Housing Works … and so does this coffee shop

With apologies to those who are about to hear the sounds of music, these are a few of my favorite things:

a) drinking coffee
b) sitting around in air conditioning
c) looking at used books
and
d) helping people – so long as it doesn’t inconvenience me to do so

Correspondingly, then, Housing Works Bookstore Café has been one of my favorite places in the city since I stumbled upon it several years ago.

I feel like Mother Teresa – but taller … and with prettier feet – just for showing up. The catchy slogan almost says it all: “Fighting AIDS, one book at a time.”

NOTE: I said, almost, because condoms also help. Get yours today.

Housing Works, at 126 Crosby Street*, is run by volunteers and all the money, including the tips you leave, goes toward working with homeless AIDS patients.

Buy a $1.50 cup of coffee. Help an AIDS patient. Leave the change. Help an AIDS patient. Buy a used book. Help an AIDS patient. Get yourself a cookie. Help an AIDS patient.

They also sell wine and Pabst, so. ... Catch a buzz. Help an AIDS patient.

Word to the Mother. “Beatify that, Bitch.”

*Housing Works is at 126 Crosby Street. Get to Houston Street between Lafayette and Broadway. Find Crosby Street (Easy because it is the only street between Lafayette and Broadway. Head downtown about three storefronts and you are there.

Breakfast at Papaya Dog

In a city where a diner breakfast can set you back $6, Papaya Dog on 14th Street and 1st Avenue is a welcome find. If you get there while the banner is still flying on the storefront, you can avail yourself of one of the specials – either two eggs on a roll, or … and this was my find of the day … two eggs, a mound of potatoes and two pieces of toast (white or wheat, because Papaya Dog cares about your health) – for 99 cents.

Take the L to First Avenue, stick your head above ground and look around. It’s right on the corner. Service ain’t much, and the decor is, to be polite, sticky. But the eggs are cooked in your face and in something I really look for in a cheap breakfast, I didn’t puke once in the three hours after I ate.

Because I have an unlimited subway card, scooting to First Avenue for breakfast before starting my wandering is reasonable. In fact, I just turned downtown and went on walkabout in the East Village with calories to burn.

Hanna leaves me a present

My first Saturday night in the city in a very long time was cut short by a raging tropical washout called Hanna. Some people have all the luck and I wasn’t feeling like those people, but when I woke up Sunday morning early, it was like a grateful Hanna had left me a couple hundred bucks on my nightstand for my efforts the night before. (“Thanks, sailor. You be sure to remember me the next time you’re in port.”)

The sun was out. The smell was beaten back. The air was bright and cool.

It was a wandering kind of morning in my church. I decided to attend services in the East Village because it was, frankly, the closest pew and I had the itch, bad. … Real bad. (“Thanks again, sailor.”)

I could go on here about the feeling you get when you are in a place as it wakes up. I could continue the tawdry sex analogy about snuggling with a lover before the pressing needs of the day drive a wedge between you. I could …

But I won’t.

Instead, I’ll give you this snapshot.

I was walking on East 4th Street into the sun. As I passed a woman fussing with an infant in a stroller, she looked up at me and said in a thick Germanic accent, “Such beautiful a day. So many people missing it.”

I raised my hand to the crystal sky. “Amen, Sister, amen.”

I’ll be passing the collection plate now. Give what the Lord compels you to give.