Planet of the Grapes

14th Street, Union Square While it may be seen as trendy, if natural foods chains like this keep popping up and help the American diet move beyond soda and potato chips for dinner, then we’d say that’s a good thing. Strategically located at the crossroads that is Union Square, this Whole Foods is a huge [...]

1000 Third Avenue & 59th Street Large department stores love to utilize their basements, and the Bloomingdales “Lower Level” is no exception. In these subterranean shopping levels one usually finds clothing items for lepers, the insane, and men. Sometimes there’s even a cafe. The restroom here boasts the same type of door found on the [...]

1000 Third Avenue & 59th Street “Let’s go to Bloomy’s” has been said on the Upper East Side of Manhattan more than “let’s help someone less fortunate than us” by a ratio of 250:1. It’s an obvious destination when both looking for hats to wear to the U.S. Open or when having to take care [...]

1215 Lexington Ave and 82nd Street Somehow, some way, a lot of men named Ray go into the pizza business in New York City. Or at least that’s what they want you to think. Not to get involved in ancient pizza feuds, we’ll just say there was an original followed by many impostors using the [...]

33 East 17th Street And here we find ourselves at another Barnes and Noble, at what can be called one of the centers of Manhattan (or the furthest uptown that hipsters will venture), Union Square. There are facilities on both the second and third floors, although they are so similar that two separate reviews are [...]

14th Street and 4th Avenue Circuit City offers a plethora of electronic gadgets, computers, televisions, electric-heated diapers, and digital portraits of 17th Century Chinese Dynasts. But Circuit City is not just another electronics chain. It understands the needs of today’s power-consumers and shopaholics. If you search hard, you can find the home theater section where [...]

59th Street and 3rd Avenue Being that Home Depot has become the mecca for people who like to build their own homes with their bare hands, we were expecting to find a glorified port-a-potty when we went searching for the restroom in their midtown Manhattan location. Instead, we found the bathroom equivalent of a surreal [...]

83rd Street and Fifth Avenue There are two types of modern bathrooms. One is the ideal modern bathroom equipped with tinted glass stalls, ergonomic toilets that clean your privates and designer sinks and lights. Then there is the bathroom that prevails in the modern age: peeling walls, graffiti, broken toilets, and that familiar aroma from [...]

34th Street and 7th Avenue Those of you who are familiar with the relatively new mythology of “McDonaldland” will recognize the large oafish being we know as Grimace. Grimace is purple (he is, despite rumors to the contrary, a plum. Listen to POTG Radio). The floor tiling in this bathroom is purple. Coincidence? Perhaps not, [...]

Parts unknown Let us begin with a preface: this is a private residential restroom (thus, exclusively referred to as a bathroom), and is evaluated against a different set of criteria. Keep in mind a rating of 10 would include things like showers you could walk around in and that provide multiple shower heads and steamers, [...]