We noticed a few things this week.
A few theaters, some roasteries, that cute florist you didn’t know existed, and more cozy spots from the cities we live in.
- Pull Up a Chair
A Window Stool Above Singapore's Oldest Estate
Tiong Bahru Bakery's window stools face Singapore's most intact prewar estate — best at 7:30 am on a weekday, when two versions of the same morning overlap.
- Pull Up a Chair
A Reading Room Built for One Man's Private Obsession
The Morgan's East Room — three stories of walnut and gold built for J.P. Morgan in 1906 — is the quietest reading chair in midtown Manhattan.
- The Odd Edit
A Prohibition-Era Speakeasy That Still Requires a Password
At 501 Jones St with no sign and a password on the door, Bourbon & Branch has occupied San Francisco's most seriously run speakeasy since 2006.
- The Odd Edit
A Tesla-Themed Speakeasy Behind a NoMad Coffee Counter
Inside the 1890s NoMad building where Nikola Tesla lived and ran rooftop radio tests, a coffee counter closes at 5pm and a hidden cocktail bar opens behind it.
- The Long Way Home
The Java Beach-to-Lands End Walk, Along the Coast of What Used to Be a Pleasure Railway
A 5km coastal walk from a family-run Outer Sunset café, along Ocean Beach, through the Sutro Baths ruins, and onto a Victorian pleasure-railway bed that is now the Lands End Coastal Trail.
- The Long Way Home
The Joo Chiat-to-East-Coast Walk, in Three Different Decades at Once
A forty-five-minute walk from Joo Chiat Road's 1920s Peranakan shophouses through a 1970s reclamation-era park to the sea — three decades of Singaporean urban planning in one route.
- Pull Up a Chair
The Mezzanine Chair at Sightglass That Looks Down at a 1969 Roaster
Sightglass 7th Street: a mezzanine chair above a 1969 Probat drum roaster in a 1914 SoMa warehouse. Time it right and the roast is the show.
- Nice but Free
The Wave Organ: A Free San Francisco Artwork You Have to Time With the Tides
A free 1986 acoustic sculpture on a SF Marina jetty, powered by tidal water. It only sounds within 60 minutes of high tide — here's how to time the visit.
- Nice but Free
A University Museum That's Always Free and Always Half-Empty
The NUS Museum holds 8,000 objects and over 1,000 Ng Eng Teng sculptures on a Singapore university campus tourists miss. Always free, usually empty.
- The Odd Edit
A Bar Hidden Behind a Password and a Bookcase
Bourbon & Branch: a 2006 San Francisco cocktail bar hiding inside a real 1921 speakeasy. The password isn't theatre — it's the filter.
