Travel

Waiting for a Text in New York City

by stacey

Subtitled: Visiting the Harry Potter Flagship store

Today’s plans are easy: get up for 7:00am, get to New York City, and then stand in line in front of the iconic Flatiron building to scan the QR code at the Harry Potter Flagship store, which will give me a queue placement, so I can come back later to stand in line some more.

And now I am at the mercy of the store. Come back later. They will text you when it’s time to come back to the store to spend all of your money.

Got that? I just stood in line to sign up to wait in line to go shopping.

I just stood in line to sign up to wait in line to go shopping.

You don’t get a confirmation, so I took a screenshot to prove that I am uncool enough to get up at 7am for Harry Potter.

Although the store opens at 10:00 today,  there are already 438 people ahead of me at 8 o’clock in the morning. #448. So we’ll come back later. Do we have an hour? Three? Five? No one knows. We are at the whim of the line-generating- algorithm. So we did one of our favorite things to do when we are in the city: eat (of course).

Variety Coffee Roasters for an iced chai. Then walk a million miles to get an “everything doughnut” from Doughnut Project. (Normally we hit up the Doughnut Plant but we didn’t want to walk that far). Then a full English breakfast (Heinz beans are life) with individual pots of tea from Tea & Sympathy.

English breakfast is just like American breakfast only with beans and mushrooms and grilled tomatoes and blood pudding and I changed my mind it’s nothing like American breakfast.

Then shopping at the Tea & Sympathy import store, because: Jaffa cakes. (We have walked 15,378 steps by this point so obviously the calories don’t count).

Now, check your phone to see if you got a text telling you it’s time to get in line.
Nope.

Surely, it’s time for our store entry. Checks watch. It’s 10:04. The store just opened and there are 438 people ahead of us. We might be awhile. Let’s….walk.

Walk all the way over to Madison Square park. We can sit in the sun and enjoy the day and public art display.

This is the tree I sat under in an attempt to pretend I am calm and serene like a normal person.

The public art display turned out to be transplanted dead trees, but I’m not an artist so I’m not going to argue about the definition of art. I’m just saying, it was dead trees.

Maya Lin’s Ghost Forest are 49 Atlantic white cedar trees. And they’re all dead. That’s art.

Now it’s 10:44. 

Check phone for text.

Nope.

Let’s walk to that new Hudson Yards thing! Yes, I know it’s 89 degrees and full sun. I know we have already walked 18,378 steps. I know it’s in the opposite direction. We’re going, shut up.

Highlights of the walk: the High Line. Love the High Line. Who doesn’t love a repurposed elevated train line that is now an excellent walking park filled with funky public art?

The screaming kid in front of me who just dropped his ice cream sandwich. That’s who.

Public art is awesome. Except when it’s creepy. This is part of a collection called The Musical Brain. It’s awesome and crepy at the same time.

Onward to: The Vessel. The centerpiece of the Hudson Yards area, an “interactive artwork” that

“was imagined by Thomas Heatherwick and Heatherwick Studio as a focal point where people can enjoy new perspectives of the city and one another from different heights, angles and vantage points”.

-PR people
The Vessel. It’s interactive artwork. (That’s what they told me.)

It’s 16 stories, 154 flights of stairs and 2,500 steps that interconnect to give you awesome views of the city and the Hudson river. We are going to pay 10 bucks and climb to the top.

Advice: don’t take the stairs near the elevator because you will (1) realize you could have taken the elevator, and (2) get stuck in a dead end and have to climb extra flights.

Looking down into the Vessel from the top deck feels a bit like being in an MC Escher sketch.
Take pictures looking up for the most unflattering angles ever.

After appreciating the view, surely, now it’s time to queue, right?

You can’t even see my armpit. Selfie success.

12:15. Nope. Let’s just walk by the store and “check in” to make sure we didn’t miss a text.

Guess what? We didn’t miss a text. They just admitted #250. Come back in 2-3 hours. What?! Time for beer.

The Old Town Bar is nearby, (in case they text us early, right?) As it turns out, we will have plenty of time to appreciate the air conditioning, I mean history, of this cool little bar.

Old and in town, so, appropriately named. Sidenote: the entirety of everywhere is covered in scaffolding.

Esquire Magazine names Old Town one of the “Best Bars in America”, and NBC calls Old Town the “Best Old Bar in NYC”. I love superlatives. Established in 1892, Old Town has a 17 meter (50ish feet) mahogany and marble bar, 100 year old urinals that are worth taking pictures of, and old fashioned cash registers, where our bartender said, (in a beautiful Irish accent) that the worst thing was “getting the maths straight”.

Yep. Took pictures of the 100 year old urinals. It’s historic.

Two hours, two lovely beers, spicy wings, and German football on the telly. 20,000 steps. 

Surely it must. be. time. NOW.

Sigh. On to the Union Street Farmer’s Market!  Fresh bread, fresh cheese, fresh herbs, fresh flowers, fresh veg, fresh children disobeying their parents.

I think you can’t have a Farmer’s Market that doesn’t sell flowers.

Let’s buy something we can bring home, look, goat chees……wait! A text! THE text.

4 blocks in 2 minutes. Wait in line. Show text as proof we have waited all day, aaaaannnddd we are in!

Wizarding World flag, gargoyle clock, Empire State Building, and some scaffolding. This was the best I could do.

Fawkes the Phoenix greets you at the entrance, which is the only spot in the store where you can purchase specific “flagship store” merch.

Fawkes guards the New York Flagship store table. He doesn’t burst into flame, which in my opinion, would be a serious upgrade to the experience.

Proceed in to 15 themed areas filled with all the Harry Potterness your wizard (or muggle) heart could desire.

The centerpiece of the store is the Dumbledore’s office rotating griffin. The pedestal is engraved with wizard wisdom on how to be a decent human being, because we all need reminders sometimes.

Griffin. No door.
Stained glass makes it look old-timey

True story, we came for the butterbeer. Butterbeer ice cream, butterbeer soda, butterbeer soda floats, bottled butterbeer, souvenir butterbeer mugs!  People that try to describe the flavor of butterbeer often mention it as a “drink for children”. I am mildly offended. Butterscotch soda is clearly for the discerning palate. Or I am 12 years old in my soul. Or both.

There are also Hedwig owl and Trevor the frog cupcakes. But, butterbeer.

There’s also a wand shop to rival Ollivanders, movie props, themed areas like Honeydukes, and more merchandise sorted by house affiliation. I’m a Gryffindor and Jeff is a Ravenclaw, but we have enough house scarves, robes, and keychains to fill a Room of Requirement, so this was not on our shopping list.

“Magic’s just science that we don’t understand yet.”- Arthur C. Clarke
“What are these? They’re not really frogs, are they?” – Harry. They are not. But they jump and “ribbit!” So, what exactly is the difference if they not real frogs?

Descending the (non- rotating staircase) you head to the lower level where the Ministry of Magic area (appropriately) leads to the bathroom, and the section of the store where you can put your customized name on everything: personalized robes, Hogwarts letters, wands, notebooks, and school trunks. I think this section needs to add a tattoo shop to really up their street cred.

But not You-Know-Who. Don’t name him.

Seriously, all the “bits and bobs for doing your wizardry” that you could ever hope to want. Plus, an entire room devoted to Minalima (the graphic design studio that brings the world to life) art, postcards, wallpaper, and souvenirs.

I heart Hagrid.

We spent an hour and a half and $59.98 on our bits and bobs. The woman in line ahead of me, with 2 small girls dressed in Gryffindor and Hufflepuff robes, spent $318.00. Maybe the real magic of the store is their ability to make money disappear.

My coffee mug and tea-towel purchase suddenly seemed inadequate.

Towards the exit, one last glimpse around to make sure I didn’t miss anything critical, and we were back on the steamy sidewalk, among Muggles.

Final count for the day was:

  • 22,745 steps in Birkenstocks that are not designed to walk that far.
  • 2500 stairs. That’s a lot.
  • 448…the number of the day
  • 89 degrees
  • 8 hours of (impatient) anticipation
  • 3 public art displays
  • 2 pieces of New York-specific swag

And 1 magical text.

Happy trails!