My feet haven't touched the ground since we got back home and I'm only just getting round to blogging about New York. I will publish one day at a time so you don't get muddled up!
Friday
We had decided to eat breakfast out while we were in New York so headed
out about 8.30am. We went to the deli at
the bottom of the street and had a nice breakfast but at $25 we won’t be doing
it again! Back at the apartment we met
our Apple Greeter, Barbara. Big Apple
Greeter had been recommended to us by friends and we thought we would give them
a try. Big Apple Greeter was founded in
1992 by Lynn Brooks as the first “welcome visitor” program of its kind in the
United States. The 300+ volunteer
Greeters bring approximately 7,000 visitors a year to more than 100 neighbourhoods
throughout the City. Since its launch, Big Apple Greeter has welcomed visitors
from all 50 states and 124 countries, with visits conducted in over 20
languages. It is a free service but if
you would like to make a donation then that can be done through their website.
Barbara had a plan and we followed her lead. We started off by getting the subway to
Madison Square – it was so hot and stuffy in subway not like the underground in
London. We walked round the square and
saw the Flatiron Building which is considered to be a ground-breaking
skyscraper. Upon completion in 1902, it was one of the tallest buildings in the
city at 21 floors high, and one of only two skyscrapers north of 14th Street.
We walked through a farmers’ market and I saw the most amazing radishes!
From there we took a bus (lots of transit education going on here!) to
the High Line. This is a 1.45 mile long linear
park built on an elevated section of a disused railroad spur called the West
Side Line. The High Line Park uses the
disused southern portion of the West Side Line running to the Lower West Side
of Manhattan. There was a lovely breeze
up there but it was still very hot. We
walked from one end to the other, admiring the lovely flora and fauna on our
way.
By the end of the High Line we were extremely hot and fairly exhausted
but ever keen to carry on we followed Barbara until she stopped at a bar where
we collapsed!! It had been a long, hot
morning but we had learnt so much and seen places that I’m sure we wouldn’t
have seen on our own. Barbara is so knowledgeable
and obviously loves her city very much.
It was a great experience and we were so lucky to have found her.
After lunch and lots of water we walked on to try and get our pre-booked
hop-on hop-off bus tickets. Our
paperwork told us that there was a store just up from the bar that had a ticket
booth so we wandered off only to find that the store closes at 1pm on a Friday –
I guess it must be owned by Orthodox Jews as they were everywhere. The next place was about 3 blocks away so we
walked up there only to find that the booth is only manned in the morning! The next office was at the Empire State
Building where we finally got our tickets.
However by this stage we were so exhausted after walking around 2.5
miles in about 33° C that we didn’t fancy going on the bus and took a taxi back
to the apartment.
After a well deserved rest we put on our glad rags as we were going to
see Jersey Boys – well you can’t come to New York and not see a show on
Broadway can you??! We stopped for
dinner first which was appalling – the worst meal we have had for years L
However Jersey Boys made up for it – it was fantastic and even Richard
said the enjoyed it (not a great one for enthusiasm my husband!) We sat tapping our feet and no-one wanted it
to end.
We were shattered when we got back to the apartment and just fell into
bed.
A few more photos from today
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| These are knitted pigeons - she wanted $25 each! |
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| Found on the High Line - I guess it's a bovine bone as it's near the meat packers |
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