clog blog: October 2012

New York!

Concrete jungle where dreams are made of,

There’s nothing you can’t do

Now you’re in New York!

These streets will make you feel brand new,

Big lights will inspire you,

Hear it for New York!

New York, New York, New York!

- Alicia Keyes, New York

This is my favourite song about New York and describes the city perfectly. It sums up all the hopes and dreams people hope will be realized in this city that never sleeps. New York was everything and more than what we thought and hoped it would be: massive, alive, vibrant, crazy busy, multi-cultural, and full of warm friendly people.

We arrived in New York by bus from Baltimore where we had been staying with Justin's uncle David. After settling into our hotel, we headed out into the city for our first taste of the Big Apple! Catching the metro in New York is quite easy and we soon worked out the easiest routes to get around from our hotel in Long Island City. Our destination on this first day was Grand Central Station, a nice central place to head into the streets to explore!

Grand Central is a lovely old building connecting many train and bus services. There is a main concourse and a dining concourse. The main concourse with its huge hallway and large staircases on either side can be reached from the street through old school swing doors with shiny brass handles or from the labyrinth of walkways from the various metro and train platforms. This main hall is surprisingly quiet given the number of people milling about at any one time. The dining concourse is a level below the main concourse and features many of the popular American food chains. We grabbed a quick late lunch here before setting off into the streets.

This first evening stroll was only for a quick look around and orientation of the city to give an idea of how to plan our sightseeing over the next few days. We wandered down to Times Square with its bright lights and back to Grand Central via the Empire State Building. At grand Central we picked up some world famous New York cheesecake for a hotel room party of planning our next few days in New York!

Late evening at Times Square

Yellow Cabs at Times Square

The main concourse of Grand Central Station

View of Grand Central Station

Our plan was to explore area by area and we started with the Southern end of Manhattan. We were looking for the Ground Zero site of the two World Trade Center towers when we came across the 9/11 visitor centre a few blocks away from the site. Here we picked up a free pass for the 9/11 memorial site, read the timeline of events that happened on that day, and saw objects collected from that period such as notes posted at the site by loved ones and fireman’s uniforms and tools. A memorial has now been erected at the Ground Zero site. Erected is probably not the correct word as the memorial is not very high. It consists of two large square pools covering the site of where the two buildings were. The water cascades down the inside side walls of the large squares, down into a smaller square in the centre of the pool where it seems to disappear into an abyss. This type of flat memorial feels very fitting here, with the tall buildings surrounding it, it emphasizes the losses of that day. Surrounding each square pool is a metal edging inscribed with the names of the 3000 + people who died in the 9/11 attacks. 9/11 is one of those events that everyone remembers where they were and what they were doing on that day. As we stood by these two giant pools of cascading water we tried to imagine what it must have been like in New York on that day. Over the years I haven't paid much attention to 9/11 and the aftermath but I felt surprisingly emotional at the memorial. I didn't feel for America as a whole, but more on an individual level for each family and person that lost a loved one. The only thing that marred the experience was the unnecessary airport-like security to get into the memorial area. At the moment there is a lot of building activity in the area. The seven buildings that fell on that day covered 16 acres and although the original site of the Twin Towers will not be built on again, a new World Trade Centre is being built on the same block. Hopefully the security check will disappear once all the building has been completed and the monument will become open for all to freely roam about. But for now we are putting it down to job creation in this economic climate.

We continued walking around and found Wall Street with the stock exchange and the Trump building, and the Bronze Bull at the Bowling Green Square. At the southern tip of Manhattan, we caught a triangle ferry to Liberty and Ellis Islands. First stop was Liberty Island home of the Statue of Liberty. We followed the complimentary audio tour around the island and learnt more about how Miss Liberty came to call New York home whilst gazing up at the huge statue. It was not possible to go into or up the statue but we enjoyed gazing up at Liberty from all angles and the awesome views of New York City from the Island. Although the Statue of Liberty is really big, all the tall Manhattan buildings obscure it and you can't see it until you are right on the edge of the water which is a real pity.

Justin and Bronwen at the 9/11 memorial

Bronwen and Dad Cross at the 9/11 memorial

Trinity Church in Lower Manhattan

The New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street

The Charging Bull at Bowling Green

The Sphere

This sculpture used to stand at Austin J. Tobin plaza between the Two Trade Center Towers but was moved to Battery Park after it was recovered from the rubble. It is now a 9/11 memorial with an eternal flame.

Next stop was Ellis island. 12 million emigrants entered the States through the port of New York between the years 1892 and 1954. Ellis island is where boat loads of people were processed before entering the country. The buildings are no longer used for this purpose but are set up as museums documenting this history instead. We enjoyed ambling between the rooms, looking at the old pictures and wondering what it must have been like to enter the States in that fashion. People were checked to see if they were healthy, if all their documents were in order and if they had enough money. Back then a train ticket to your destination and $25 was considered sufficient. The conditions of entry must have been much more relaxed then than today as only 2% were refused entry and sent back home. It is from this time though that stricter emigrant rules were slowly introduced to what they are today. It is from this period that America achieved such a multi-national population. People from all over immigrated to the States; many Irish during the potato famine, Russians and East Europeans. Today over 100 million Americans, one third of the population, can trace their ancestry to immigrants arriving at Ellis Island. From the photographs and stories we could see that the Americans love for airport security-type procedures developed a long time ago!

View of Lady Liberty and Manhattan from Ellis Island

Justin and Dad Cross with Manhattan in the background

A statue of Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, the designer of the Statue of Liberty

The Statue of Liberty

View of Manhattan from Liberty Island

View from the boat on the way back to Manhattan

After landing back at Manhattan, we wandered up the west side of the island to find the Brooklyn Bridge. Construction of the Brooklyn Bridge was completed in 1883; it is one of America’s oldest suspension bridges and was the first steel-wire suspension bridge. It is quite pretty and big but there are lots of other equally impressive but less well known bridges in the New York area. We really wanted to see the bridge at night but the area at the view points was decidedly dodgy so we gave a return visit a skip. From Brooklyn Bridge we wandered up through China Town to Little Italy. China Town also gave off dodgy vibes so we moved on quite quickly. Having said that though, we did pass through a park with a common area where a lot of Chinese people had gathered and were quietly playing card or checkers games in companionable groups and others were playing traditional music. It was very peaceful and felt like a real community.

Compared to the quiet of China Town, little Italy was bustling and noisy. A main street through the area had been closed off and restaurants spilled over onto the pavements. Many Italian foods and treats were on offer as well as other Italian goods for sale such as pashminas and some leather products. There were also some typical fair-like game stalls. We picked a table at a restaurant to enjoy some pizza and beer. While we were seated a procession passed by with important looking people, others playing instruments and others carrying a figure. We discovered later that it was a week-long festival of Saint Gennaro, the patron saint of Naples, and this procession only happens once a year and we happened to see it. After a long day on our feet it was time to head back and rest up before another busy day!

Boat near Brooklyn Bridge

Brooklyn Bridge

Wandering about Little Italy

The next day we decided to explore the middle of the Island and try to see if we could get into a show. We found Madison Square Park full of cheeky poofy squirrels and the flatiron building which looks completely flat if you look at it head-on, before heading toward the Empire State Building. After a long ticket queue, an airport-like security check and more queues for the elevators up, we were finally standing at the observation deck on the 86th floor of the Empire State Building! Wow! What a view! With Manhattan sprawling out below us in all directions, breath taking! And very scary if you look down! The observation deck is outside and gets pretty crowded but there are high railings of mesh all the way around. It was interesting and fun to see Manhattan from a different point of view high up and see how many buildings we could recognize. From up high you can appreciate how much of the island Central Park takes up and what an oasis of green it is amongst all the concrete and high rise buildings.

The Flatiron building

America needs YOU

The lobby of the Empire State Building

View of Manhattan from the 86th floor of the Empire State Building

After a lovely lunch at the cafe next door to the Empire State, we tracked down the famous New York camera store B&H; the one where you order different things around the store and they meet you at the checkout all together in the same bag. We picked up a few kewl gadgets but were still eyeing out many things when we chose to leave before seriously denting the bank balance!

After B&H we made our way to busy Times Square to join the queue for discounted show tickets for the evening performance. We managed to get decent seats for the Broadway hit musical Chicago at a good price. Justin and Bron had seen the show previously in Cape Town but Dad Cross hadn't seen it yet. It was a really good performance which we really enjoyed. It was interesting to see the show again in a different city with a different cast; we can confidently say that SA theatre rates with the best. We had some hours to spare before the performance and passed them trying the seasonal Starbucks pumpkin spice latte and exploring the Rockefeller Center including the Lego store and getting a fix of Ben & Jerry's ice cream!

Times Square!

Shoe shine in the Rockefeller Centre

Chicago!

Suddenly it was already our third day in New York and time to hit Central Park! Before entering the park we decided to get a culture fix and visited the nearby Guggenheim Museum, you may recognize the unique spiral building from many movies. Unfortunately most of the museum was cordoned off due to the assembly of a new exhibition, but there was enough random contemporary art in the remainder of the building to remind us why we don't go to modern art museums!

Next stop: Central Park! We entered near the North end of the park on the East side of the Reservoir and continued South to Belvedere castle. This small castle is on the edge of turtle pond and was built in 1869 as a lookout to the reservoir. It has been used as the New York’s weather station since 1919. We enjoyed watching the sun bathing turtles from the upper turrets. From Belvedere castle, we continued South through a section of the park called the brambles. We got a bit lost as one does on your first visit to Central Park but eventually found Strawberry Fields and Central Park Lake where we stopped for hot dogs from a real American hot dog vendor. Strawberry fields with the Imagine mosaic was designed by Yoko Ono and dedicated to Jon Lennon after his murder and is close to the apartment block Dakota where they used to live. Apparently she still lives in the same apartment they used to share. At Central Park Lake, small sail boats idly float along the water and nearby are the Hans Christian Anderson and Alice in Wonderland statues, popular with children and adults alike.

By this time it was already late afternoon so we headed to our new favourite local hangout, Times Square, where we enjoyed a great dinner of beef and beer stew accompanied by Guinness at an Irish Pub.

The Guggenheim Museum

Central Park!

Bronwen and Dad Cross in the brambles

Story time with Hans Christian Anderson

Alice in Wonderland

Sail boats on the Central Park Lake

Our last day in New York dawned as bright and sunny as the others had been. Since we had already done and seen everything we wanted to, we chose to visit the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum. The Intrepid is an aircraft carrier vessel that was turned into the museum when it was decommissioned in 1974 after 30 years in service. The museum is laid out on the different decks of the vessel and boasts an impressive collection of aircraft on its flight deck including a British Airways Concord and several aircraft from World War II that would have operated from vessels such as the Intrepid.

On the flight deck is also a NASA space shuttle, the Enterprise. The Enterprise shuttle never actually flew in space but was used for test flights at Dryden Flight Research Center in California. The shuttle is of an impressive size but is dwarfed when transported on a Boeing! The decks below document the history of the Intrepid through World War II and the Cold War and some of the areas are laid out the same as they would have been when the ship was in service. The museum does well to link the history of air, sea and space travel and how they influenced each other. One can also walk through a submarine that was used to carry nuclear missiles during the Cold War. It was difficult to imagine 90 men sharing this intimate space for 90 days at a time! Bron was pretty bleak that even a space-limited submarine has a better oven than we do at home! Dotted around the museum were people who had been stationed either on the Intrepid or a submarine or similar vessels and it was really interesting hearing their different stories. We had a great day at the museum and would recommend it to anyone with some free time in New York.

Intrepid Air, Sea and Space Museum

On the flight deck

Enterprise Space Shuttle

From the Intrepid we made our way back into the central part of the city where we popped into the Public library with its impressive and ornate building and also enjoyed some time chilling in the garden. Our final evening in New York had arrived and with it the opportunity to try a real American diner! Close to our hotel was a typical diner and we tucked into Budweiser beers, burgers and milkshakes!