A Pre-Christmas Visit to Columbus Circle

By West Village Bill


On a day off yesterday, I went to the Columbus Circle Holiday Market, like my co-worker Joyce had done on her day off on Wednesday. Because I've simply got to keep up with my friend who was featured in one of my first posts for QNY. :-)

I bought a couple of small Christmas presents for my Granny and some made-in-Queens Raaka chocolate bars for myself. And I listened to a delightful trombone quartet that performed the "Hallelujah Chorus" from Handel's Messiah and other standards in four parts. (This was yet another occasion when I wished I'd had my camera with me—or a camera phone with video-making capability—so I could have recorded a snippet of their performance.)

Like Joyce, I got a chicken biscuit from the Pies 'n' Thighs stand. It was sinfully, but not life-changingly, good. I'd asked for only the hot sauce on it, not the hot sauce AND honey butter it's supposed to come with, because I was thinking that combo would be just too damn much on top of the fried chicken and whatever fat is used in the biscuit. Maybe my life would have been changed if I'd gotten the honey butter too. :-)

I also enjoyed the slice of sweet potato pie I got from PnT. I'd wanted to get a cup of ginger tea to cut through all of the richness, but the guy working the counter said it wasn't hot yet.

While I was up that way, I also hit Columbus Circle Wines & Spirits, where I picked up a few bottles of wine to replenish my almost empty cabinet and Crème Yvette, the violet-flavored liqueur produced by Rob Cooper, the same dude who makes St-Germain.

Nina, Pinto, Santa, Maria

So, like, a way long time ago, like 1942 or something, a guy got kicked out of Italy cuz he kept talking crazy global-rounding like theory and all, but then some religious fanatical Queen in Madrid gave him some money, and he bought 4 things but had to put them on a boat to New York cuz they wouldn't all fit in the overhead bins. When he got to Central Park, everyone liked what he brought so much they gave him a traffic circle and a shopping mall and put up 4 pillars in the traffic circle in honor of his contributions to like, culture or something.

Then they made school kids sing about Nina, Pinto, Santa and Maria.

      

       

Top photo of Columbus Circle Monument reflected in Time Warner Center by me; the rest copied from the interwebs