ArtChaser

Last week, Hubz and I spent a few days in New York City to celebrate our combined birthdays, mine being last month in April, the focus was mostly on his, falling only a few days before our trip. I've spent a lot of time in Manhattan over the years, going 4+ times annually. This was prior to the towers falling and only once soon after. Although it only seems like not so long ago, a lot has changed in 17 years, not all bad. For instance, the city is much cleaner and no one smokes anymore. There was a time that it was practically impossible to walk the streets without encountering at least one cloud of second hand smoke.  Gone are the cute little shops where you could find that one thing you'd see no where else, replaced by empty store fronts or corporate stores housing fast fashions available anywhere. In all fairness we didn't go to the Garment District but these boutiques used to be sprinkled all over the city, one of the reason we walked everywhere to dip into one inte...