Katharine Hepburn lived in a brownstone at 244 East 49th Street from 1931 until the 1990s.  The four-story house is located in Turtle Bay Gardens, two rows of houses on 48th and 49th streets with their gardens arranged as a common space, with a wide stone path down the center and a fountain said to be modeled after one at the Villa Medici in Rome.

Spot the iron turtles built into the railings separating the houses from the sidewalk.

Other famous residents of Turtle Bay Gardens have included composer Stephen Sondheim and famed singer-songwriter Bob Dylan.  E.B. White wrote Charlotte's Web while living here.

Find Turtle Bay Gardens on the summer 2014 edition of our Midtown Concierge Map at grid reference C5

Clive Burrow

945 2nd Avenue at 50th  646-895-9585

Crave Fishbar is a two level restaurant with a bar on each floor, with some outdoor seating at street level and on a terrace above.

This is not a general restaurant review. It's a heads up for oyster freaks with not inexhaustible resources. If you look at Crave's Raw Bar menu http://cravefishbar.com/menu/ you'll see a good selection of East and West Coast bivalves at normal prices: $2.50 - $3.85.  So, you might treat yourself to the odd half dozen.  But here's the thing, Crave's Happy Hour (5.00 - 7.00) has any oyster on the list at a single, salty dollar.

So, we ordered:
6 Black Duck (Hog Island Bay, Virginia)
6 Blue Point (Long Island Sound)
6 Island Creek  (Duxbury, Massachussetts)
6 Nisqually (Henderson Inlet, Washington)

I'm not going to describe them in detail.  Oyster snobs have hard shells.  Those that hate them are seldom converted.  I'll simply say that the West Coast Nisqually are tiny and delicious; the Black Duck are luscious and plump.   People pooh-pooh Blue Point, but if the pleasure you get from eating oysters is the sensation of devouring mother ocean, they do the trick.

We narrowed our sights on the second 24 to 12 Nisqually and 12 Island Creek.

​Dessert?  6 Black Duck

54 oysters, $54.  Our bottle of wine added $35.  Pretty much a blow out feast.

​By the way, they also have a Prosecco special - at $30.