22nd Apr – Travel to New York
Having spent the previous day visiting family friend Karen,
in Mechanicsburg and going to the cemetery to pay our respects to Karen’s mum "Jean", and playing with two of Karen’s granddaughters, we set off along I-78, toward the “Big Apple”.
Somehow the iPads GPS came up with a different route into and through NYC than we had initially planned.
It took us through Holland Tunnel and all around the edge of Lower Manhattan on Route 9A. This route cost us over $16 in tolls. At least the iPad worked underground and we still had a map to read.
We drove over Queensboro Bridge and the final 2.5 miles took
forever – soooo much traffic. At the car
rental drop-off point, in Queens, we loaded up a Yellow Cab with all our baggage;
5 suitcases, 3 back packs + fishing rods – we were packed in like sardines! 
Our Romanian taxi driver was very chatty as he took us back
over to Manhattan and through Central Park to our hotel on 79th
Street, near the Natural History Museum.
After we had settled into our room we took a stroll through a section of
Central Park as it was only a block away.
With a chilly wind and drizzle it was not the best of evenings. We walked around the Jacqueline Onassis
Reservoir passing people walking dogs or jogging or cycling – certainly a
well-used park for exercising.
After our stroll we had a nice meal in a nearby Italian
Restaurant and then back to our hotel.
At around midnight we woke up absolutely boiling; the heating system
seemed to have gone into over-drive. The
pipes clanked, gurgled, clunked and hissed.
We opened the window and traffic noise led to a disturbed night.
23rd Apr – New York City
After hotel maintenance assured us the heating system
would be turned off tonight we set off to explore the city. We walked down through the southern half of
Central Park. The Park is 2.5 miles long and half a mile wide and covers 843
acres. It was a lovely sunny day but the chilly wind meant it stayed below 10C
all day – such a change from 28C in NC.
We visited Strawberry Fields – dedicated in 1985 to John
Lennon. From there we could see the
Dakota building where he used to live and someone was playing a guitar singing
a Beatles song.
There were a variety of statues around the Park – Robbie
Burns and Sir Walter Scott were two. We
wandered around the ponds and lakes bordered by flowering trees. After the fountain at Bethesda Terrace we
walked under the Mall with its painted ceiling.
As we walked down the Mall path a shout goes up and Alison
turned to see a woman running towards Paul with arms open wide and embracing in
a bear-hug. Who would believe we would
meet a friend from UK in the middle of Central Park! Sarah from the Wessex H3 was on holiday here
for a week.
Hugs all round and then we carried on in search of some
breakfast. We considered a hot dog from one of the many vendors in the park
with their mobile food trollies. It can
cost as much as $280,000 for a licence to sell food from these mobile trollies
in Central Park. However it was too cold
to eat Al Fresco so we found a café.
We continued heading south towards Grand Central
Terminal. This huge building was more
than a train station. The ceiling was
painted with signs of the zodiac. There
were tables displaying working examples of various IT gadgets. We went down stairs to the Oyster Bar and
then back up to the Food Hall where they were selling fresh produce. However we never did understand a word
announced on the tannoy system.
We wandered the streets and explored until the time came to
join the queue for the Rockefeller Tower.
Fortunately we had pre-booked as the next available time would have been
nearly 3 hours later. An elevator with a
glass ceiling took us 70 floors up to The Top of The Rock where we enjoyed
fantastic views of all the landmarks of NYC.
We got to Time Square around 4pm. People were milling everywhere surrounded by enormous bill-boards advertising shows, and some costumed-characters posing for photos with tourists.
At the end of the day we walked back through Central Park to our hotel.
24th Apr – NYC
We travelled south, by subway, to the World Trade
Centre and Ground Zero 9/11 museum. Most of the museum is below ground and was darkly lit. It began with the history of the building of
the Twin Towers and then continued with a time-line covering the events of 11
Sep 01 with personal narratives from survivors.
There were some films and also a section on the bombers and the global
significance of the event. It was a very
respectful memorial to the 2997 people who lost their lives on 11Sept 2001 as
well as the attack on 26 Feb 93.
Afterwards we walked through the Commons Historic District,
watched street performers and then walked halfway over Brooklyn Bridge with the traffic below us. There were numerous padlocks attached to the bridge with dates and peoples initials.
We visited Foley Square; saw the very grand buildings of
NYPD HQ and Justice of the Peace. We headed
into China Town and browsed through
Columbus Park where we watched elderly Chinese men playing board games in the
sunshine and heard some Chinese music performed. The food shops were fascinating and
reasonably priced fresh fish compared to the Grand Central Station food hall
yesterday.
We carried on to Washington Square Park in the neighbourhood
of Greenwich Village. Initially it was
used as a military parade ground in the early 19th century and is
now a park with a fountain and bordered by a row of Greek Revival style houses
on the north side.
We then caught the subway up to Times Square and walked west
along 43rd Streettowards the harbour, stopping off for a meal of some New York Style steaks.
We then
boarded a boat for our Night Lights Harbour cruise. This took us on the Hudson River around Lower
Manhattan. The river used to be very
polluted but efforts to clean it up over the years have been 100%
successful. We saw many of the NYC landmarks
including the Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building and the Chrysler
Building all flood-lit. It was a lovely
finish to the day and we returned to our hotel via a yellow cab. We then set about packing for tomorrows departure.
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