On being underground

This morning I went to Rockefeller Center for my bi-annual dental cleaning. My dentist is located in a building that only seems to have dentist offices in it. An entire office building, with like 35 floors, of only dentists. But besides that, the best thing about going to my dentist (well there are two best things, but I am only mentioning one here...) is that you can walk all the way from the B/D/F/V trains underground, right into the office building, through the underground shopping mall at Rockefeller Center.

For people who live in Tokyo, yes, this is really nothing special, I know. Because in Tokyo, entire city blocks are joined by the subway's underground system of walkways and shops, and all sorts of other nice things. In New York, sadly, this is so rarely the case. In fact, other than the malls underneath the World Trade Center buildings (and this one obviously no longer exists), Penn Station, Port Authority and Grand Central Station, I cannot really think of any other regular station stops, where this happens so nicely.

One the way to my dental appointment, I had the opportunity to get my clogs shined at Eddie's Shoe Repair; have a sandwich at Pret á Manager or soup at Hale & Hearty; have an ice cream at Ben & Jerry's; go ice skating; buy flower pots at Dahlia; or browse through books at the bookstore. Of course, I did none of those things. But I could have. And that is cool.

And by the way, I have no cavities.