Blaine in New York

Hey guys.

Briggs and I had a good response when we asked for suggestions when we were in Chicago.

I've just gotten back from Detroit and most recently New Orleans/Baton Rouge (this week). I'm at Pittsburgh International Airport right this moment.

I'll be staying right in Manhattan. So if anyone has any suggestions for the usual:

Arcades, Import Shops, Areas of interest please feel free to contribute.

I haven't been to New York in about 5 years so...if it's new, I'm probably not aware of it.

Thanks!

-Side Note;

It just might be me and Briggs who do a lot of traveling but... it'd be a good idea if we had some sorta 'regional' or city centric database going on. Lists of arcades, shops, where to find a good game of Neo, etc.

I know I could cover Pittsburgh, we have tons of people in the D-FW area, Chi guys can do thier town...y'know, a nice little list of places those of our ilk would like to frequent.

In the meanwhile, I'm gonna go play Half Life.

Nice to see you again blaine.
you will find the best gamestore and arcade within one block of each other.
You can find J&L games at the corner of canal and elizabeth street in china town. China town fair (great arcade consisting of mostly capcom and neo titles) is a block or to over. When in J&L ask Lesli (the owner) or any of his staff for the exact diractions to CTF.

BTW, why are you in NY?, business?
how long are you staying?
Happy Easter man.


- Mitch

Nice to see you too.

Yeah, I'm in town on business. I'll be in until at least Wednesday, I might stay an additional day and head back Thursday night. No later than that, probably.

Thanks for the advice, I was probably gonna make my way over to Chinatown no matter what, but all I know (remember) were a few import shops, definately no arcades.

Much abliged.

Anyone else have some input?

Blaine said:

Nice to see you too.

Yeah, I'm in town on business. I'll be in until at least Wednesday, I might stay an additional day and head back Thursday night. No later than that, probably.

Thanks for the advice, I was probably gonna make my way over to Chinatown no matter what, but all I know (remember) were a few import shops, definately no arcades.

Much abliged.

Anyone else have some input?

Click to expand...

Yo Blaine!

Games & James
7th ave between 40 & 41st....

I'll be up in NYC July then again in September.

Pittsburgh!

Pittsburgh!! I was under the impression that there were no other members from around here. Where in the city you at?

The game&james on 7th ave has closed down. They have a new shop on broadway off of astor pl. on the 2nd floor.

Another good game store is EVO(used to be called Penguin Village), it's small but cool, and prices are a lot more fair than in J&L. J&L does have a much bigger selection. EVO is located across the street from J&L in the Elizabeth street mall, 13-17 Elizabeth Street, basement level.

A good arcade, Chinatown Fair, it's south/downtown off of Canal on Mott Street. China Town Fair 8 Mott Street NY, NY 10013.

Also Kong Man. To get to Kong Man(where KoF2K3 is at), when your on Canal Street walking eastbound you'll see Mott Street(where Chinatown Fair is at), then Elizabeth Street(where Elizabeth street mall is at), the cross street after that you make a left(I think it's Bowery, not 100%, but almost sure) walk 1 or 2 blocks(you'll be walking north/uptown), then across the street(same side of the street that the entrance to the bridge is at)you'll see a white awning that says Kong Man. Walk in and it's like a store w/ electronics, Cd's magazines, etc., walk all the way back you'll see 2 inital D arcade machines, on your left you'll see white door, open it and there you'll see the Neo arcade machines. Kof2K3 is pinched in the left corner.

Almost forgot: another game store i remeber visiting is Multimedia 1.0
Its and independant import store. i believe it is in sait marks place. Owner (Jesse LaBrocca, who owns and runs "Foul" magazine as well) seems to be a bit of a dickwad though.

Is Game Express still open, guys? Was located across from MSG, IIRC...?

I'm at the Blimpie/Wok And Roll/Cybercafe mini mall at the corner of 44th and 8th drinkin 2 bottles of water. If anyones interested...I'll have my AIM for a while while I do shit. I'm paying the $8 for unlimted access today so...I figure I take advantage.

AIM is NotBlaine-

I'm gonna print this page (pdf it) and try to hit all of those stores. Thanks guys:

Tonk: What's up, yo? Y'know, I can't watch Pimp My Ride on MTV without thinking about you (particualry for when we were discussing getting my car cleaned up...Tonk with the best line evar- "N*ggas love interiors".)

I don't know when I'll be back in town, I'm on a once every 5 year trip though. We'll see, maybe I'll get luck.


Lashujin: South Park, right outside Bethel Park, off 51. In my tenure here I've seen about...oh...4 or 5 guys from Pittsburgh. The Famous Evil Wasabi was at CMU for a while. Where are you at?

And thanks again to everyone for the suggestions. I'm fucking hitting Yoshinoya HAAAARD tonight. Maybe twice.

I'm predicting me being online for the next couple hours so...drop a kid a line if you're interested.

Just to wrap it up here's how things went down:

I stayed an extra day just to hit Chinatown, but I needed to check out at noon (or carry 40lbs of bags around with me), so I got up early and hit the subway.

I was...oh..80% successful. I thought the 1,2.3 and 9 would hit Canal Street (coming from Times Square) but the 3 train didn't stop, I got off, saw a 1 train on the outside track (I recalled something about the 1 hitting all stops) and it worked.

So...not bad, first time on the tubes in 5 years.

I failed miserably after that. I started walking down canal street. I expected to see the avenues tick by since I thought I was walking cross town. I wasn't. So I made some turns got back to where I started and asked someone which way was Chinatown (since I was disorientated at that point) He said Canal street is that-a-way and I followed his finger.

Next thing I know, I'm at the Hudson River. Even I, a neophyte to the area, can tell you that meant I went the wrong way.

So debating whether to just go back to the hotel to avoid missing my check out (at this point, I had even less than no idea how far away elizabeth street was. 6 blocks? 30 blocks?) I stopped back at the subway station to look at the map and see roughly how far it was. I decided to break it up into increments. That my distance from the redline to the yellow line trains was about 1/3rd my distance to Elizabeth. If it took me more than 10 minutes to get to the next station, it'd mean it's an hour round trip.

All that was academic, it was about a 20 minute walk and everything was closed.

I found J&L but it was ten to nine when I got there and they don't open till 10:30. I didn't remember where Chinatown Faire was at all (I planned to asked those at J&L). I furthermore planned to check my laptop for other locations to hit once I was at Chinatown Faire.

So I walked back a defeated man. At least I tried.

Boring story, I know, but I felt the need to wrap it up.

Thanks to everyone who gave me some advice, hopefully I'll have a chance to try it out sometime soon.

Hey Blaine, sorry to hear about the unsuccessful attempt. Next time your in NYC you want to get off on the Canal Street subway station thats on the East side(subway 6, N, R, W, Q). The East side Canal station will leave you much closer to everything you'll want to see, right in the heart of ChinaTown.