Density = accessibility

In transportation research, mobility and accessibility have very specific definitions. Mobility is about getting somewhere. Accessibility is having things to do in places.

In Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs was writing about accessibility, about density allowing and supporting a great variety of offerings. In the U.S., no city has more accessibility than New York City.

1. This is from yesterday's NYT Metropolitan Diary column:

During a recent visit to my friend Jen, a native New Yorker, from my home in Maine, we decided to walk from her apartment in the East 90s to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. As we walked down Museum Row, I commented on the spectacular view one would have of Central Park from the apartment buildings overlooking the street. “Yeah, the view is nice,” she said, “but you have to walk at least three blocks to find a good deli.” -- Jill Dube

3 blocks for a good deli! In DC, it's miles and miles, and I've never been to Wagshal's given its location...

2. The Sunday New York Times Travel section a couple weeks ago had a story, "ICE CREAM; Small Detours for Sweet Rewards" about super great ice cream options. From the article:

Be strong: New York has not opened the greatest museums and attracted the best theater and built the highest skyscrapers just to be outdone on its frozen dairy offerings. If you're willing to go a few steps out of your way, you'll find what you're looking for — much of it native, some with origins in Los Angeles or France or Italy.

Say you're leaving the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where vendors ply red-white-and-blue-missile-style Popsicles at the bottom of the steps. Upper Fifth Avenue might be barren of stores, but one street over, on Madison, you have three great choices.

E.A.T., an upscale deli that is part of the Zabar family, dishes out a tart lime sorbet, tiramisù-flavor ice cream dished out with a chunk of ladyfinger, and other flavors ($4 a scoop, $7 for two).
If you like your ice cream flavors intense, walk two more blocks to La Maison du Chocolat, the French chocolaterie that doubles as a glacerie in the summer ($4 a scoop, with no discount for gluttons). The sorbets and ice creams are as rich as the chocolate: you might think the shop had jammed a whole mango tree into the mango, concentrated a whole strawberry patch into the strawberry, and a squeezed an entire caramel vine (or whatever) into the caramel.

The choice for the budget-conscious is Sant Ambroeus, an Italian cafe another block down where it's $3 for a scoop, $4 for two. The catch: flavors are labeled in Italian, meaning if you're not sure whether “pesca” is fish or peach, you're going to have to ask. (Seafood sorbet lovers, sorry to disappoint: it's the latter.)

Another example of the value of density. Most of the extant decent (not necessarily great) independent places here are lightly spread out across the region. And chains like Rita's, Maggie Moo, and Carvel are on the rise.

The Express did a story on ice cream last week, and didn't even mention Thomas Sweet, the venerable independent ice cream parlor in Georgetown.