I had to come back to the Upper East Side for my doctor’s appointment this afternoon, as well as a follow-up eye appointment from last week. Two times to the Upper East Side in just a week; I hadn’t been there this often since I actually lived in the neighborhood over a year ago. It felt really nice to walk through the streets and pass by all the meticulously decorated brownstones with their ornate Halloween decorations and jack-o-lanterns. It’s one of those little quirky things I miss not living in that neighborhood anymore. Sometimes when you walk through that area of Manhattan, it feels so residential that you can forget for a moment that you live in a concrete jungle. It just feels like a homely suburban neighborhood… just without any front yards or space between the buildings. You do get bits and pieces of Halloween decoration on buildings in the Upper West Side or the East Village, but the Upper East Side has always been known to be decked out at this time of year.

I do miss this neighborhood. A lot of the storefronts have changed, of course. Many restaurants and shops have closed; a lot of areas have many retail vacancies. New high-rises have gone up. Well, I have my doctor and optometrist to keep me coming back here to relive my Upper East Side resident memories.