We took a red eye on JetBlue and arrived at our hotel at 7 AM. Travel tip: do not take red-eye flights if possible... Fortunately the Marriott Courtyard near the NYC Library allowed us to get in our room early and we slept for 5 hours. Here we are ready to start the day after our morning naps. We began with a walk down 5th Avenue.
Our walk took us into Central Park. April and October are great months for NYC!
Here I am in my handy Cabelas shirt with neat pockets, in Central Park, resting.
One of the main motivations for our trip was to go to the Strand Bookstore. Rachel heard on a Gilmore Girls episode Lorelei and Rory talking about going to the Strand and she just had to go. (From Season 4, Episode 1, Lorelei: "Uh, okay, the next day we hit New York, see your fancy art galleries, hit the Strand.") I found several books but Andrew and Rachel came out with nothing. A few days later, at the largest main NYC Barnes & Noble on Union Square, they each found quite a few books. Nevertheless, here is a cute photo in front of the store that advertises "18 miles of books".
We rode the New York Subway often, at least twice a day. Andrew really enjoyed the subways. He likes underground things... Click here for a 440 KB PDF subway map.
We went to Battery Park hoping to hop a ferry over to
Ellis Island to look up Beth's ancestors who went through there, but the line was longer than
we have ever seen it, so instead we got a charicature done of Andrew and Rachel.
Beth's favorite moment on this trip was sitting at the edge of Battery Park.
Here is a panoramic photo from our seat on a bench overlooking the bay. We could see the
Statute of Liberty and Ellis Island to the right. We enjoyed just relaxing, watching the boats ply
the water, and the cool breeze felt great. Travel tip: Always take time to sit, watch, listen, and think.
While resting a store rolled by on wheels... The entrepenours of NYC are sharp. Here they took the cart
to a busier part of the park.
One day it began to rain and suddently there were little old Chinese ladies on
every street corner selling umbrellas for $4! Very smart marketers. We outsmarted them however by not buying
an umbrella but instead going into the nearby Apple Store SoHo,
where we were able to rest out of the rain. Of course I bought a new PowerBook bag for $50... ;-) This store,
by the way, was packed. They had a flood of store clerks wandering around with a little Symbol device checking
people out if you could pay with a credit card - and they emailed you your receipt, all in an effort to get you
out the door with minimal delay. Shortly after we returned home they opened a new store on
Fifth Avenue that is open 24x7!
We then walked into the Wall Street area and made our way into the
Trinity Church cemetary
where we saw the graves of many famous people, including
Robert Fulton, and
Alexander Hamilton, seen here.
We stopped at street vendors often to try their tasty hot dogs, skewers of meat, lamb sandwiches,
and of course cold soft drinks. I like how this vendor set up a nice display at the end of the cart.
We stopped for a break to look at Ground Zero where the World Trade Center used to be. A happy crew!
We went through Grand Central Station a lot (building in foreground), and I always enjoy looking
at the Chrysler Building (tall building in the back).
We found an art gallery and bought two paintings which we had sent home. This one of ships
and the ocean was for me...
... and this one of the Mediterranean was for Beth.
Walking near Times Square we saw a modest businessman's car, a
Maybach 62 in a beautiful blue... Beth actually struck
up a conversation with the driver of the car while he waited for his employer.
We had a tasty steak dinner at Tad's again - for a very reasonable price. (Just off of Times Square.)
This is part of a BMW V-12 engine on display at the New York City Car show. Impressive machining!
This is the new BMW Z4 M Coupe. I like the color especially!
They had some Maybachs on display at the car show. Look at the rear seat which reclines and
has unbelievable legroom, and check out the nice LCD displays!
We had some excellent meals at Cafe Metro,
a chain of reasonably priced delis in NYC. We went to
one on 14 E 42nd Street that had some terrific sandwiches and salads. The Turkey
Cuban sandwiches were excellent. We also found a terrific lobster bisque next door at The Soup Man
at 4 E 42nd Street. We took it all back up to our room around the corner and had a great time.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art was great. We had never spent much time in the Egyptian wing before.
They have built this room, with a large glass wall looking out on Central Park, in order to house an Egyptian
temple which was rescued from an area that is now underwater due to the
Aswan Dam. They took it apart and
reassembled it here. They also had Egyptian tombs with a similar story - once inside those you really felt
like you were in Egypt!
The American landscape painters from the late 1700s are always great to look at. Andrew enjoyed
these quite a bit.
I like the blurr of the subway and of Beth in this photo - see how busy and fast paced we were? ;-)
On our last day, lunch at a favorite cafe: Raffles on 511 Lexington Avenue. Rachel I think was just taking it all in.
Our last thing before leaving was to have a Jamba Juice
on 9 W 42nd Street while overlooking the NYC Library.
While in the airport at JFK waiting for our flight we were able to use free wireless internet for the
JetBlue terminal, which was a nice convenience. We had another wonderful time in New York as a family.
The Marriott Courtyard New York Manhattan/Fifth Avenue was a great location - highly recommended.
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Created: 06 Jul 2006
Modified: 06 Jul 2006