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
The Reading Room at the Morgan Library That Has Been the Same Since 1906
The Morgan Library East Room hasn’t changed since 1906. Free Tuesdays and Sundays 3–5pm — no reservation needed. The central ottoman is almost always yours.
- Pull Up a Chair
The Window Stool at Tiong Bahru Bakery That Faces an Entire Neighbourhood Waking Up
The far-left stool at Tiong Bahru Bakery’s Eng Hoon shophouse faces the neighbourhood waking up. Free on weekdays 8–9:30 — the place at its most honest.
- 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.
- Pull Up a Chair
The Window Stool Facing Tiong Bahru's Art Deco Flats
Tiong Bahru Bakery's Eng Hoon flagship has a window stool facing a 1936–1941 Streamline Moderne housing block. Go before 9:30am and the neighbourhood is still residential.
- 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.
- Pull Up a Chair
Brooklyn Bridge Park, Before the Lights Come On
The single best hour in a New York day is the one when Lower Manhattan's lights click on. Three specific benches in Brooklyn Bridge Park for watching it happen.
- Pull Up a Chair
Saturday at OOO Koffee, with Nothing to Do
A Tokyo-born coffee bar on Newman Street with eleven seats, an iced cappuccino, and the cleanest stage in Fitzrovia for doing nothing in public.
