Wednesday 26 September: Day trip to NYC with Alex and 20km on our shoes!
Early rise, to another dull and wet day. At least its warmer than yesterday. The plan is to get the first off peak train to Penn Station. So we are quick to have breakfast, and dinghy ashore. But Uber has other plans for us, as our driver takes forever to arrive for pick up, and even longer to get us to Huntington Station. As a result, we miss the train by few minutes. Bugger. The next train is just 30 min later, and we have to change, but at least we won’t be too late into NYC. Looking forward to a nice coffee, to make us feel better!
Once arrived into Penn station we decide to walk it all the way downtown to One World Trade Center. Alex is quite enthralled by the city and buildings, especially that his job is designing service systems for buildings.
At first we are a bit concerned with all the clouds above us, and as we see the top of Empire State Building disappearing into a cloud, we think it won’t be a good day for high observation decks. But as the morning progresses, it gradually clears.
We walk down Broadway, admire the Flat Iron building the the few pretty squares along the way, grab a coffee at Maison Kayser and arrive at One World within a minute of our ticket time for the observation deck. Once through all the advertising blurb (oh! they do go on…) we finally emerge to see the view. And oh what a view it is. Stunning 360. The sun has come out too! Our only disappointment is that we are enclosed behind glass, and not out in the open air. We take our time to observe the city from up here, taking in the amazing view.
From this near sky experience we go back down to earth and stop at the 9/11 memorial, the amazing waterfall pools made into the bases of each twin tower. Very fitting piece of architecture for this somber place of tragedy. We wanted to visit the 9/11 Museum too, but the queue was too long and estimated visiting time 2-3 hours. So we decide to carry on see the city while the sun is out.
Then it’s a walk to Wall Street and NEw York Stock Exchange. Although exciting, we find it very uninspiring compared to London’s financial district, which has a certain buzz about it.
Then a subway experience up to Grand Central Station, which perfectly lived up to its name – Grande. What a splendid place. There was also a very informative exhibition in the Vanderbilt Hall, about the passed preservation efforts to save this monument.
We then proceed towards Central Park. On the way we find many roads blocked and police and secret service agents everywhere. And certain hotels, where the UN states presidents are staying, are barricaded using city council trucks. We guess to stop any potential ramming attacks. It’s all quite a sight. But a very slow walk for us.
Central Park is as expected, a park, very green and nice contrasting scenery, with the surrounding tower blocks between the trees. Sadly, we didn’t have time to walk further into the park, to see the main highlights.
Next we walk to the Rockefeller Center where we have booked sunset tickets for Top of the Rock. The view is again very good. One side over Central Park, the other towards down town and a clear view of the Empire State Building. As the dusk approaches and the city starts to light up it really comes alive to the eye. A perfect place to see this and at a perfect time. Absolutely mobbed, and somehow we feel the night experience on Empire State Building observation deck was better than the view from here.
Next stop is Times Square, which seems to have more light by night than in the day. As usual very busy. Finally we walk west to 9th street, just far enough away from Times Square influence (rubbish food at high prices) and pick a genuine Italian restaurant, Uncle Antonio, for Alex to have the true NY pizza experience. Have to say, it was indeed a damned good pizza. And an even better tiramisu.
When we come out at 9:45pm it started raining. What a lucky day we have had with the weather. So we run for Penn Station and get the train back to Huntington. One Uber and one dinghy ride later we are back aboard Cloudy Bay by midnight, totally pooped!
A great day. And we are happy we have seen NYC in a different light this time.
