2 Days In New York City

[waitingman]

15th & 16th October 2012

Oct. 15 Monday – New York

Breakfast from the ‘organic’ deli & coffees from the Nespresso machine, then onto the ‘C’ & ‘4’ subways to Tiffany’s, to pick up the necklace Julia bought... & to buy another one (Your liver can grow back, right?? So if I sell off most of it, I’ll still be okay??). Personally I prefer the necklace & pendant she bought today, but don’t tell her that

Afterwards, we headed for 59th St at the ‘top’ of Central Park, intending to book tour tickets with a Guide/Salesman we’d spoken with on Friday. The package we wanted included three bus tours, the Rockefeller Centre & a cruise on the Hudson, for $95. On our way to find him however, we were shanghaied by a rival operator &, looking at his brochure, the offer seemed exactly the same, for exactly one dollar less. But he had the advantage of being right there in front of us with credit card facilities in hand, so we went ahead with him. Deciding to take the ‘Uptown hop-on-hop-off’ tour first, we waited for the appropriate open-top bus, only to find out that the tour starts at Times Square... well no, it finishes at Times Square, but actually starts two blocks past it. Eventually we boarded the right bus, claimed our seats up in the open section & prepared to enjoy the sights without having to walk around finding them


Sir Duke...


FKA Beekman Tower


Chrysler again... with a little Photoshop

Our Guide was friendly, funny & informally informative. So much so, that we abandoned our plan to get off the bus in Harlem to find lunch, then board another bus afterwards & decided to stay on ‘til the end back at Times Square. We were still very tempted to visit Sylvia’s Kitchen in Harlem... even though Sylvia herself passed away a couple of months ago... we’d seen both her & her restaurant on Masterchef Australia last year. But we still have a few days left & Harlem seemed quite peaceful... not the gangland empire it gets painted as, so we’ll try to get there, now we know where it is

So, staying on the bus, we happily snapped away with the point’n’shoot cameras for an hour, enjoying the buildings, the stories & the ride itself. Rain began thinking about falling as we headed back towards midtown, but since we’d already decided to head straight into the Carnegie Deli for lunch (yes, we were feeling that hungry!), the weather was not as big a concern as lunch was... Deciding to try the Three Meat Platter with pastrami, turkey & tongue (!!??) was, we figured, not going to be as filling as the sandwiches & soup the other day... Wrong. They don’t so anything small in this place, so there was plenty of two tasty meats & tongue to go ‘round. The tongue, which neither of us had eaten before, wasn’t unpleasant, nor did it resemble something trying to clean the plate. Sliced thinly, it had a kind of bland taste & not much in the way of texture, so was best eaten with mustard & potato salad to give it the body & flavour it needed. I decided that tongues are best used when eating & are not to be eaten themselves. The pastrami, on the other hand, was the best I’ve had since Friday

It was now late afternoon & the rain decided it was time to come down properly. Fortunately, Bloomingdale's wasn’t too far way, though I did buy a $5 umbrella from one of the many hawkers who appeared out of nowhere with bucketloads of them as soon as the sky started falling. Once inside Bloomingdale's, it was time to start buying & ticking things off the shopping list given to us by friends & family back home. Perfumes, make-up & cosmetics seemed to be most of it & given the exorbitant prices charged for premium brands back in Australia I’m not surprised... they cost almost half as much here in New York. We also bought some supplies for the Nespresso machine, which will be sent to Gary back in Colorado, as he’d enjoyed the coffee while we were staying with him. We can’t use this machine back in Australia due to the voltage difference, so at least we know it’s going to a good home over here. A wander around the rest of the store failed to trouble our wallets despite our best efforts- it was either too expensive (Burberry overcoats a bargain at $1,250!!), or wrong style or colour (what’s wrong with a pink wedding dress anyway??)

Back out onto the rainy streets at about 7.30pm & down into the steamy subways for a three-train trip home. Deciding we were too tired to walk the half dozen blocks home, we caught the ‘43’ bus from outside the subway. There were some... interesting... characters on the bus, including an old man who, for reasons unknown to us & probably him as well, offered a tin of red salmon to every passenger. We all declined & I wonder if he found someone to take it after we got off. Dinner was unnecessary, thanks to the Carnegie Deli, so we finished off the remains of the Carlo’s Bakery Hoard, which has been in the fridge since yesterday. A LiveJournal contact of mine who lives in New York had sent me an e-mail suggesting lunch &/or a tour of the U.N. Building sometime this week. We’d like both, preferably on Thursday, so we’ll see how it fits in with his... & our... busy schedule

Oct. 16 Tuesday – New York

Up a bit earlier today, to drop off some laundry at the local ‘Mat, then head into town for a day of touring. Unfortunately, it’s looking like the only way we’ll get to at least see some of the NY landmarks is from the top floor of a bus. So... getting off the subway near the 9-11 Memorial, we tried to find our way down to Battery Park, but were thwarted by all the construction going on at the site of the new Centre & by all the foot traffic milling around the Memorial for the old one. Not being from America, we saw no need to go into the Memorial - the only person we know who was in New York on Sept. 11, 2001 is still alive & now living in Augusta GA. & it struck us as being a little ghoulish to visit this shrine to so many lives when we had no personal connection. Didn’t seem to bother an awful lot of other tourists though...

Giving up on walking & only getting more turned around & lost, we found a cab & let him negotiate the blocked & one-way streets. Turns out we hadn’t been that far away from Battery Park, but the $5 was worth it for peace of mind alone. Once at the Park we skirted around the loooong queue for the Statue of Liberty ferry & found where our open-top tourbus to Brooklyn was just about to leave. Why were we taking a tour of the area we’re staying in... you might well ask? Well, we were wondering that same thing about an hour later, having seen only a small section of the borough – Brooklyn Heights, put up with inane commentary from a sixty-something retiree with a voice run ragged by too much whiskey & an annoying habit of breaking into show tunes & old advertising jingles. Not only did he break into them, he vandalised them as well. We’ll probably end up seeing more of Brooklyn by ourselves when we go to the Post Office on Friday. But you live & learn



Back to Battery Park & we caught half of the Downtown Loop tour bus back to Times Square... or as close to it as the traffic would let the bus get, we ended up getting off near Rockefeller Centre & walked the last block & a half, having seen the U.N. Building where we’ll be having lunch with my NY contact on Thursday, then found Radio City Music Hall by virtue of a wrong turn when we were walking back to Times Square. We thought we might have time for a proper lunch, having only had a hotdog from a street vendor that morning, but time seems to fritter away quickly in this city & before we knew it, we had to be down at the West St pier for our cruise around Manhattan Island. There’s a free bus that takes you from Midtown to the ferry wharf, which was right next to the one we needed. Arriving with a little time to spare, we grabbed a couple of sandwiches & staked our position at the gangway to ensure we got a good seat before the steadily increasing number of tourists overwhelmed us. Our experience at the Empire State Building the other night has made us a bit mercenary in that regard. Despite our efforts, a large, extended family group of Germans blitzkrieged the front of the line & got past us... & so were first to have their ‘souvenir photo’ taken in front of a green screen, for the tour company to PhotoShop in the Statue of Liberty, or some such landmark, while we’re on the boat. We didn’t want our photo taken, but were told it was company policy & there was no obligation to buy the photo. I smiled gamefully, but both of us almost ran across the screen, such was our lack of interest in this attempt to fleece us for more than we’d already paid, which was a fair amount by this time, if you include all the tips we’d been encouraged to hand out to our bus drivers & guides, whether we thought they were worth it or not. We were looking forward to the cruise, however & just wanted to be underway

Once on board, we still managed a good position out in the open at the stern, prepared cameras & off we went. It was a fine day, the sailing was a smooth as you could expect & the sights were more than worth all the hoo-ha beforehand. Looking at the city from out on the river is completely different from standing in the middle of it... or even standing near the top of it. From out there, it all seems to make sense... it certainly looks like it does, anyway. Coming around to the stretch between Brooklyn & Manhattan, we passed under the three main bridges – the Brooklyn, Manhattan & Williamsburg, each distinctive & amazing pieces of engineering. There’s also plenty of evidence left of the area’s industrial past... old factories, disused docks & warehouses that have been converted into condominiums with apartments that sell for exorbitant amounts because they’re by the river. Just don’t ask too many questions about what they’re built on... And boil your drinking water









Back on dry land, we caught another tourist shuttle back to Times Square & went in search of drink & food, in that order. Finding both in an Irish pub called the Playwrights Tavern was a welcome respite while we planned what to do with our evening. Dinner at either Sylvia’s in Harlem, or Grimaldi’s Pizza in Brooklyn was impractical, both for difficulty of transport access from where we were, but also because we’d just inhaled a plate of hot wings at the pub & weren’t that hungry anymore. So we decided to do the ‘Night Tour’ of the city, going to a lot of the places we’d seen during the day, but now with all the buildings lit up in a blaze of neon that must make the city easy to spot for jet pilots... & probably astronauts as well... The lights & sights were certainly impressive, both in Manhattan & over in Brooklyn, but by this time of night, we were getting a little cold up on the open deck of the bus & the tour guide left a lot to be desired... like information & its presentation. No tip for her





Afterwards, we wandered the theatre district looking at various restaurants & settled on a Chinese place not far from Radio City Music Hall. We ordered way too much food, mistaking feeling cold for feeling hungry. The meal was good, but just too much for us & we got the remainder to take away just so we didn’t hurt their feelings

A three train ride back to Bedford-Stuyvesant on the subway & we deadfooted our way back home & were soon dead to the world

Comments

[paserbyp]

Nice!