Fringe Central and Venue #1 - The SoHo Playhouse

Fringe Central is in a vacant space at the corner of Carmine and Varrick (7th Ave). I walked in and there was activity. People were buying tickets. I put what postcards I had in the postcard wall.

Up the street, I had my first slice of pizza from Bleecker Street Pizza. It was good and solid with a crispy crust. To me, the crust makes the pizza.

I checked out my venue for the first time. It's at the SoHo Playhosue which is at 15 Vandam St right off of 6th St. It says Huron Club outside. I get into the venue on Friday.

On the Street Where You Live

Here's a curious building on the street where I'm staying. It says "Free Public Baths of the City of New York". It's on 11th St near Ave B in the East Village. There's a plaque that says it was used in the filming of "Ragtime", the 1980 Milos Forman film. It looks like it's now an office building as there are ominuous don't block the drive way or you will be towed signs in front.

New York Fringe Festival Diary - Day 1

So arrived at 6:30am at JFK, got on AirTrain at 7:05am. After fiddling with the machines and getting a $5 AirTrain ticket and a $7 LIRR ticket, I barely made it onto the 7:28am Jamaica to Penn Station train. Miraculously, I was at Penn Station in under 20 minutes or so. After lugging my two 50lb bags up the steps and onto the streets, I hailed a cab and $15 bucks later I was on 11th St at A at my sublet where . . . . .

. . . . the housekeeper was not there to get me into the sublet. Phone call. No answer. Left message. Phone call. Left page back number. It's 9:00am and the sun is beating down on me. My cell phone is almost out. Before I left LA, I bought a NFT for New York guide and on the next street was Ciao on 12th where I sat down, bought an orange juice and couple of waters, charged my cell phone, and booted up the laptop. I e-mailed the owner and tried to call the housekeeper again.

The landlord called me back and we tried to figure out how to get me the keys. I got back to the apartment where we found someone who buzzed me in and I dumped my bags at the apartment door and headed back out again.

Got to the 14th & 1st subway station, bought a monthly pass, went back up and took the 14 bus crosstown to check out the Fringe venue when the housekeeper called me. There was an emergency and she was in Jersey. About an hour and a half later, I finally made it inside. It was noon.