Yesterday Mary Lynn and I took the train into New York City. Actually it’s was the NYC metro from Beacon into Grand Central Station. Grand Central Station is a beautiful old building with a rich history. As I’m sure you know, New York is filled with beautiful architecture and many interesting stories.
From Grand Central Station we walked up 42nd street to Times Square. No visit to New York is complete with at least spending a few minutes there. Years ago Times Square was pretty run down but not these days. Mayor Giuliani cleaned it up and offered incentives for companies to move back into the area.
There are almost always a tremendous number of people in Times Square. It starts early in the morning and build throughout the afternoon and into the early evening, when the crowds are at there peak. That’s also when the sounds and sights of Times Square are at their peak. The electronic billboards are overwhelming these days and in the evening they are a sight to behold.
Plus Broadway’s theater district is right next to Times Square and of course the discount ticket kiosk, which has discount tickets for all but the latest shows, is located right at the foot of Times Square.
MLA and I took the Graylines City Bus tour; the weather was perfect and we grabbed two seats upstairs. All the tour bus companies use special buses that have seating upstairs, no roof and allow you to hop on/hop off all day long. Our narrated tour started in Times Square and included a ton of sights including Broadway Theater District, Macy’s, Empire State Building, Penn Station, Madison Square Gardens, the Flat Iron building, Greenwich, Soho, Chinatown, Little Italy, City Hall, World Trade Center site, Battery Park, the South Street Seaport, United Nations, Central Park, Waldorf Astoria… this is just a partial list. A great way to get oriented to New York City.
Lots to see and do. Make sure you wear your sneakers; you will do a lot of walking as well.
We also saw several items related to 9/11 and the World Trade Center. The most impactful to me personally was the Engine 55 firehouse, which lost several firefighters when the building collapsed. We also saw the remains from a piece of artwork that sat on the plaza between the two World Trade Center buildings.
This artwork, a large ball, has been moved to Battery park just as it was found. Well almost. When it was uncovered two weeks after the buildings collapsed, it was too hot to handle because of the beams and fires that surrounded the artwork. We also saw the constructions sites where the buildings are being rebuilt.
We had a terrific time in New York and late in the day we collapsed on the metro which motored back out to Beacon and then across the Hudson to our campground in Plattekill. About two hours from Grand Central to our doorstep however its the only way to travel. Driving in New York is no way to enjoy yourself plus parking is non-existent at many of the sites you will want to visit.
I almost forgot to mention MLA was in heaven. Her favorite TV show is Project Runway and she saw the Parsons: The New School for Design building where the show is filmed and the fashion designers ‘work their magic’.
Today we drove to Pete and Jeannine’s house about an hour south, where we spent most of the afternoon and evening getting caught up with each other. Pete & Jeannine were one of the couples we would go camping with back when both of our families were just getting started. And of course we all camped in tent and slept on the ground. Didn’t take too many years for that to get old and then MLA and I bought a pop-up.
We had a great time this weekend and plan to visit some local (to Newburgh) sites tomorrow. maybe West Point and some of the estates along the Hudson River that are now open to the public.
See Ya!
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1 comments:
Great tour of New York-thanks
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