Wandering New York: Cookbooks on Greenwich

Sometimes it pays to stray off the beaten path, and luckily, aimlessly wandering around the city is one of my favorite things to do. One of my discoveries a few years ago was this beautiful pair of buildings on Greenwich Street in lower SoHo--one of which just happens to house Joanne Hendrick's wonderful cookbook store (I picked up a vintage, autographed copy of James Beard's The Fireside Cookbook on that first visit).

I passed by again the other day, and remembered how refreshing these cute little houses are. The cookbook shop's building, at 488 Greenwich, dates to 1823, and was originally near Lispenard's Meadows (famous, to me anyway, for the 1799 "Manhattan Well Murder" of Gulielma Sands). Happily, it's now landmarked, so it will remain preserved as a reminder of that neighborhood's residential past--and its future.