Our first full day in NYC was a full one. We met Shannon in Lower Manhattan and kicked off our day with the Catacombs by Candlelight Tour at the Basilica of St. Patrick's Old Cathedral. Hearing “catacombs” might bring to mind the skulls in the tunnels underneath Paris. These catacombs are a lot less macabre, instead a dark corridor lined with sealed vaults. But before we got to the Catacombs, we started in the cemetery. Our guide summarized the history of the cathedral, built between 1809 and 1815. At the time it was the largest church in the city and primarily served Irish immigrants. The cathedral today is not the same as the original building due to a fire in 1866 that gutted the inside.

In the cemetery we saw the headstone for Pierre Touissant, an important figure in the cathedral’s history. Touissant was brought to New York as an enslaved man from Haiti and was freed upon his owner’s death. He was a successful hairdresser and the money and contacts from his business helped purchase the freedom of his sister and future wife and pursue various philanthropic ventures, including raising money for the construction of the cathedral. He was initially buried in the cemetery and later reinterred in the main St. Patrick’s Cathedral in midtown. He was declared “venerable” in 1996.

The history of St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral, and Catholics in general in NYC, was not a smooth one. A brick wall was erected in 1836 around the church to protect it from nativist rioters (i.e. American-born Protestants) and our guide pointed out where bricks looked different at the top of the wall. These were places where defenders of the church cut holes in the wall for their musket barrels. Nearby we saw a statue of Dagger John, an archbishop who was a fierce defender of the church. In 1844 there was an increased threat when Catholic churches were burned in Philadelphia and nativists were planning a large rally in NYC. Dagger John told the mayor “if a single Catholic Church were burned in New York, the city would become a second Moscow”. His threat was effective as the rally was squashed and violence diverted. The Catholic-Protestant conflicts were dramatized in the film Gangs of New York, directed by one time altar boy at St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral, Martin Scorsese.

We learned a lot of great info outside the cathedral and the star of the show might have been the sheep. Each fall St. Patricks brings in sheep to graze in the cemetery to do their “lambscaping”. When the sheep are sheared the wool is used to make little sheep they sell in their gift shop. Super cute, although it looked like they were standing around and not doing their job, lol.

Our tour moved inside the cathedral and we had a chance to sit and admire the stained glass, large pipe organ, and architecture (and we got a kick out of the Venmo stickers on the pews). This is where the baptism scene was filmed in The Godfather. The last part of the tour was downstairs in the Catacombs. Our guide explained the Catacombs and the crypts and talked a little more about the space before letting us wander the hallways with LED candles to take a look. Overall, we really enjoyed the tour. Our guide was knowledgeable and we learned a lot about the history of the cathedral and the neighborhood. I would definitely recommend this tour!

We had time before our next tour to visit Economy Candy, a fixture in the Lower East Side since 1937. This store is packed full of goodies and it was especially fun to see all the old candies and international treats. I was pleasantly surprised at how reasonably priced everything was and we picked out some candy to take with us. We headed to our meeting spot for our Lower East Side food tour by Free Tours by Foot. These tours are free to sign up for - you pay what you wish at the end and purchase what food you want along the way. Last year we visited the Tenement Museum and this tour with its focus on immigrant influence in the neighborhood was a nice complement to that visit. The tour kicked off with knishes at Yonah Schimmel Knish Bakery. Yonah Schimmel was a Romanian rabbi that got his start like many immigrants - with a pushcart. His knishes were popular and In 1910 he opened his bakery on East Houston Street where it has been operating ever since (it is still a family business).

We skipped straight to dessert with a stop at il laboratorio del gelato (passing by LES mainstays Russ & Daughters and Katz’s Delicatessen). Compared to Yonah Schimmel Knish Bakery, il laboratorio is a young whippersnapper established in 2002. The gelato is homemade in small batches with fresh ingredients and the flavors run the gamut from the standard to the unusual. The gelato was delicious and my only critique was I wish they offered flight options so you can try a variety of flavors (there were so many I wanted to try!).

We saw a few points of interest en route to Essex Market: Red Square Clock by Tibor Kalman, the Angel Orensanz Center, and a random 18 foot Lenin Statue. Red Square was built in 1989 (the same year as the fall of the Soviet Union) and was one of the first large private developments in the East Village. The original developers put up a clock to cover the water tower and elevator shaft. The clock was designed by Tibor Kalman and a take on MoMA’s “Askew”, which also has numbers out of sequence. In 1994 an 18 foot statue of Lenin was added to the roof. Soviet sculptor Yuri Gerasimov was commissioned to make the statue before the collapse of the Soviet Union and apparently the statue was sourced “in the backyard of a dacha outside Moscow”. The statue was removed in 2016 before the sale of the building and it reappeared on the roof of 178 Norfolk Street, a block away from the Red Square (now known as 250 E. Houston St. The clock underwent renovations, but retains its wacky numbers).

The Angel Orensanz Center was originally a synagogue erected in 1849 in the Gothic Revival style. At the time of its construction it was the largest synagogue in the United States and is the oldest surviving synagogue building in NYC. It was opened as the Anshe Chesed Synagogue (People of Kindness) and its congregation consisted primarily of German, Dutch, and Polish Jews; mostly recent immigrants. Over the years it was used by different Jewish congregations until it was abandoned in 1974. Jewish Spanish sculptor and painter Angel Orensanz purchased the property in 1986, restored it, and converted it into an art gallery and performance space. From the outside it looks like a rundown old building, so we were surprised when our guide showed us pictures of the inside: a striking interior definitely at odds with its exterior. Our guide noticed there was activity happening at the building and went over to ask if we could peek inside. We were able to pop in for a few minutes to take a look while the team was setting up for an event. It was gorgeous!

Our next food stop was Essex Market. There were two places our guide had ordered ahead to grab our food: empanadas from Dominican Cravings and dumplings from North China Dumpling. We ate the empanadas in Essex Market and took a look around at the various food stalls and vendors. Everything looked tasty! Our last stop was a two-for-one with the Pickle Guys and Kossar's Bagels & Bialys. While the pickles were tasty at The Pickle Guys, our favorite was the pickled mango - delicious! Too bad we were flying home or else I would have taken a lot more for the road. We found seats at Kossar’s to munch on a bagel and eat our dumplings. It was a fun tour with a variety of food and walking around the Lower East Side.

We weren’t quite done with the Lower East Side yet - we had one more stop at Feltz Bagels, an art installation by British artist Lucy Sparrow. This place was amazing. It took Sparrow nine months of round-the-clock work and 400 yards of felt (about 30,000 pieces) to recreate an authentic Lower East Side Jewish bagel shop. I was impressed by both the whimsy and the attention to detail - Feltz Bagels had it all. I’m glad our trip to NYC coincided with this installation - it was definitely worth a visit.

After a terrific day with Shannon in the Lower East Side we said our goodbyes and headed back to Anshu’s to get ready for the evening. I was excited to finally return to Broadway - I have certainly missed seeing shows since we have moved. We saw Kimberly Akimbo and thought it was a sweet show, balanced with some darker moments to keep it from being too saccharine. We capped off the night with post-show eats and cocktails at Dutch Fred’s. All in all, a great day!