New York Day Four Tuesday 4/11/14
We breakfasted and then caught the bus in to Manhattan. Today was quite warm and sunny by the time we got into town and found the bus ticket place I had to remove my coat as it was getting pretty hot. We got our tickets to the open top bus that were an addon to our ny pass thing that got us into a load of attractions for one price over 5 days. The bus thing turned out to be a bit more limited than we realized it only covered 3 days and only the most infrequent (once per 45 minutes bus) there was also no time table to know when a bus might be coming.
We exited the ticket place and walked down to the bus stop just in time to see the bus leaving. This proved to be a theme for the day. Given it was another 45 minutes till the next one we decided to walk down to central park visit the museum of New York City and get the bus back instead going on a boat tour in the afternoon.
It was a lovely day and hot sunny clear and nice. Walking through the park was great the trees were in all in autumnal colors birds and squirrels were out and begging for scraps (we also saw a rat when we stopped for coffee at the baseball square cafe). We saw one bird that looked like some sort of bird of prey with gray wings and reddish tail but it was all hunched up in a tree so we couldn't see much more of it.
We walked down past the fountain and the boating pond saw areas familiar from films and games and other media with views of the skyscrapers beyond.
When we got down to the rambles the city just sort of faded out there was just trees and grass if it weren't for the sounds of a city you could have been deep in the woods somewhere. After that we came across a statue of King Jagiello grand duke of Lithuania who united Poland and Lithuania by marrying the Queen of Poland. It was there as a gift from Poland for the help in ww2 it was next to the turtle pond and apparently that area hosts a folk dancing gathering under King Jagiello's watchful eye.
We wandered past the great lawn and encountered the far end of The Metropolitan museum. It was about lunch time and our plan for the day was starting to look less feasible we decided to go into the met for lunch. We had a quick glance at the massive museum that is the met as we tried to find the cafeteria in its labyrinthine halls. We had sandwiches, fruit, and home made iced tea and coffee which a nice lady at the till suggested over a commercial alternative as it gave us free crisps.
Once we were refueled we realised the plan to go to the museum of the city of new york was now looking doubtful if we wanted to go to the boat tour which was at 4pm we had underestimated how long it took to walk down central park which is massive. We decided to take the tour bus back and then be ready for the boat tour. We went out and saw the bus driving off, so we had a wander down to the reservoir area of central park and saw the Guggenheim while we waited for the next one. We headed down early for the next bus and found that it was already arriving. Some running and banging on the window allowed us to board in the nick of time.
It was quite pleasant to drive through the city with an audio tour pointing out the sights when you are walking in New York you have to keep your wits about you due to traffic and other pedestrians it’s an unforgiving city environment like London or any big city. So just sitting back relaxing in the nice weather while we slowly cruised back up the island was fun. We passed the central park zoo the Arsenal that predates the park and once stored guns and ammo for New York’s National guard.
We saw the pierre hotel where they filmed the tango scene in scent of a woman and various people stayed. We saw a couple of other hotels including the official hotel of saturday night live where George Carlin lived. Then we swung up into the main city down towards time square then across to 8th avenue where we got off.
We headed down to the water front and then a few streets along till we found the boat cruise company. We were a bit early but not too bad so we had some tea to pass the time. The boat arrived and after the compulsory green screen picture we borded.
The boat went down the hudson river stopping at the finacial district swinging around the tip of Manhattan and then up the East river under the Brooklyn and then Manhattan bridges then back down the east river docking at pier 11 near wall street out to the statue of liberty and then back up the Hudson back to where it came from.
We had good timing as it was daylight for the first loop of the trip down to the tip of manhattan with the sun starting to set just behind the statue of liberty as we headed up the east river with the lights coming on as we headed up going to full dark by the time we loop back around for the stop at wall street. It was night when we sailed out to the Statue of Liberty which is nicely illuminated and of course all the buildings were lit up for the final stretch back to it’s dock.
We got some wonderful views not sure how many good photos low light plus wave riding boat is not a setup conclusive to good sharp image photography. I think I got a few shots with some higher iso compromises but still it was wonderful to see and the timing meant it wasn’t too crowded.
We got off the boat and were told there was a free shuttle to 42nd street in the end it actually went to Times Square but close enough. Times Square was all lit up and blazing bright in the night it was quite spectacular to see.
After that we walked back to the bus terminal caught the bus back to New Jersey and grabbed some Chinese food for dinner which was pretty good and came in these little paper packages made to look like picnic baskets complete with metal handles. We went back home ate and then did some photo organizing before bed.
New York Day Three Monday 3/11/14
I got up had some toast and coffee then got dressed while mum and dad went down to Hoboken to do some shopping. When they got back we headed out to see the statue of liberty.
We took the bus over to the port authority and then walked down to the nearest 1 metro line. Once we’d figured out the ticketing system we headed down to the platform we missed the first train as there was some confusion due to there being two trains in the station but one being an express to brooklyn and the other being the slow train to the south ferry we wanted. We had to wait for the next one and while waiting were accosted by a woman asking us where in England we were from and who then told us someone in Kingston upon Thames had sold their house and therefore made her homeless which I didn’t understand. She went upon her way and we caught the next train to south ferry.
It was a bit odd being on the Metro as it’s very like the tube and yet not the movement and waiting is familiar but there are all sorts of odd differences. In south ferry only the first five cars lined up with the platform (something it might have been helpful to know before getting on as it’s not easy to work out what car you’re in from the inside) also the platform had extending sections that closed the gap to the train once it arrived.
We headed out and then joined a queue to get our tickets this was just the first of many queues today. Next we queued to be processed by security while being attacked by bad flute music bad steel drum music at the same time. Once through security it was straight on to the ferry to liberty island. We got a great view coming in though the ferry was packed. I got several excellent photos of the back of a balding man’s head with an out of focus Statue of Liberty in the background.
Once we arrived at the island we had to queue to get off the ferry we were a bit hungry so we queued for a fairly bad sandwich a half decent cup of coffee and a tasteless brownie for a ridiculously inflated price. Suitably fortified we wandered around lady liberty and took some pictures of her and Manhattan. We could see the new world trade center really well from there and apparently this was the day it opened which might explain the large contingent of heavily armed soldiers festooned about the port authority bus terminal.
It was a lovely bright day with gorgeous sunshine which made the contrast between the statue and sky either too great so you got silhouettes or not enough so it was completely washed out. You can theoretically visit the pedestal and the crown but both are booked up months in advance when I checked when we were still booking they were booked solid into next year. So we just wandered the grounds and took pictures.
After that we queued to get on a boat to head to Ellis island where the people were processed for immigration. Once we’d queued again to get off the ferry we were out front of the building that once processed the new immigrants. It was the LAX of it’s day with lots of paperwork potential to lose your baggage and grim humorless immigration officials. There was a lot of pro America propaganda disguised as museum exhibits and I was not really feeling up to wading through it so I spent some time sitting in the baggage hall resting my feet.
We had a wander around the building took some photos and then caught the ferry back (after another queue of course) we queued for the final time to get off and headed down to the metro station to get the metro back to the port authority (via an underground tunnel that basically stretched all the way under the streets from the PATB to 42nd street and times square where that line of the metro picked up). We jumped on the bus which was just there ready to go and headed home for a cup of tea and a rest.
For dinner we walked down into Hoboken which is down a very long hill. The area all around the little house we are staying in is in the process of having a lot of the buildings being striped gutted and then either knocked down and flats thrown up in place or redone as flats. Especially along this route we took which goes along a cliff which looks out across the Hudson into Manhattan offering spectacular views of the city. We reached Hoboken and had a look at the various restaurants settling on this middle eastern place called Alibaba’s we were a bit early about 6ish and almost all the places we had seen were empty this place seemed a little surprised we wanted to eat in though they had a full room of tables.
I had the Sahara chicken with a Greek salad to start. The salad was nice with good fresh veggies and quite a lot of dressing. The chicken was pretty good it was done thin and grilled with lots of middle eastern spices as well as lots of grilled veg with a large serving of yellow rice. It was delicious and I enjoyed it after a hard days queuing.
For dessert I had baklava which was flaky honey good. We also had a cup of coffee which also seemed to throw the lady serving us. Maybe new yorkers don’t have coffee after a meal.
Anyway it was a good meal. We had a walk down to the front after for a look at the night cityscape. The whole front which I suppose at one time was docks and industry is now being redeveloped with a neat front where people jog and walk their dogs and swanky apartments where they can live with a wonderful view of Manhattan yet still able to just jump on the ferry and be downtown for work. It’s clear that whole area of New Jersey is in the process of becoming expensive modern places to live for the wealthy.
I took some photos of the night scene of Manhattan lit up like a christmas tree. It’s an incredible sight you can see from one end to the other of the island and it’s all glowing in the night. It’s just like in the movies and incredible to see.
Once we were done we walked up the front and then headed back up the hill to our little house and turned in for the night.
New York Day Two Sunday 2/11/14
We had breakfast got sorted out and then headed off. It was a quite a cold day with a biting wind. It got pretty bright and sunny as the day went on with clear sky but the wind stayed high and it got pretty cold.
We started off getting the bus in then headed over to the USS Intrepid a carrier that’s been turned into a museum. Very similar to the USS Midway I saw in San Diego but a bit older. They also had a few other things a little submarine called the Growler and Concord.
Inside the Intrepid is much more museumised than the Midway was it’s closed up a lot behind glass and very little of the ship itself on display. The main hanger deck has a couple of planes and helicopters in it but is much altered than the near to original look of the Midway. We grabbed a cup of coffee and a pastry first as we were hungry (we managed to walk quite a few extra streets over having mistaken where the intrepid was).
After that we set off and saw the below decks things which showed part of the mess and some of the bunks. Then we went up to the hanger deck and saw few of the planes. One of the helicopters which was used for sea rescue or the mail and occasionally space craft retrieval (one of the Mercury missions) was a Piasecki Hup/ UH-25 Retriver Dad mentioned he’d met Frank Piasecki when he worked for Rolls Royce. There was also a mock up of the Mercury space craft and an area of play stuff for the kids.
We wandered around a bit then headed up to the main deck where the majority of the planes were. They had a nice selection of them including a A12 Blackbird which was interesting to look at some really intricate shapes to its wings which was made of lots of small plates screwed on with cross head screws all recessed into the frame. They also had the space shuttle in a big ugly shed on the end but it was a load more money so we didn’t go and see that.
We had a look in the castle where the steering and navigation was and that was fairly interesting they had a few veterans talking about it.
It was interesting to see this ship which is roughly equivalent age to the USS Midway. Not a lot of it was open where as a large amount of the Midway was accessible. What parts were open had been sealed up and made more like a museum. It was probably a less exhausting experience as a result as I spent a whole day trudging around the claustrophobic innards of the Midway where as here it had been opened up and mostly only a small part was accessible. Still I think you lost the sense of scale you got on the midway of it being a city at sea with all the multiple mess and hairdressers doctors laundry various bunks. In some ways the midway felt like it had been docked and then a few signs added to a previously operational aircraft carrier Intrepid was clearly a museum
We had a quick look at concord which is just put on the end of the pier and you can’t go inside then we headed off. We grabbed a bite of lunch at this shop that seemed to offer everything you could want in food from bagels, sandwiches, burritos, wraps, grilled food, hot food, soups, a full salad bar, cake, coffee, and ice cream. We had some coffee and cream cheese and Lox bagels. Which were pretty good a bit too much cream cheese as it was escaping out the end.
Suitably fortified we made our way down to the High Line. Formally an elevated cargo railway built to take freight above street level into the various industrial parts of Manhattan it fell into disuse in the 90’s as that industry increasingly moved out. It was abandoned and went to seed with stuff growing all over it and then it was reclaimed and made into a sort of linear park. It runs through the streets above the road level and the design is such that it still has the rail lines in place as well as parts of greenery. It is a very pleasant walk along and you get to see some nice areas of Manhattan. It made it very apparent how mixed up Manhattan is in terms of architecture. You have the super modern sleek sky scraper next to an old building and sometimes a new building masquerading as an old building art deco inspired marvels next to glass and steel reflective spires. Its a place of contradiction the modern slap bang next to the old. Some of the skyscrapers seem to be amazingly small footprint thrown up to massive heights on a what seems a too small base. We walked down to 13th street and then decided to go and see the Empire State Building.
On the way we visited Madison Square Garden and the Flatiron building which was nice very iconic building from film and screen. We took some pictures and headed on. Most of the way down we had been seeing the Empire State just sort of looming there in the sky. When we finally got close it vanished again as it was obscured by the building near it.
Inside it was an art deco wonderland filled with marble of various colors. Even the lift was lined in marble. We headed up and went through a long section which was obviously meant for queues at peak times and was mercifully empty. We rode the lift to the 80th floor where they have a sort of museum about the making of the thing. The reason they stop at the 80th is at the time it was built that was the highest a lift could go in one stretch. We learned about the construction how they would build little railway on the floor when put in to move the materials around. We also saw the steel workers wandering around on the precarious beams hammering in the red hot rivets to bind the structure together. They build the thing in 11 months start to finish an impressive feat for such a large building.
Once we were done with that we headed up to the next level 86th floor observatory. The views were stunning we had timed it spot on without meaning to and the sun was just setting giving everything a lovely orange glow as we stayed it got darker and we could see the lights coming out. We took some pictures and enjoyed the fabulous view of the surrounding areas. The best thing about the Empire State is that not only is it quite tall (though shorter than some of the other buildings) it’s also very central and there’s nothing else big around it so you get a mostly unobstructed view of the whole island of Manhattan and out to Brooklyn New Jersey even as far as the statue of liberty (which looks tiny from there). It was a wonderful view and really clear that day. It was also really windy and freezing cold. The exposed side with the wind rushing past was difficult to walk against the wind was so strong. We had to go inside after a bit to restore the circulation to our hands which had gone purple.
Once defrosted we went back down and then headed back to the port authority bus terminal to head back home for dinner and rest.
It’s been a lovely day cold but really bright and clear we seen some great sights and walked a lot (24000 steps according to my watch) now I’m off to bed to recover.
