Grand Central Station, All Lit Up

I haven't been in or by Grand Central Station enough not to light up when I see it, and that's especially true at night.

Cupcake Wars: Buttercup Bake Shop

I took advantage of my night in Midtown by checking out and checking off yet another on the long list of New York City's cupcakeries.

Buttercup Bake Shop, on 2nd Avenue between 51st and 52nd streets, is the ninth that I've tried that I can think of off hand. I suspect I've sampled more.

My overall impression: Buttercup is a great place for a dependable, no-fuss cupcake. And at $2 apiece, it's a pretty good deal. But I won't be going out of my way to try them again.

The options were pretty standard: vanilla on vanilla, chocolate on chocolate, etc. But one cupcake caught my eye. The Devil Dog had meringue frosting on a chocolate cake. It was tooth-achingly sweet, and that's not a complaint.


My other choice: German chocolate. Nothing special, but perfectly adequate.


The final word: Butter Lane still sells my favorite cupcakes, and Bay Ridge's very own Little Cupcake still has the best cake. But if you find yourself seeking a dessert to take back to your hotel room to eat while watching an Ace of Cakes marathon, Buttercup Bake Shop's will do just fine.

Overnight in Manhattan

Maybe I was looking forward to it more than I should have, but I hadn't stayed overnight in Manhattan since our honeymoon.

But Thursday, for one night only, I had the chance. Paul had a full day of work meetings and meals in the city, and his company was putting him up in midtown's Intercontinental Barclay Hotel for the night. I couldn't let that go to waste.

Paul was planning to be with his out-of-town work friends until the wee hours (a prediction that turned out to be true) so I was on my own for the night. My goal: do as many things as possible in one night that he would've hated.

First stop: Bloomingdale's. I wasn't in the market for anything, but it is a New York landmark (that I also hadn't visited since our honeymoon). Then the big H&M store on Fifth Avenue. Then a shortcut through Rockefeller Center to Times Square, where I climbed the big, red neon steps above the TKTS booth.


As I made my way back to the hotel's neighborhood, I inadvertently walked through the dark-and-dreary diamond district and finally found the cupcake shop I had picked out for dessert. A quick stop for a pumpernickel bagel with strawberry cream cheese and I was off to the hotel.

The room exceeded my expectation. New York hotel rooms have a well-deserved reputations for being expensive and tiny. This room was actually normal sized! And the bed was as big and comfortable as any I'd every slept on-- just as wide as it was long.

The best part? The next morning my commute to work was cut in half to about 25 minutes, and I walked through Grand Central for only the second time in my life. That I could get used to.