stands

At some point last week the hubby and I decided that yesterday, Saturday, would be the day we would dedicate to using my Mother’s Day gift card to Eataly. (I’d promised to take lots of photos, remember?) So on that, the official first day of the summer vacation, we headed into Manhattan.

The hubby does not like to park the car in garages, and who can blame him. Paying for a parking spot in Manhattan is akin to paying rent. In fact, if you do the math, it IS paying rent. So as we approached Ninth Ave. and 26th Street, we looked for a spot. To our good fortune not only did we find a parking spot on the street, we didn’t have to put money in the “muni meter” and, as luck would have it, there was a large festival taking place on Sixth Avenue. I later found out that this street fair was called the 6th Avenue Summerfest.

All throughout the year, street fairs like this one are scheduled in and around Manhattan. They move from midtown, to downtown and uptown. Although there is not much else to them than stall after stall of t-shirt vendors, tchachke vendors, some artists and assorted other “stuff”, the advantage of them is that they allow you to move freely in the middle of a large avenue with your children and little fear of traffic – other than at the cross streets. In this case, 6th Avenue itself is so large that it embraced the crowds with room to spare and the girls were able to move ahead of and around us easily. Naturally, as in any other large city, parents need to keep their eyes peeled but it is pleasant to be able to at least check automobiles off the list of threats.

Since we were in a “gourmet” mood that day I decided to focus on the food stalls. We didn’t eat from any of them, although we did buy the girls Mr. Softee ice cream, but I did remark at how varied and “international” the offerings were.