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Molly Ringwald knows her big cities. The movie star, mother of three and author — her first collection of short stories, “When It Happens to You,” will be in bookstores next month — has lived in Paris for almost a decade, and Los Angeles for many years, too. But neither compares to the Big Apple.
“It’s my favorite city on Earth. [It’s] one of those love affairs that never wore out its welcome,” says Ringwald, 44, who has an apartment in the East Village, where she’s lived off and on since filming “The Pick-up Artist” in Manhattan in the ’80s. “I lived in fear of Alphabet City. I thought someone would jump out and stab me. Now, when I’m here, it’s where I take my children to play.” This is her New York.
1. Castor & Pollux, 238 W. 10th St., between Bleecker and Hudson streets
“This is one of my new New York places. It’s small, but every piece is perfectly selected. I turned to the ladies here when I attended the Cindy Sherman opening [at MoMA] recently. I picked up a pair of Rachel Comey gloves to go with my ACNE dress. I knew that I had gotten it right when [fashion photographer] Bill Cunningham swooped in and photographed my fingers pointing to one of Cindy’s photographs.”
2. Housing Works, 126 Crosby St., between Prince and Houston streets
“I like to go and sit in the café here and have a cappuccino and read. Every book is donated. You can spend hours browsing through the books, or keep tabs on events that take place there. I just went to a friend’s wedding there. All the tables were named after different authors.”
3. Balthazar, 80 Spring St., between Broadway and Crosby Street
“Critics have said that Keith McNally’s restaurants can seem like film sets. I say, ‘Put me in that movie!’ His restaurant feng shui is the best. It just feels good there. I have so much respect for his design aesthetic that when I redid my kitchen in my current apartment, I got the name and number of Keith’s tile person. I gravitate towards Balthazar when I’m craving a good croissant in the morning or a crisp Sancerre at dusk. If it’s winter, I go for the onion soup. If it’s Friday, I have the special, bouillabaisse.”
4. Washington Square Park, Fifth Avenue, between University Place and MacDougal Street
“The first time I ever came to New York, for a movie role [1982’s ‘Tempest’, co-starring Susan Sarandon and Gena Rowlands] when I was 13, I stayed not too far from this park. The director lived at One Fifth Avenue, and there was a fantastic view from his apartment, so that park’s had a romance for me ever since.”
5. Barbara Shaum, 60 E. Fourth St., near the Bowery
“Barbara’s been handmaking sandals since the ’50s. She cuts them to your foot, and she won’t allow anyone else to work on them. I have incredibly wide feet. Usually sandals never fit me properly, but hers do. The pair she made for me over 10 years ago is still perfect. They’re not wildly expensive [$300-$600]. They last forever.”
6. Shabu-Tatsu, 216 East 10th St., between First and Second avenues
“It’s a small place, and it doesn’t take reservations, but the wait is worth it. I always order the same thing. It’s really thin slices of beef that you put in hot water, with watercress, scallions and cabbage . . . they bring you two different types of noodles, and you make a noodle soup out of it. My husband and I love it. It’s our place.”
7. The Village Vanguard, 178 Seventh Ave. South, between Eleventh and Perry streets
“Sometime in the ’80s, it seemed that nearly every jazz club in the city shuttered its doors. Happily, the Vanguard is still alive and swinging. It was right around the corner from me when I moved to the West Village, and it was such a great feeling to walk past and hear the music from the street. It should be declared a treasure, and made sure it stays open forever.”
8. Parlor, 102 Avenue B, between Seventh and Eighth streets
“I discovered this salon when I moved back to the East Village in my late 20s — and never so much as glanced uptown again. The owner, Gwenn LeMoine (left), doesn’t have the ego that other hairdressers have. And she’s saved me from a lot of disasters: I used to experiment quite a lot with drugstore colors. And she’s also got me to stop trimming my hair with nail scissors.”