New York Wrap Up

This is Joey, Lisa and Jim. Joey and Jim graciously let Lisa and I stay in their home while we were in New York. It's a beautiful brownstone in SoHo - so close to everything!  Joey got us tickets for the playhouse next door to them, he loaned us his membership cards for the museums so we could get in free. Thanks so much guys for making me feel welcome!

 Rainy Day in New York

Madison Avenue and 42nd Street.

Lafayette and Spring. New York was even pretty in the rain.

Grand Central Terminal

It's a REALLY big place! Very open, very pretty. A reminder of an older time of elegant traveling. I still like our Union Station in Los Angeles better, though, in terms of architecture and decor.

They don't have a Food Court, they have a "Dining Concourse". Good food too. I had a pulled pork BBQ sandwich.

The sign at the bottom of the stairs in the photo says "Sitting on stairways strictly prohibited". I have learned that signs in New York are more suggestion than rules, whether it's this one about sitting, the walk/don't walk signs at the street corners and no honking/noise signs.

New York is a great city. I saw just about everything I wanted to see in Manhattan. Next trip I will get to Central Park. I had the most fun wandering around taking photos of the streets and buildings. Even the few times that it rained didn't spoil the adventure. I hope you enjoyed my photos and my comments.

New York - Day 8 - Sunday

It started pouring rain in the wee hours of the morning today. All in all my weather luck has been pretty good. The two times I got caught in the rain earlier this week were later in the day when I was pretty much on my way home anyway.

Didn't do much today. Had brunch with Halcyon at this hole-in-the-wall place in SoHo that you get to by going down this little alley. GREAT food! Then I went to Grand Central Terminal ("Terminal" not "Station"). Beautiful place and really big!

The rain was only very light while I was out and about today then it started pouring about 1/2 and hour after I got back to the house tonight and it's still going on. There's a skylight here in the bedroom so I can listen to the rain patter all night.

A friend of ours from High School came down from D.C. today with her husband and we all hung out and chatted about various things (mostly about theater). It was nice to see her again.

It's been a really interesting trip but I'm REALLY ready to come home now. The car is picking us up at 7:30 am tomorrow to take us to the airport. I'm all packed and It's 11:23 now so I really need to go to bed!

New York - Day 7 - Saturday

I got to see my first Broadway play today!!!! After standing in line for about an hour at the TKTS office in Times Square I got a ticket to see Chicago. I have seen the move, but not the live musical so I was really happy they had tickets. I've already seen about 1/2 of the big musicals that are still playing here when they came to L.A. - Phantom, Lion King, Wicked, Mama Mia (but would gladly have seen any one of them again if I hadn't be able to get something I hadn't seen yet).

The theaters here ( or at least the Ambassador Theatre) are much smaller than the LA theaters. Probably because they're much OLDER than the LA theaters. That's nice though because even though I was in the 2nd to the last row I could still see all the performers faces without binoculars (can't say that about the Ahmanson!)

Times Square on a weekend - not a place to be if you don't like crowds.

There's a large, stepped seating area above the TKTS booth in Times Square. I don't remember that being there last time we were here (about 6 years ago). I also don't remember a couple of blocks of Broadway between 45th(?) and 47th streets being blocked off to auto traffic. But then, sometimes I don't even remember what I had for breakfast so I'm not too sure about my memory. AND a lot can change in 6 years. I was tempted to go to Madame Tussaud's but we have one in Hollywood now and I have to pick and choose what I can and want to do here because I just can't do it all.

I used to watch TV on New Year's eve and think it would be so much fun to be there in Times Square. I don't think that anymore, unless I could be at a small, private party on a really high floor in one of the buildings there. I certainly wouldn't want to be in the crushing sea of people on the street

So, one more day left here in the Big Apple. The only places I haven't been to but would like to see are Central Park and Grand Central Terminal. Hopefully I'll get there tomorrow, but if not, I'll have something for my next visit. And next time I want to go to Niagra Falls. Just wasn't in the cards for this trip.

New York - Day 6 - Friday

Battery Park and Ellis Island today. Last time my sister, niece and I were here we went to Liberty Island and walked around the statue so I didn't really feel any need to do that again. But I did decided to go over to Ellis Island.

The original wooden building burned to the ground in 1897 and the brick building that stands today was opened in 1900. This is the front entrance and the registry room. The have photos of the room when it was full of rails that looked like cattle chutes and (later on) rows and rows of benches where the people would sit waiting to be called. Ellis Island officially closed in 1954. Limited access to the island was allowed from '76 to'84 when preservation and reconstruction work began. It reopened as a museum in 1990.

This building is part of the hospital and contagious disease wards. I didn't get to go over there as I went late in the day any only had a short time to look around. This island was abandoned for many years and falling into decay. There are photo in the museum of those times. I would have liked to have been on the island taking photos then when it was quite and uncrowded - listening for the voices of the people that had passed through there. I would very much like to go back again and explore more.

I love to see things that once belonged to people long ago. This was a wedding dress from Italy from 1914. The other photo is a spinning wheel from Norway dated 1894. My friend, Jill is a spinner and I thought she's like to see this wheel. I would love to have a spinning wheel like that!

My ancestors on my mother's side of the family were originally from Scotland, then they went to Belfast and from there to the U.S. so they must have come through Ellis Island. I will have to look that up when I get home. The one name that I know didn't come up on the search kisok they have on the island and I was more interested in looking at the place than researching my family history on the computer.

This is certainly a place I will come back to next time I get to come to New York! If you are going, I suggest you buy your tickets the day before as the lines in the morning are REALLY long. Wait until late morning or early afternoon to go get your tickets for the next day.

Since I'm always walking around with a camera hung on my shoulder people will usually ask me to take their pictures for them. One such person in Battery Park yesterday was a man from Egypt. When he found out I was from California he said "oh, so you come here all the time". I thought that was funny. Distance is relative.

I have a friend who lives out here in NYC and I finally caught up with him today. He stayed at my sister's house for a few months many years ago when he was having "family issues". I vacationed at his place for a week when he moved up to the Bay Area, but we lost touch when he moved to New York.  He took me out to dinner and to a couple of his favorite haunts on the Lower East Side and we caught up on how our lives are going and just generally had a really nice time.

New York - Day 5

Now I can finally catch up! The internet on this computer is very iffy - some days it works fine, other days it takes 5 minutes just to load a page!
So, we're up to Thursday now.
Thursday I went up to Midtown Manhattan and to MOMA - Museum of Modern Art. There is a Tim Burton show there (which is the reason Lisa wanted to do this trip in the first place). I recently found that that I went to BHS (Burbank High School) with Tim Burton. Lisa showed me his picture in our yearbook. He was in her class, a year behind me. Who knew!

The exhibit was great. He is a prolific illustrator/doodler! I had no idea that 1) he worked at Disney and 2) he was involved in a lot of films I've seen but didn't know he was involved in them - Big Fish (LOVED that movie), Batman, Beetlejuice and a bunch of others.  They had some of the stop-motion figures from Nightmare Before Christmas (Oggie Boogie, Santa, Jack Skellington - will all 20 or so of his heads, Zero and the toys he left for the kids on Christmas eve). They had a lifesize figure of Edward Scissorhands (which I believe I saw when I got to tour Stan Winston's studio a few years ago). It was a really great exhibit and I'm glad I got to see it. Wasn't allowed to take any photos though.

STRANGE ART STUFF

This is Marina Abramovic (the figure in red). Among other things she is a performance artist and this is a art performance in progress. People came in and sat down in the chair across the table from her and they just started at each other. And it was being filmed. Talk about watching paint dry! Apparently she's a very famous artist or they wouldn't let her be doing this in the museum.

There was also an exhibit of the photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson that was just breathtaking! Most of his photographs were published in the 50's and 60's and he was in all the magazines back then - Life, The New Yorker, etc. His prints are so technically beautiful - wonderful tones and contrasts! It was very exciting to see his actual work as I remember studying him when I was working on my Art Degree at CSUN. Sometimes you're just in the right place at the right time to get treats like that.

After I gorged myself on museum exhibits I went over to Rockefeller Center. As I passed NBC studios, what should I see parked right outside the door but President Obama's limo. Apparently he had addressed Wall Street that morning (I hope he told them to get their shit together or no more bailout money!). I didn't stick around to see if he was going to come out any time soon. That's the 2nd time I've gone some place and the POTUS shows up. I went to a conference at the convention center in LA a couple of years ago and Pres. Bush (GW) showed up and gave a speech. That was interesting. I had wondered why they made us go through metal detectors just to attend a conference.

Went back to the museum and looked around a bit more. Then it started raining so I headed for home. The two time's it's rained while I've been out & about here it's been in the 70s and hasn't rained hard so as long as I could protect my camera in my bag I wasn't bothered by it.

Fortunately I wasn't all that far from the subway.

New York - Day 4

They have some really random signs here. These struck me as funny or just interesting.

Who gets to decided if its unnecessary or not? They also have signs that say things like "don't honk except for danger" or "Fine for Honking $240" but very few people seem to pay any attention to them.

Where DO some people come up with the names for their businesses???

I would think that if they're targeting an audience that doesn't speak English that the sign would be in ANY language other than English. Is that just me???

I thought this was cool. It says "Brush up business with paint, paste, paper, push and there's a hand with a paint brush on the other side of the windows. I think they're trying to entice a business (or businesses) to renovate and occupy the building.

Random things that tickled me:

This little filly was tied up outside a children's clothing store.

I don't think we have a Balloon Saloon in LA. To the left side were giant animals. All the bright colors caught my eye.

This is the Jefferson Market Courthouse in Greenwich Village. It was built in 1876 as a "women's court until 1932". What, women's issues were too trivial to try in men's court? It is now a public library. BEAUTIFUL building!

9/11 MEMORIALS At St. Paul's Chapel

Firefighters, police, first responders from ALL OVER THE WORLD are still leaving their patches at the memorial for those who lost their lives on 9/11. The priests wear vestments with these patches on them when they preach their sermons as an homage. The text in the top left corner of this display reads:

"I remember looking at their faces when they walked in the church...their faces were so blank, almost like a deadened look on their faces. But after a while, they talk, and eat, and sit, and you'd see them leave smiling." Tara Bane, Victim's Wife and Volunteer

I think this memorial (all of the displays in total and the reason for them) offers testament to the absolute worst and best humans can be.

The red cranes you can see in the background on the left are the ones building the memorial at Ground Zero. The bell in the center is rung every September 11th and whenever there is a major terrorist attack, such as the subway bombings in London in solidarity for the victims as well as the people who help rescue/comfort them.

Work continues at Ground Zero on the memorial. There will be two giant pools with waterfalls in the footprints of the twin towers. They are not going to put buildings there.

This tree was so bright and vibrant in all the green grass and red brick of the church. I thought it was so pretty!

I have walked more in the last three days than I think I have in the last 3 years! Hopefully I'll come home from this 10 lbs. lighter, LOL! I made it all the way down to battery park today then it started to rain so I got on the subway and headed back home. Contrary to popular belief, I will not melt if I get wet, (nor will I spontaneously regenerate) but rain is very bad for cameras. Fortunately I could stow it in the bag I was carrying and it didn't start raining in ernest until I got off the subway only a short block from where I'm staying.

New York - Day 3

FINALLY - PICTURES!

This place is called Shorty's 32. We went there for a drink after dinner last night and I loved the decor with all the eclectic old fashioned fabric lampshades hanging from the ceiling. I asked the bar tender if I could come back when they opened the next day to take some pictures and he said sure. So I did.

Random Things On The Walls And In The Windows Here

This is a poster in the window of a clothing store. It says "This is the woman: She is knowing we are looking". I really need to get a polarizing lens so I can shoot glass without reflections.

There is this one building near the corner of Bowery and Prince(?) that was just covered in graffiti.

Believe it or not, this is a painting further along on that same building. It looks a lot more like a real person in this photograph than it does standing there looking at it - creepy!

This building is also on Bowery. Couldn't see any indication of what this building is for, but that rainbow on the 2nd story says "Hell Yes!".

Some of the streets still have the cobblestones. They haven't been covered over with asphalt. However they're rectangular bricks, not round cobble stones (what I think are cobble stones) so I'm not really sure what that's actually called. This was my morning walk today. These are the things I thought I was taking pictures of yesterday. I think I got everything I wanted today.

UPTOWN

I love this detail with the dragons! This was on Central Park West on my way to the Natural History Museum this afternoon. Got my AAA NY Guide book, a map and a Metro Card (7 day subway pass) so I am good to go!!!

A couple of blocks later I come across this. I get a really strong impression that they don't want anyone sitting on these rails.

Museum Of Natural History

I spend a good chunk of my afternoon here until they closed the place and kicked me out. This is a room called Hall of Biodiversity and on these walls is a sample of every kind of living thing you can think of - it is truly amazing!
Just off of this room is the Hall of Ocean Life. I realized today that although I have been to a few aquariums, I have never been to a museum exhibit about the ocean and life in it (that I can remember). It was actually a bit creepy to be looking at all these dry, static scenes. They should have been moving, swimming, swaying with the currents. It was a very surreal experience for me.

Then there was the butterfly exhibit. It is one of those limited time shows, which just happened to be playing there. The interior of the space where the butterflies are is kept at 80 degrees with VERY high humidity (which I'm guessing is considered a GOOD summer day in NY).

There were butterflies of all shapes and sizes flying around free within this space. There's a name for a butterfly space - like aviary for birds but it's not that word. Can't remember what the word is.

Anyway...

Did you know that butterflies are usually very colorful on the top (dorsal side) but on the bottom side of their wings they're usually very muted colors - grey and browns. I didn't know that, but you can see the bottom sides of the butterflies eating the fruit and see that they are very drab. It's a form of camouflage. I wish I had a longer zoom lens and could have gotten a closer picture of the blue one. It was fairly large and very beautiful.

These kids were trying so hard to get a butterfly to land on them. They stood there with their hands held out like that for quite a long time.

And I went through a lot of other galleries today - they have a very large collection of meteorites. I'm just fascinated at how those things came from outer space and are SOOOO old!

They also have a wonderful gem and mineral collection. I saw the Star of India - the largest know blue star sapphire in the world. It's very beautiful!

We went to a play in SoHo tonight called "The Irish Problem" about a therapy group for men with a particular problem - you'll have to google that, I can't explain it here in case kids are reading this, but the play was really funny!

I'm going to go take some meds for my aching feet then go to bed and see what tomorrow brings - I never know from one day to the next what is going to happen here. 

New York - Day 2

OMG - the network is so SLOW here!!! But I am grateful that I have access at all though.

Still no photos yet. Yesterday was a photography FAIL as I was out taking pictures with no media card in the camera (apparenly it was set so that it would still shoot with no card. I have since disabled that feature). We were walking around an area close to where we are staying so I can retrace my steps and re-shoot the really good stuff again tomorrow. Prince Street is great for shooting - so much interesting stuff!

Today we went to see a documentary called "See What I'm Saying" about the struggles and triumphs of 4 deaf performers. Shamefully, I have to admit that I deliberately avoided going to the premier in LA in March because I have not kept up with my signing and I would have been embarrassed to encounter my former teachers at the screening. I was so glad when I got the email that it would be Premiering in NYC while I was here. I STRONGLY encourage EVERYONE to go see this movie (it's captioned for those who don't understand ASL) even if you don't know any deaf people and/or don't know sign language. It is a wonderful movie!!!! I think they're coming out with a DVD soon and maybe going to wider release in the Fall so check it out at www.seewhatimsayingmovie.com

After the movie we came home and Lisa caught up on email while I read a book I got hooked on in my friend's Kindle called Nine Dragons. I like REAL books and will likely never give them up but the Kindle is wonderful for traveling! Thanks, Jack, for loaning it to me.

Speaking of books - this place I'm staying at here in SoHo - these guys have a great library! I could spend my whole week here reading their books, but I won't because there's so many other things to do that I can only do in New York. However there is one book on the shelf entitled "How to Talk Dirty and Influence People" that I will simply HAVE to read before I leave. And they have a very impressive art collection - Basquiat (don't care for his work much, but at least I know who he was), Hockney, Maplethorp and others I don't know but I really like some of their work. Guess some of my art history classes paid off if I can still remember these artists. And this home we are staying in is so charming! Who knew there was so much ROOM behind the doors of those brownstones!!! And they have a beautiful garden! I'm sure it's wonderful to sit out there in the evenings in the summer time. The only minor drawback is that it is 3 stories and our bedroom is on the top floor. I don't do stairs too well these days, but hey, they're gracious enough to let us crash here for a week so I will just go slowly and make it work.

Tonight we went to a nearby Italian restaurant for dinner and I had a pasta dish with lamb. I've decided I'm going to try foods I've never sampled before (instead of ordering what is familiar) while I'm here since this is such a grand adventure for me. After dinner we went around the corner to another little restaurant/bar for a drink before we headed home for the night. The decor is so cute - the (hanging) light fixtures are all old style lampshades of various kinds - that I'm going back when they open tomorrow at 11 to take pictures. I didn't take my camera out with me today since we were going to a movie theatre and they generally frown upon such things, but tomorrow I will be shooting again - and this time I WILL make sure I have the memory card in place.

New York - Day 1

No picture today, sorry. Borrowing someone else's computer to connect to the internet and it doesn't read my camera card. Will have to get my computer hooked up to the internet connection here some time later today I hope.

About 2 hours after our flight left we hit some turbulence and had a couple of those short sharp drops in altitude. Someone screamed. I didn't even react and the woman sitting next to me asked "this doesn't bother you?" I told her that unless the fight attendants start barking orders I don't get worried about bumpy air. She was very nervous about flying but I think since Lisa and I were taking it in stride she felt better (at least I hope she did). We arrived at JFK around 12:15 this morning. Getting to SoHo was a breeze - no traffic to speak of at that time of morning.

The brownstone we are staying in, in SoHo, is very nice! Who knew there was so much space in these things! They even have a decent size back yard. It was very nice of Lisa's uncles to let us stay with them for the week. I was awakened at about 6 this morning by a wet, sloppy german shepherd kiss right in my face (I was sleeping on the floor).  2 cats and a dog - better pick up some Benedril. So far it's not bothering me.

Lisa's uncles took us out for breakfast this morning at a little cafe right across the street. Then Lisa & I went for a long walk around SoHo & Tribeca. Walked through Dean & Delucca's (took a couple of pictures in there and some guy came up and told me I couldn't do that). FYI - there's a sign on their door (at about hip level) that says don't take pictures - which you can't see because lots of people are walking in and out the door covering up the sign. Sigh.

Fortunately there are a lot of benches here and there around the city because Lisa can't walk for long periods of time. She is recovering from her back surgery last year but still hasn't gotten her stamina back. The slow pace doesn't bother me, I'm not in a hurry and don't have any agenda to accomplish while I'm here.

Hopefully by tomorrow I will both have some actual photos to post and the ability to get them uploaded.