i never knew a girl called chelsea

Everyone in NYC has theories on which suburbs are up and coming however these days few would still claim SOHO is the hippest place to be. Now Things Are Happening in places like Chelsea, TriBeCa and Brooklyn (but Brooklyn is practically as big as Manhattan so that's kind of indefinite). Each day, or for countless days, you could spend exploring one of these suburbs - there's just so much going on. On one of our days Zane and I took the subway to Chelsea for a bit of fun in the wintry sun.

We started the day, where we started our day everyday, at Blue Bottle Coffee. After, we walked across the road to the Chelsea market which is filled with craft produce and miscellaneous stores, but many New Yorkers would tell you the place is a bit overdone and not exactly a market market.

Everyone goes to Chelsea to do the Chelsea art crawl. This crawl involves weaving between avenues and streets and visiting art galleries of all sorts of calibre. I loved following a list of recommendations given to me by art gallery director Sarah Hopkinson. I particularly loved visitng Greene Naftali which was in a building with a man operated elevator and had an unbelievably engaging prison art piece by Tony Conrad. What was most interesting for me, however, was the realisation that New Zealand's best art and art galleries are easily competitors or even victors to what we saw in Chelsea.

I don't care what some NYers say - the Highline was one of my trip highlights. The Highline is an elevated walkway which goes between buildings and has different access points throughout Chelsea. When we visited, the walkway was dusted with snow and being extended at one end. Walking the Highline is a free experience and it is one of the best ways to admire an eclectic range of architecture and art in Chelsea.

 I made a mistake with my East and West directions and where I thought was a bakery was a rather locked gate in front of a rather residential town house. However, I luckily had a list of backups and it turned out that we were very close to The Meatball Company on Greenwich Ave. The Meatball Company was a recommendation from the Issac Likes blog and I'd totally certify it. Our meatball meals were super cheap, super fast and super fantastic - oh and we got to draw on our menus too! Now that would be a good stop after a few drinks.

xx
Lou