Scores of people have visited Emm in London, left comments and joined as members and I’m slowly going through and visiting people’s blogs in return. It has been lovely and very kind of people to take the time.
Thank you Blogger (and bloggers)! You made my day.
I would recommend following the Blogger Twitter feed where you can find out about known issues and the Blogs of Note: http://twitter.com/Blogger
I decided to hop onto a bus and head on down to the Empire State Building.
"Just got on bus and tried to use Metro card. I thought I had three rides left but turns out you pay $5 for AirTrain at JFK airport so only had $1 left on card. Tried to pay a dollar but it only takes coins (like the phones!). Driver told me to pay the coins I had which was only 66c!! How nice!”
[Click on any of the photos for enlargements]
In the lobby of the ESB
It was a cloudy day and I was really worried that I would have limited visibility at the top of the ESB. Note to self: I should have been more worried about being blown off the roof or hypothermia! It was slightly cold and windy at the top. I think the cold and grey kept most people away though as there weren’t many queues when I went to visit. My CityPass enabled me to skip what few queues there were though.
I was absolutely shaking with cold so please excuse some of the blurry photos!
Looking West
Looking West you can see New Jersey in the distance beyond the Hudson River. One Penn Plaza is the tall black building in the middle of the photo and Madison Square Garden is there peeking out on the bottom, left hand side of the building.
Close up of Macys and my very first glimpse of Times Square
Looking South
Looking South you can see the East River to the left, the Hudson River to the right and the Atlantic Ocean is in the far distance. The land on the left is Brooklyn, Staten Island is straight ahead and the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island are the two little islands in the Hudson River. Once upon a time, you would have been able to see the World Trade Centre to the right hand side of the downtown skyscrapers.
To the left, the building with the big, gold pyramid on top is the New York Life Building. Moving back and to the right, the building with the smaller golden top is the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower. The Flatiron Building is visible towards the right centre of the photo.
Looking East
Gazing over the East River, you can see Queens to the left and Brooklyn to the right. The tip of Three Park Avenue is just visible at the bottom of the photo.
I love this photo because it gives an idea of the giants, density and different styles in all of the New York’s buildings. This is the view looking towards the North East. The United Nations is the rectangle building on the right that seems to stand alone against the East River. The Chrysler Building is there in the centre of the photo.
Looking North
Looking North you can see Central Park and the Bronx in the far distance. I was staying near to the North Western corner of Central Park. Almost back where we began, looking to the North West, you can see the Hudson River stretching off into the distance.
It was a lot to take in on that first day going in to the centre of Manhattan but it is amazing now to look back and to see so many things that I recognise!! It is silly but I am really longing to return to New York and soon! Am I going to be one of those people that lands up visiting every year?
One of my favourite photos ever
I had a nap and then left the apartment just after 3pm and walked the three blocks to Central Park. I entered in the north-western corner, climbed a small rise and was confronted by the beauty that is Central Park. How do I explain this? Within moments I could envisage myself living in New York and running through Central Park every day and that feeling hasn’t gone away since. It’s a real pity that Stephen is absolutely not interested in moving to the US.
I loved that I could just walk and walk for ages, choosing between different routes and not knowing what was around the next corner. It felt strange to be walking alone as this is something I could never, ever have done in South Africa. Still, there were loads of people running or walking their dogs.
Still in the north-western corner, I think this is called The Pool. I took some time to absorb the beauty and to look at the people relaxing around me…
… and then I had a close encounter with a racoon!! I’ve never seen one of these little creatures before and apparently was lucky to see one in the daytime.
The art deco styled Eldorado apartment block
The Upper East Side viewed over the Jackie Onassis Reservoir
I took a break at the bottom of Jackie Onassis Reservoir and wrote in my notebook:
4:40pm I walked for an hour through Central Park from 110th Street to about 86th Street. It starts off lush and forest-like and then gives way to playgrounds, grassy areas with miniature soccer team practices, tennis courts and so on. I stopped for a refreshing Lifesavers popsicle and a Dragonfruit Vitamin Water. I’d been wondering what the fuss was about Vitamin Water and now I know – it is quite pleasant.
I’m quite tired now. I’m sitting by the Pinetum which seems to be a quiet area. I’m wondering if I should visit the snooty Upper East Side on my trip. Everyone looks so… normal, nothing like they do in Gossip Girl!
Made the decision not to go to Boston which is sad. Will delay trip to Washington DC until Thursday which means I don’t have to be up by 6am tomorrow which is fab.
Booked a CityPass ticket for $79. It seems to be worth it as you can’t get entrance into all of those attractions for less.
I must stand up now. My legs are taking strain but hopefully I worked off those dim sum (New Favourite Thing). I’ll try to make it down to Times Square now maybe or perhaps the Guggenheim.
I got my first glimpse of the New York skyline…
… and I watched some amateur baseball on the Great Lawn (where only team sports are allowed, no sedentary activities).
I exited Central Park on the Upper East Side on Fifth Avenue. I saw a snooty Catholic Girls School (Marymount School) and amused myself thinking up Gossip Girl type scenarios. Can you imagine going to a grand old school like this or living in gorgeous apartments like this overlooking Central Park?
The one thing that really impressed me about New York and DC was how white and clean their buildings are! Buildings like this are generally various shades of grey in London and Johannesburg.
I thought I’d take a picture of some good old New York taxi cabs, seeing as I had no intention of actually getting in one! This was taken outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
5.45pm I’ve just realised it is Monday. I’ve been writing “Tu” all day in my diary. The Met is closed on Mondays and the Guggenheim just closed at 5.45pm. What shall I do now?
Click here to see all posts from my trip to New York in 2009.
Monday 22 June 2009: On my first morning in New York, I went for breakfast at Artopolis on the corner of Amsterdam & West 113th street and planned the week ahead. All the quoted passages come from my paper diary; click on the photos for full sizes.
“As I walked down W113th Street this morning it occurred to me that I was walking on US soil. It’s almost surreal because so much seems ‘familiar’ from watching US television all my life but this is the real thing”.
“I stopped by a cafe this morning for a savoury crepe. Alex, my hostess, had told me about it last night. Crepes, hotdogs and bananas are my weaknesses, so I knew I was heading straight here this morning. $5.75 for an olive, sundried tomato and feta crepe plus coffee. I think I just had my first taste of half and half!”
It was “half and half” and now I know why Americans miss it so much when they are overseas! It is a mixture of half cream, half milk and it is delicious. A far cry from the skim milk I usually opt for.
It is a testament to how busy I was that week that I never got to do some of the things I thought I would that were closest to “home”. One of those things was to visit Columbia University, which was just around the corner. The other was to go into the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine which is apparently the largest gothic cathedral in the world and was right on my doorstep!
Thankfully I got these photos on that first morning because despite walking past it the rest of the week, I took no more photos of this magnificent church! What amazing detail though.
I was very excited to see an authentic New York firehouse across the road from Alex’s apartment. I was even more excited to see that I was turning the firemen’s heads as much as they were turning mine! I have to admit to having a weakness for firemen and I brought Ste home a FDNY shirt.
I just loved looking at all the old apartment blocks in New York. They are ancient and have such… quaint designs! The interior of our apartment block in particular was like something from a bygone era and was quite exquisite. Can any of my art loving friends help me place this particular era? Art nouveau?
By this stage of the morning, I had realised that my plans to visit both Boston and Washington DC had been too ambitious and I went back to the apartment to let Josef know I wouldn’t be able to visit. This made me very sad! A combination of heat and the time lag had given me a headache and so I lay down for a brief nap and left the apartment just after 3pm for a walk through Central Park.
Sunday, 21 June 2009: the day of the summer solstice which means it is the day with the most hours of daylight in the northern hemisphere. Of course, that still equates to 16 hours of daylight or so but 21 June was indeed the longest day ever for me because I flew to New York that day and experienced daylight for a whopping 20 or so hours.
I landed at JFK airport in New York at about noon. I was really surprised as it took a whole hour to clear passport control which is officially the longest time I have ever had to wait in an immigration queue. Granted, I travel on both a South African and British passport usually (as is required by the South African government if I wish to retain dual nationality) and so I am not used to immigration queues at all. Despite the long wait, the man that served me was very welcoming and friendly and it gave me my first taste of the wonderful spirit of the people of New York.
Passing through baggage control was quite funny. I had packed 8 t-shirts, two pairs of shorts and a pair of pyjamas into my rucksack which we had then shrink-wrapped. It looked really small and weighed in at 9kg but I needed to pack only that which I could easily carry myself and at that stage, I did not know whether I would be travelling to Boston and DC. At the final customs check, the attendant looked at my bag and asked in an amazed voice how long I was staying. I explained my story to him and he let me through with a rather surprised look on his face.
Lesson number one for travel to the US: I don’t care how you arrange it but ensure you have a roll of quarters handy when you land in the US. I needed to phone Stephen to let him know I had landed and my hosts to tell them I was on my way and phones do not take notes in the US! The problem is that although $1 coins are in circulation, if you get clever, say, and buy a chocolate bar for the change, you are likely to get a hand full of $1 notes in change. Seriously, take my word for it, get a roll of quarters. You won’t regret it. We’ll come back to this later.
I caught the AirTrain which goes straight from Terminal 4 (where I landed) to Howard Beach Station which gets you on to the New York subway system (the A train). The AirTrain is really well signposted plus there are public service announcements so there is no need to fall victim to the unscrupulous scam taxi drivers that they warn you about.
The AirTrain is free if you wish to transfer between terminals but it costs $5 to transfer on to the subway system. You can buy a reusable MetroCard at the station for $7 which will give you $8.05 worth of credit on. If you are in New York for a week though, I would highly recommend getting an unlimited $27 week pass. That doesn’t include the AirTrain but despite the amount of walking I did in the week, I still used over $27 worth of subway and bus fares. Fares are $2.25 each now, as they went up the day I left. For $2.25 for a transfer from Howard Beach Station to the apartment on the other side of Manhattan (upper west side), New York City transport completely trumps London transport in terms of affordability.
When it came to accommodation, I was really lucky in that I was chatting to Sue, an old friend and work colleague from South Africa and she put me in touch with her sister Alex who lives in New York now. Alex heard that I was considering staying in a youth hostel and immediately offered me a place at her apartment rather. Unfortunately, Alex and her family were away much of the week, so we didn’t get to spend much time together.
Anyway, the subway system in New York is incredibly easy to navigate. I found it quite easy to follow Alex’s instructions and arrived at her place on West 113th Street at about 4pm. (Yup, it took about 4 hours with passport control, trying to find change for the phone and accidentally getting off the subway at the wrong station). Alex took me on a tour of the neighbourhood (which is right near to Columbia University), fed me sushi and then it was bedtime for her four-year-old son and I.
The longest day ever but I was in New York, finally!
