West 54 St, Midtown

There is quite a lot going on on west 54th. Even quite far west, there are things to do which is pretty unusual. There's mostly nothing past 10th Ave in the downtown area. But, here, there is The Colbert Report between 10th and 11th right in the midst of all of these luxury apartment buildings. Going to a live taping of the Colbert Report is a pretty cool thing to do with out of towners. It's not super easy to get tickets but it can be done. Between 9th and 10th are two pretty big places in music: Sony recording and The Hit Factory. Sony is where the Nirvana episode of MTV Unplugged was filmed (still one of my favorite albums) and The Hit Factory is where Notorious BIG recorded his last album . . and 50 Cent was stabbed. So, this block has a lot of activity at night, apparently. The Hit Factory is now a condo building -- but I'm sure it still has plenty of ghosts.
Speaking of history: the south corner of 54th between 7th and 8th was the home of the legendary Studio 54. Studio 54 has never been recreated and I doubt that it will. No matter how exclusive a club is in New York nowadays, it can't touch the absolute meyley that happened outside of Studio 54. I can't even imagine what that must have been like. But, I'm sure it was one hell of a drug trip.
Two points of interest at Broadway and 54 are Flute bar (a champagne bar) and Hotel Harding. I know a champagne only bar isn't a new concept any longer. But, I just kind of like the glamour of only drinking champagne in an uptown bar. Mae West lived at the Hotel Harding just when she was starting to become famous. She's one of my favorite quotable people so I think that is pretty cool. Across 7th Avenue is the London Hotel. I've never stayed at the hotel although I know it to be quite posh. I have, however, eaten at the restaurant and it is one of my least favorite experiences in fine dining. There are so many tres expensive restaurants in the vicinity that I don't know why this one is still around. The ambience is really sterile and stuffy. The Ziegfield theatre is next door. It's a film theatre not a theatre theatre but if you're in the area and want to catch a movie, it's a beautiful place to do so.
The block between 6th and 5th is even more posh than the previous. The north side of the street boasts the Warwick Hotel. It was built by Hearst in the 20's with one whole floor designated to his well known mistress, Marion Davies. A couple of doors down is the Manolo Blahnick shoe store that Sex and the City really put on the map. And directly across the street from that is MOMA. I'm not a huge fan of Modern art so this is one of my least favorite museums in the city. But, it is still pretty cool and I really love their gift shop. The rest of the block is all MOMA on the South side and that's a real shame. In order to keep adding on to the MOMA, they had to tear down the really opulent mansions of the Rockefellers and the Vanderbilts. Those, I'm sure, could have been museums in and of themselves. I would have loved to have seen those houses. The other side of the street doesn't do that loss justice but there are some insane apartments that are owned by all finance people. And, I don't mean people who work in finance -- I mean the actual company owners -- like Lehman himself. It's the bottom end of Uptown, but this block isn't wasting any time getting into the ritzy business.