By design – Walk with Me, Too

Taco local

The Tacombi aesthetic is visible everywhere, even in the wash room. The dining space suggests it may have been a garage or an alternative industrial venue.

Highchairs piled high suggest that this is a family-welcome place. I can attest to this, having been turned away on a couple of Taco Tuesday nights.

Many of those who succeeded in securing a table had brought strollers in. The joint was, as the song goes, jumping.

Their wonderful street corn in a cup renders street fair Mexican esquites redundant. These are not a cob. They sit in pools of the condiments, the cheese, the chili, ready to spoon. Delicious and not sloppy!

Wowie

Collage of the street

Overhang

Upside-down Steps or Stepping Upside-down

It’s a Westside counterpart to the Aerie from my nabe.

Did I tell you

Very often, I cannot pinpoint what it is that attracts me to a specific view. Or views.

Yet, clearly, something does.

A different profile

The West Village twists and has uneven corners, lower skylines, different boundaries.

Automat

There was an Automat left in New York within living memory.

That’s an expression, I have not used ever before but I do like it.

My living memory, as around the 1970s or perhaps 1980s, when it could be found on 3rd Avenue and 42nd Street. Circa that same era, the Horn and Hardart chain was still on or around Broadway in the 40s.

I enjoyed a cream cheese on a dark pumpernickel raisin bread.

That was the signature Horn and Hardart sandwich.

There were other beloved dishes on their menu. The offerings at the Automat were simpler and also complicated by those little compartments.

I have no recollection of dining at any Automat. The sign, above, is a cry for nostalgia at my new, local dumpling shop on 78th. It mimics the Automat delivery system.

It’s not too late to get in on that Automat experience, I guess.

What was Alfredo’s? I never found out. No one would answer that question.

Was the answer so dire as to deserve a wipe-out response?

Some of my cohort were promised a photo of a building named Alfredo’s. For the past 40 years, I have puzzled over the name plate on top of 1368 York. Wondered but never got satisfaction. Curiosity has carried me to flights of fancy and imaginative conclusions. Like SENECA, the name must have some significance. Mustn’t […]
I am keeping a promise

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