Cruisin in NYC - Day 4

Back here I talked about how we started Day 4 by walking the park.  That took up a good part of the morning.  We just had time to find a place to grab some wraps for lunch and take the subway down to 42nd and walk the 6 long blocks to Pier 83 for our Circle Line boat cruise. 

Side note: not sure that these pictures are actually in order of how we saw them.

There are a few different Circle Line Cruise options.  We opted for the 2 hour semi-circle cruise.  You start at 42nd Street at 12th Avenue and go down around the island of Manhattan all the way to 42nd on the other side of the island and then turn around and go back.  It's a super neat way to see Manhattan from a perspective that you wouldn't normally see it.  And the announcer on the boat tells you about a lot of cool facts about the city.

Pretty sure the picture below is in a few movies, but you don't usually see it from this perspective.  It's the only driving range in the city, and because they can't make it wider, they built up and have 4 different levels that you can drive balls from.   

The Empire State Building from the Hudson

The only picture of Ryan and I together in New York.  Taken by Me.  Not that fantastic but at least I got the statue in the background!

 This is where the towers used to be, going up on either side of that green dome.

This is the new tower that is being built.  The roof will be the same height as the old tower, but the spire on the top will make the building taller.



Wall Street

The Chrysler Building



Apparently the first sign made with "neon"



The Brooklyn Bridge





Ellis Island



The cruise was great, despite the wind.  Then we got on a city bus.  Our first and only bus of the trip.  It said it was a cross town 42nd Street bus, so we figured it wouldn't get us too lost.  We took it back to 5th Avenue and walked up to Rockefeller Center for Top of the Rock.  It was about 3:30 by this point, on a Tuesday, and apparently that is the time to do Top of the Rock! We did have a pass that got us a line bypass, but there was no line to bypass anyways.  We basically went right up.  It was a pretty clear day, which made the view really amazing.



This was our last big tourist activity before our flight back home, but it was only about 4:30 and we didn't have to go to the subway to get back to the airport until about 7:30.  So we went back to Times Square and found this amazing pizza place called John's Pizza.  It was similar to Grimaldi's.  Funny how you justify pizza twice when you are on vacation!  After dinner we went over to Cold Stone Creamery and got some ice cream.  I love Coldstone, but it is another vacation treat.  It's also easy to justify junk food when you have walked for miles and miles in the last four days.  After that it was pretty much time to go back.  The good thing about New York is that as amazing as it is, and as much fun as we had, it is so exhausting that its actually kind of nice to get home and get back to normal. 

And just in case you missed them, the other New York posts are here, here, here and here.  So check 'em out!

Goin' Downtown - NYC Day 3

Day 3 of our New York adventures we headed downtown.  We stopped at the Blue Spoon Coffee Co for breakfast.  Their coffee was unbelievable.  Better than Starbucks.  (I can't believe that I just said that!)  And my chocolate chip muffin was oh so delish!

We had tickets for the 9/11 memorial at 11:30 so we had a lot of time to kill.  We started off at the Court House.  You may recognize those steps from basically every episode of Law and Order.  Then we just kind of wandered around.  Found a little park by City Hall, went down to Battery Park (and almost blew into the Hudson), looked at the Statue of Liberty from afar.

Below is St. Paul's Cathedral.  This is where a lot of the volunteers during 9/11 recuperated, got something to eat, or slept on a cot.  Each time I have gone to the chapel, there has been a bit less 9/11 memorabilia than there was the time before.  I guess ground zero was the same way.  Everything was removed gradually as people are able to move on.  It wasn't quite as emotional for me this time, but maybe that's just because I have seen it before.

What was emotional for me this time, was just walking around the area.  I'm not sure what was different than the other times, but for some reason, this time I thought about what it was like that morning.  We were down there at 9am on a Monday morning.  Walking amongst other tourists and all of the New Yorkers on their way to work.  The first plane hit at around 8:45, so I was thinking about how it was just a typical day, and what it was like for all those people who didn't know what was going on at the time. 

Below is the Trinity Church and cemetery.  It was a beautiful church from the outside.  We spent some time wandering around the cemetery.  (Is that creepy).  Some of the tombstones were so old that you couldn't read them anymore.  So many of them were for children, or 28 year olds or 43 year olds, back from a time when nobody lived into their 80's or 90's.  I also just found out that JJ Astor (who died on the Titanic) was buried in this cemetery.  Wish I had of known that when I was there! Unfortunately this wasn't really a planned stop, so I hadn't looked into the cemetery ahead of time.

 This is Wall Street. 

 This is the Wall Street sign. (Thank you Captain obvious).

 

This is a man with a cat on his head.  We snapped a pic, cause it was weird.  Then he caught someone trying to take a picture and tried to charge them a dollar.  We really dodged a bullet there!

We made it to 11:30 and after going through some extreme security, made it into the 9/11 memorial.  It was a beautiful large park, which is currently surrounded by fences and construction. 

There are two large pools where the original towers stood.  The names of all those who died are written around the edges of the pools.  I'm sure once everything in the area is completed, it will be an amazing space for people to remember all those who died on September 11th.

After the memorial, we walked the Brooklyn Bridge!  It was pretty neat.  Very long! They have a separate walkway for people to walk on that is above the road.  One side of that white line is for walkers, the other is for bikes.  I'm not sure that people actually follow that, there seemed to be a lot of walkers on the bike side.  It's a pretty spectacular bridge.

 

Luckily, we had a goal in mind while walking across the bridge.  I had heard that Grimaldi's pizza in Brooklyn was one of the best pizza places in the city.  And that may be true.  It was quite delish.  Everything I read says the long wait is worth it, so we must have lucked out because we were seated right away.  I meant to take a picture of the pizza when it came out, but I was distracted by my hunger.

 

We took the subway back into the city.  We ended up at the Flatiron building.  And then walked up to the Museum of Sex.  Oh us dirty dogs.  It's actually just a lot of reading about the history of sex, sexual habits of animals and so on.  They claim a lot of animals take part on homosexual relations.  I found that slightly hard to believe.  And there was a picture of a duck having sex with a dead duck - the first documented necrophilia in animals, or something.  Strange or interesting? I don't know.  Too much reading for Ryan.  But it's got a name that just draws people in I think! 

 That night, we wanted a real dinner.  Last time I was in New York I went to this restaurant that had an all you can eat pasta deal for like $20.  You got salad or antipasto and then three different kinds of pasta.  Then they keep refilling the pasta if you want.  Problem was, all I knew was that it was Italian and close to Times Square.  So I googled it.  What did people do before Google?  It was called Becco and it was only one block away from our hotel on 46th between 8th and 9th Avenue.  Turns out that's Restaurant row.  Who knew that there was a street with 31 restaurants within one block! (Well now you know).  

After dinner, we walked it off.  We considered ice cream, but were just too full.  We are such travel losers.  In bed early every night.  But it's our vacation and we will do what we want! So we went to bed early....again.....But at least I have a picture of Times Square at night. 

New York - Day 2 Events

I already talked about Central Park on Day 2.  We had planned on that walk taking hours, but we were done by about 9:30.  So then we headed over to the American Museum of Natural History.  It was actually perfect timing because it started to rain and didn't really stop for the rest of the day. 

We saw some dinos at the museum.  This is Rex.  He was my buddy.

We found these in the gift shop.  They are Kitras vases, made close to home.  Who goes to the Museum of Natural History and buys a glass vase? I don't know. 

After the museum, we headed to Rockefeller Center to book our studio tour.  We could get in that same day so we just had a few hours to kill.  We rain walked it down to the New York Public Library.  It's a big building but I didn't really see too many books.  It is beautiful though. 

Then we headed over to Grand Central Station.  What a gorgeous building! It's called Grand Central for a reason.  Plus I saw Cynthia Nixon (aka Miranda from Sex and the City) while we were walking in.   

We still had some time to kill, and we found a Junior's in the cafeteria.  We had heard they had the best cheesecake in New York.  And it was pretty delicious.  You can tell by the look on my face.

Then we took the subway back to Rockefeller Center.  We were sick of the rain.  We weren't allowed to take pictures on the NBC studio tour because the stages are copyrighted.  But we got to see the Dr. Oz stage, Jimmy Fallon and Saturday Night Live.  

Fun Facts:

• Each Saturday Night Live skit costs $250,000, if the actor misses the cue, they have to cut to commercial and that money is lost
• Every Saturday night live actor (including hosts) have a mold of their head made so that makeup can be figured out without them being there.  In the words of our tour guide, 2 people have not had head molds - Betty White (because she is old) and Taylor Lautner (because he is clausterphobic, which is why he never wears a shirt in his movies)
• A 5 pound weight fluctuation requires a new head mold
• Dr. Oz isn't actually on NBC, he rents the studio and then sells the show out to whichever network purchases it, so he could be on different networks all over the country
• Jimmy Fallon isn't live - He films at 5:30 each day (maybe other people know this, I just assumed the late night shows were actually filmed late at night)
• Dr. Oz films 2 episodes 3 days a week, he still performs surgeries every Thursday

If you missed it, here is day 1 and Central Park.

Top 10 New York City Tips

I thought I would just kind of summarize everything from my three trips to NYC (not that I'm by any means a pro). But here are my 10 tips for the average tourist:

1.  Get some kind of attraction pass - This time we got the Explorer pass and were able to add the attractions that we wanted onto it and get about a 22% discount over all.  Last time I went I got the New York Pass.  You can get it for 1, 2, 3 or 7 days and you just do as many of the attractions in those days as you can.  It's great if you have a lot that you want to get done. 

Our New York Pass included a tour of Madison Square Gardens

2.  Spend time in Central Park - It's free, beautiful and the best part (in my opinion) of the city.

3.  Go to a comedy show - Although we didn't go to one this time, I did the past two times.  They often sell tickets in Times Square and its a fun activity.  There is usually a 2 drink minimum or $20 once you get in, but it's well worth it. 

4.  Get an unlimited Metro pass - We got the 7 day unlimited metro pass.  I'm not sure that we saved too much money on it, but we never thought twice about jumping on the subway, so it was worth it for that reason alone. 

5.  Mix your day up with walking and non-walking activities - The walking is tiring.  So make sure that you have scheduled time and activities where you can sit down.

6.  Get cheap Broadway tickets - Again, we didn't do Broadway this time around, but if you are going to do it, there is no need to pay full price for tickets! The first time I went we stood in line at the TKTS booth in Times Square and they have discount tickets for the day of a performance.  Apparently there is also a booth at the South Street Seaport that isn't as busy.  Last time I found discounted Chicago tickets online and we bought them ahead.  Travelzoo.com seems to have a lot of discounted Broadway tickets.

7.  Don't eat at chains - Starbucks is my exception here.  Probably because it's a treat for me.  But other than that, New York is full of amazing restaurants and delis.  Take full advantage of trying something new.

8.  Wear comfortable shoes - I'm not sure how the real New Yorkers wear their flats or heels, maybe their feet are used to the walking.  Your feet will not be.  I recommend comfortable shoes that don't cause blisters.

9.  Don't feel like you have to do everything - after all, if you don't then you have an excuse to go back.

10.  Do what's right for you - If you like museums then spend hours in them, if you don't, then why waste the time or money?  If you want to go to New York and just wander around and experience the city then that's fine too.  Follow your own travel rules, not anybody elses.