After so many visits to Wilderness for vacation, Nicholas wanted to visit civilization! He chose NYC as the destination for our short vacation in Mid June, coordinating with my trip to Boston. He selected all places to visit for the trip: Metropolitan museum of Natural History, Museum of Modern Arts, Empire State Building, World Trade Center and memorial park, Grand Central Terminals, Battery Island and Statue of Liberty, Time Square, Wall Street, and High line park,Central Park, and Brooklyn Bridge.
Nicholas and Mom went to NYC on a Wednesday and I joined them the next evening. We stayed at a midtown hotel, a block away from Empire State building. We used public transportation exclusively - subways, ferry.
The night I arrived at NYC, we went to uptown to have dinner with our old friends and their family.
On Friday morning we went to Grand Central to have breakfast and also to meet Lily's friend from college there for the walk on Brooklyn Bridge. A first sight of the grand central was underwhelming because it is dwarfed by surrounding skyscrapers, however I was still amazed by its grandness inside.
After the walk on Brooklyn Bridge and lunch, we went to Wall Street - it was more to feel what is like to walk on Wall street. It is a narrow two lane street with many well known buildings along the way or nearby - NYC Stock Exchange, Trump Building, World Trade Center, St. Patrick's Church, Rockefeller Center, Time Square, Charging Bull
I did not notice then, but realized now that one of the flags at the front of NYC Stock exchange was Texas' Lone Star flag! There was some special thing on that day related to Texas?
After Wall street, Nicholas wanted to see the famous charging bull at the financial district, on Broadway. Many tourists were crowded around the the statue, standing in each others way to take pictures. I waited for a few minutes, and got a time when there was no one standing around it to take the picture below
World trade center and the memorial park was our next stop. I visited the original world trade center twin towers before 9/11/2001. Now they were gone and in their places are two deep, huge square pools - make me feel the emptiness and deep sorrow. It is worth a separate post to record my feeling and the old story!
Rockefeller Center's court yard was a popular places - it was quite different from what I imagined via watch TV.
Time Square was just as seen on TV, crowded with tourists, many neon or electronic Billboards hanging over the streets. It was flashy but street was dirty.
Our day ended with a fine dinner at 4 star restaurant and watching the musical Wicked at Gershwin Theater. I was little bit bored at beginning of the show but enthralled by the singing and the story line. However I thought the show seemed to celebrate abnormality!
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| Grand Central |
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| Grand Central - the main hall |
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| on Brooklyn Bridge |
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| Wall Street's southern end |
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| Trump Tower |
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| Wall Street Stock Exchange |
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| Charging Bull |
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| World trade center |
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| Court yard at Rockefeller Center |
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| Time Square |
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| Gershwin Theater |
We went to look at the building Carnegie Hall and then the Museum of Modern Arts. Nicholas went in by himself, Lily and I went to Rockefeller Center trying to get to observation tower to look down at NYC! The cloud was so thick, it blocked the view so we took a guided tour of Rockefeller center area instead. It was an interesting tour, I learnt a lot about Rockefeller family history but I have to admit that I forgot most of the stories told already. After the tour, we went to M & M specialty store to buy some special M & M chocolates.
Our last stop of the day and the trip to NYC was the Columbia University campus - elegant and beautiful.
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