Summer Monday nights in New York City are best spent having a picnic in Bryant Park while watching the movies.
Especially if you have teenage daughters and they have friends.
And especially if they all come over to your apartment after school and make chocolate chip cookies, and your husband is finished school for the year so he is home to make great baguette sandwiches and the pouring rain stops and the sun comes out just as you leave the office at 6:30 pm having seen 24 patients and still every chart is closed and every phone call returned and you stroll in the door, change into warm clothes because who would have thought it could be so cold in June, grab blankets, umbrellas (just in case) and bags of food and head to the F train, emerging a few minutes later at Bryant Park where even though the lawn is closed because it is still wet you find great seats and even tables not far from the screen and even though it spritzes a bit just before show time, the sky clears again and they are showing the Sting, it doesn’t get any better than this does it and hey, we’re drinking Newman’s Own Lemonade it must be a sign and my God they are both so handsome which one would you choose if you had the choice, I’d choose Robert, not me, it’d be Paul every time, remember that time we saw him on the street, what a loss he is gone, but what a wonderful movie this is and what delicious sandwiches and cookies these are and can we do this again next week, they are showing Breaking Away?
Mozarella and Tomato Sandwiches (Makes 8 sandwiches)
Serve with fresh olives, leftover pesto pasta and chocolate chip cookies.
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What fun! I can remember in the '70's when Bryant Park was like the witch's forest in The Wizard of Oz, dark, forbidding and dangerous. You scurried by at your peril. It is just thrilling that it has been reclaimed.
Awesome food and The Sting to boot! Perfect!
Before you go to see Breaking Away, you should have a bike race in central park with your kids' friends, and pretend you are speaking Italian and then you can get Italian take out and bring it to the movie…
I used to work for a company that is based in Basel, Switzerland, and Basel does the same thing. In one of the platz-es, (I forget which one, but it is the one by all the government buildings) they show movies outside in the evening. What is nice is that most often these were movies in English with German subtitles, so it was great for non-German speaking me! Afterwards, it is great to walk around, get some ice cream or gelato, and mosey back to the hotel.
Marie-
THe reclamation of Bryant Park is one of the true urban success stories of our generation. I love the place – it has such a European feel…
which brings me to you, schrugglin, you gad about the globe guy, dropping references to local culture in Basel so casually…They also show movies in the parks in Rome, and I love the juxtaposition of the big screen and the ruins. We can;t wait for Breaking Awaty…
XXOO
P.