilet paper in the middle of an emergency.

Left: I walked off dinner with a stroll south of the East Village. Draw your own conclusions about this sign outside of Coyote Ugly. I may have qualified for the "drunk" half of the equation, as I felt the sake kick in.

Right: Found along 10th St. Was the owner was a fan of this film?

One of these things is not like the other... The three drawings were part of the window of a convenience store, whose location I forgot to write down, other than it was near Chinatown.

Left: The walls watch you at Chambers St subway station, though it's not the latest in security technology (or is it?). These peepers are part of Oculus, installed in 1998. Artists Kristin Jones, Andrew Ginzel and Rinaldo Piras based the mosaics on photos of 300 New Yorkers.

Right: The last sight of Manhattan for the day, the escalators to the PATH train at the WTC. The city may never sleep, but I was ready to.

Next: Country roads, canneries and a town whose name will cause giggles