Mike Jones
<font color=993300>....nothing clever to say... ju
- Joined
- Jun 23, 2003
LINK TO FULL INDEX
PART 5 9/11 MEMORIAL
We wake at 6:45am today, after an unbroken nights sleep! This is very tardy for us, as were usually up by 5:00am at home!
I make coffee, which we drink whilst wading through the brain-rot local news, waiting for the weather forecast. The prediction is for periodic showers, and under 70 degrees. Our plan for today is to have a proper wander round Brooklyn, particularly Brooklyn Heights, Prospect Park and DUMBO (an arty district near the Bridge, not the big-eared pachyderm!)
The strangely compelling blather on the TV is starting to send us back to sleep, but when they suddenly mention something new, and, amazingly something from outside the USA, and, wait for it, something from the UK, we snap out of our reverie and head for our showers. (The story was a piece about the Jubilee Regatta, which looked a bit of a wash out!)
We are on our way at 8:00am, walking south to 42nd Street where we catch the subway to Fulton Street in the business district. (A quick aside this is rush hour, on the public transport system heading into one of the busiest financial areas of the free world, and yes the trains and stations are busy but its absolutely nowhere near as crazy as Londons Underground or Manchesters Metrolink at the same time of day! I suspect the New York authorities actually provide enough trains and carriages to cope, and stuff the cost! Which, while Im ranting, is a pittance compared to the two domestic examples above!!)
We climb up from the subway station onto Fulton Street and its raining quite hard. Sigh. I brought the brolly along, so we cover up and head into the nearby streets looking for breakfast. Set back from the street, at the bottom of an office block is Squires, a traditional, formica-table kind of diner, but it looks pretty busy, so we go in.
The menu is similar to the one at the Hudson Diner a couple of days ago, and we have plenty to choose from. We both select eggs, bacon, homefries, toast, accompanied by coffee (hot, dark, fresh and lovely!) and fresh squeezed orange juice a huge glass each!
We linger a while, hoping the rain will abate. Theres a free WiFi so we check Facebook etc and search every weather forecast on the Internet for a positive forecast!
It does not look promising: the previous showers forecast is almost universally rain for the bulk of the day now. Weighing our options, we decide that wandering around Brooklyn in the rain does not really appeal, so we decide to head back uptown and find something to do indoors. Our first choice, the vast Metropolitan Museum of Art on 5th at Central Park is unfortunately closed on Mondays. However, even though we had decided not to do the Guggenheim this trip, as the spiral ramp display space is closed while they install a new collection, we think the compromise is acceptable, especially as the admission fee is reduced.
We pay the check (a mildly ridiculous $13.50, or well under a tenner! The drinks alone would have cost that in a comparable UK caff! And the food and service were excellent!) and leave at 9:45. Our increasing confidence in using the subway system guides us easily to the nearby Fulton/Broadway station where we take a 4 train north to East 86th Street, a couple of blocks from the Guggenheim. The journey is swift and without incident, apart from traversing the wet streets over to 5th and we arrive outside the gallery at 10.20. And theres a longish line. Because the Met is closed, and its raining. Cest la vie.
We join the line and wait under the brolly. Its amusing to note that all the immigrant pavement vendors who were flogging knock-off handbags and sunglasses earlier in the trip are now hawking cheap umbrellas!
The line moves fairly slowly, pausing often as school groups approach from up the street and are admitted en masse before us. We finally reach the shelter of the doorway at 10.40 and are admitted a few minutes later, at a modest cost of $10 each (its normally $15). The magnificent lobby and atrium are the only areas where photography is permitted, so here you go:
The recommended way to view the treasures in this amazing building, and the way we did it last trip, is to start at the top, and walk down the ramp, entering the sub galleries along the way. As the staff are busy installing the new artwork (of which quite a lot is frankly easily visible and so not a complete write-off) we instead have to use the secondary stairs to move up and down around the open rooms.
There is a lovely collection of works by Cezanne, Picasso, Braque et al, which we admire with pleasure. Further, one of the special exhibitions is an amazing, if unsettling collection of the photography of Francesca Woodman, a brilliantly talented but ultimately suicidal young woman who killed herself at the age of 22 in 1981.
http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/exhibitions/past/exhibit/4432
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesca_Woodman
Well, the reduced range of works on show means that by 11:45 we are pretty much done here, and off we go, back onto 5th. The line is, if anything, probably longer now, but on a positive note, the rain does seem to be easing somewhat. We stroll south, initially on the road,
.before cutting into Central Park and continuing generally towards the bottom end, albeit now in the intentionally meandering fashion imposed by the layout of the paths and walkways.
Its surprisingly lovely in the rain, and so quiet it feels as though we are the only people here! Look how deserted it is:
With no urgency, and plenty of wandering off to peep round corners, it takes us a good hour to cover the linear 2 miles or so (but probably a good 3 on our route) back to Central Park South.
We exit in the middle of this thoroughfare, (no, halfway between the two sides of the park, you Wally, not in the middle of the street itself!) and head east to 5th, with vague thoughts of lunch. As it is actually still raining, we decide that (drones to the hive) the Rockefeller Concourse is the ideal place for the next hour or two. Down 10 blocks or so, and under the GE Building where its Bedlam! Every office worker in the City is also trying to eat lunch in the dry, and all the food outlets have lines of a few dozen people extending outside their doors!
Time for a Plan B (or is it C now?) Keeping it simple, we walk back up to 5th,
and enter the many-storied TGI Fridays, where, although busy, we are seated immediately on the 2nd floor.
It is 1:15pm. Sam Adams ale for me, Pinot Grigot for Amanda, with Chicken Fingers & Fries (Amanda) and Caribbean Chicken Sandwich w/fries for me.
The food is almost exactly as expected decent, chain restaurant fayre, well cooked and served with a smile (the waitress keeps calling me love which is so familiar to anyone from the North West UK!)
The check is $42. We pay, restroom and leave at 2:00pm. Happily, the weather has definitely improved locally, with broken cloud and the sun poking through, although it still looks a bit grey Downtown.
Saks Fifth Avenue is just across the street, and although were not big shoppers or store browsers whilst on holiday (the logic being that the insides of most shopping malls/department stores are pretty much the same in Manchester or New York/Orlando etc) but mild curiosity and proximity propel us over to have a nosey.
Its only a brief visit. Feels pretty much like Selfridges or Harvey Nicks back home in Blighty. Theres a worrying moment when Amanda discovers the Jimmy Choo sale on the 5th floor, but I fake a return bout of food-poisoning and manage to escape, wallet intact! (It must be a bloke thing, but $800 shoes are still an eye-watering sum of money, even if theyre reduced from $1200!!)
Best part for me? The inside of the elevators!
Now, we have a decision to make. On our first trip, in 2006, we were powerfully moved by a visit to the remains of the World Trade Centre, which at that time was just a chaotic construction/demolition site. One of our objectives this time was to pay our respects at the new 9/11 Memorial, and, after reading up on it, we had (months ago) secured timed, visitor passes online for 5:00pm today. Had Plan A worked, we would have spent the day in and around Brooklyn today, and wandered back over the Bridge to the WTC at 5:00, but the weather has kyboshed this. We really do not want to visit the site in pouring rain, and need to make our minds up about heading downtown for the second time today.
Coffee should help. As its drizzling again, we need somewhere pleasant, undercover off we trot, across the street, to the Rockefeller (Again!? I hear you cry!) and down to Starbucks.
But theres a problem. Some function must be imminent, with royalty, presidents or possibly Muppets attending, as all the public seating areas have been cordoned off by a huge security detail and, if we get the coffees, there will be no-where to drink them in comfort. Stuff that, lets take a chance and head back to the south end of the island. Its 3:00pm.
We take the subway down to Wall Street, where thankfully, the weather seems to be improving, and wander across a couple of blocks to find Stone Street, a historic cobbled-street of row-houses, dating from the mid-late19th Century. (This, incidentally, doesnt seem particularly historic to us Brits my office building is older, and Ive owned homes that date from the 18th century. My idea of historic is touching the masons marks on the walls of buildings in Rome, where some of the shop and café walls are c. 2000 years old and still perfectly fit for purpose!)
I digress Stone Street is lovely more like a cobbled back street in Old York back in England. There are several cafes, restaurants and bars opening onto the street, with covered seating areas on the cobbles. It must be wonderful and vibrant on a warm summer evening.
PART 5 9/11 MEMORIAL
We wake at 6:45am today, after an unbroken nights sleep! This is very tardy for us, as were usually up by 5:00am at home!
I make coffee, which we drink whilst wading through the brain-rot local news, waiting for the weather forecast. The prediction is for periodic showers, and under 70 degrees. Our plan for today is to have a proper wander round Brooklyn, particularly Brooklyn Heights, Prospect Park and DUMBO (an arty district near the Bridge, not the big-eared pachyderm!)
The strangely compelling blather on the TV is starting to send us back to sleep, but when they suddenly mention something new, and, amazingly something from outside the USA, and, wait for it, something from the UK, we snap out of our reverie and head for our showers. (The story was a piece about the Jubilee Regatta, which looked a bit of a wash out!)
We are on our way at 8:00am, walking south to 42nd Street where we catch the subway to Fulton Street in the business district. (A quick aside this is rush hour, on the public transport system heading into one of the busiest financial areas of the free world, and yes the trains and stations are busy but its absolutely nowhere near as crazy as Londons Underground or Manchesters Metrolink at the same time of day! I suspect the New York authorities actually provide enough trains and carriages to cope, and stuff the cost! Which, while Im ranting, is a pittance compared to the two domestic examples above!!)
We climb up from the subway station onto Fulton Street and its raining quite hard. Sigh. I brought the brolly along, so we cover up and head into the nearby streets looking for breakfast. Set back from the street, at the bottom of an office block is Squires, a traditional, formica-table kind of diner, but it looks pretty busy, so we go in.
The menu is similar to the one at the Hudson Diner a couple of days ago, and we have plenty to choose from. We both select eggs, bacon, homefries, toast, accompanied by coffee (hot, dark, fresh and lovely!) and fresh squeezed orange juice a huge glass each!
We linger a while, hoping the rain will abate. Theres a free WiFi so we check Facebook etc and search every weather forecast on the Internet for a positive forecast!
It does not look promising: the previous showers forecast is almost universally rain for the bulk of the day now. Weighing our options, we decide that wandering around Brooklyn in the rain does not really appeal, so we decide to head back uptown and find something to do indoors. Our first choice, the vast Metropolitan Museum of Art on 5th at Central Park is unfortunately closed on Mondays. However, even though we had decided not to do the Guggenheim this trip, as the spiral ramp display space is closed while they install a new collection, we think the compromise is acceptable, especially as the admission fee is reduced.
We pay the check (a mildly ridiculous $13.50, or well under a tenner! The drinks alone would have cost that in a comparable UK caff! And the food and service were excellent!) and leave at 9:45. Our increasing confidence in using the subway system guides us easily to the nearby Fulton/Broadway station where we take a 4 train north to East 86th Street, a couple of blocks from the Guggenheim. The journey is swift and without incident, apart from traversing the wet streets over to 5th and we arrive outside the gallery at 10.20. And theres a longish line. Because the Met is closed, and its raining. Cest la vie.
We join the line and wait under the brolly. Its amusing to note that all the immigrant pavement vendors who were flogging knock-off handbags and sunglasses earlier in the trip are now hawking cheap umbrellas!
The line moves fairly slowly, pausing often as school groups approach from up the street and are admitted en masse before us. We finally reach the shelter of the doorway at 10.40 and are admitted a few minutes later, at a modest cost of $10 each (its normally $15). The magnificent lobby and atrium are the only areas where photography is permitted, so here you go:
The recommended way to view the treasures in this amazing building, and the way we did it last trip, is to start at the top, and walk down the ramp, entering the sub galleries along the way. As the staff are busy installing the new artwork (of which quite a lot is frankly easily visible and so not a complete write-off) we instead have to use the secondary stairs to move up and down around the open rooms.
There is a lovely collection of works by Cezanne, Picasso, Braque et al, which we admire with pleasure. Further, one of the special exhibitions is an amazing, if unsettling collection of the photography of Francesca Woodman, a brilliantly talented but ultimately suicidal young woman who killed herself at the age of 22 in 1981.
http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/exhibitions/past/exhibit/4432
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesca_Woodman
Well, the reduced range of works on show means that by 11:45 we are pretty much done here, and off we go, back onto 5th. The line is, if anything, probably longer now, but on a positive note, the rain does seem to be easing somewhat. We stroll south, initially on the road,
.before cutting into Central Park and continuing generally towards the bottom end, albeit now in the intentionally meandering fashion imposed by the layout of the paths and walkways.
Its surprisingly lovely in the rain, and so quiet it feels as though we are the only people here! Look how deserted it is:
With no urgency, and plenty of wandering off to peep round corners, it takes us a good hour to cover the linear 2 miles or so (but probably a good 3 on our route) back to Central Park South.
We exit in the middle of this thoroughfare, (no, halfway between the two sides of the park, you Wally, not in the middle of the street itself!) and head east to 5th, with vague thoughts of lunch. As it is actually still raining, we decide that (drones to the hive) the Rockefeller Concourse is the ideal place for the next hour or two. Down 10 blocks or so, and under the GE Building where its Bedlam! Every office worker in the City is also trying to eat lunch in the dry, and all the food outlets have lines of a few dozen people extending outside their doors!
Time for a Plan B (or is it C now?) Keeping it simple, we walk back up to 5th,
and enter the many-storied TGI Fridays, where, although busy, we are seated immediately on the 2nd floor.
It is 1:15pm. Sam Adams ale for me, Pinot Grigot for Amanda, with Chicken Fingers & Fries (Amanda) and Caribbean Chicken Sandwich w/fries for me.
The food is almost exactly as expected decent, chain restaurant fayre, well cooked and served with a smile (the waitress keeps calling me love which is so familiar to anyone from the North West UK!)
The check is $42. We pay, restroom and leave at 2:00pm. Happily, the weather has definitely improved locally, with broken cloud and the sun poking through, although it still looks a bit grey Downtown.
Saks Fifth Avenue is just across the street, and although were not big shoppers or store browsers whilst on holiday (the logic being that the insides of most shopping malls/department stores are pretty much the same in Manchester or New York/Orlando etc) but mild curiosity and proximity propel us over to have a nosey.
Its only a brief visit. Feels pretty much like Selfridges or Harvey Nicks back home in Blighty. Theres a worrying moment when Amanda discovers the Jimmy Choo sale on the 5th floor, but I fake a return bout of food-poisoning and manage to escape, wallet intact! (It must be a bloke thing, but $800 shoes are still an eye-watering sum of money, even if theyre reduced from $1200!!)
Best part for me? The inside of the elevators!
Now, we have a decision to make. On our first trip, in 2006, we were powerfully moved by a visit to the remains of the World Trade Centre, which at that time was just a chaotic construction/demolition site. One of our objectives this time was to pay our respects at the new 9/11 Memorial, and, after reading up on it, we had (months ago) secured timed, visitor passes online for 5:00pm today. Had Plan A worked, we would have spent the day in and around Brooklyn today, and wandered back over the Bridge to the WTC at 5:00, but the weather has kyboshed this. We really do not want to visit the site in pouring rain, and need to make our minds up about heading downtown for the second time today.
Coffee should help. As its drizzling again, we need somewhere pleasant, undercover off we trot, across the street, to the Rockefeller (Again!? I hear you cry!) and down to Starbucks.
But theres a problem. Some function must be imminent, with royalty, presidents or possibly Muppets attending, as all the public seating areas have been cordoned off by a huge security detail and, if we get the coffees, there will be no-where to drink them in comfort. Stuff that, lets take a chance and head back to the south end of the island. Its 3:00pm.
We take the subway down to Wall Street, where thankfully, the weather seems to be improving, and wander across a couple of blocks to find Stone Street, a historic cobbled-street of row-houses, dating from the mid-late19th Century. (This, incidentally, doesnt seem particularly historic to us Brits my office building is older, and Ive owned homes that date from the 18th century. My idea of historic is touching the masons marks on the walls of buildings in Rome, where some of the shop and café walls are c. 2000 years old and still perfectly fit for purpose!)
I digress Stone Street is lovely more like a cobbled back street in Old York back in England. There are several cafes, restaurants and bars opening onto the street, with covered seating areas on the cobbles. It must be wonderful and vibrant on a warm summer evening.
I will certainly be back to see the memorial at the World Trade Centre one day.
