Really great coffee and bread. 

Cafe Mogador has been serving modern takes on traditional Moroccan dishes for breakfast, brunch, lunch, and dinner in the East Village since 1983.

Intimate east village record shop with an excellently curated selection of second hand and new vinyl.

The New York Earth Room is an interior sculpture by the artist Walter de Maria that has been installed in a loft at 141 Wooster Street since 1977. Go see!

The jetties along Rockaway Beach are one of my regular destinations when I can get out there. I grew up in a Coast Guard family and spent a fair amount of time around the ocean and surfing. I still like to get in the water and this is the first Atlantic-exposed beach on Long Island as you start to get out of the city. When it comes to the environment, constructions like these can be contentious things but they also make for a series of interesting surf spots. Its got a lot of New York metro qualities you might expect including the Subway making its stops a couple of blocks back from the water.