Neither Paul nor I had been to New York City before this past weekend. As you can learn by reading our travel adventures, we generally are not drawn to urban settings.
We worked together to come up with an itinerary and as a result, we both were ready to hit the ground running when we landed.
We stayed at the
Marriott Marquis hotel,
located on Broadway in the theatre district. A nice hotel, it worked well for us
although staying right in Times Square
is a bit insane. Interesting, though!
That evening, we walked around the area to see the sites. We had done our research and decided we would eat at
Becco,
an easy walk from our hotel. We toasted our arrival in the city
and enjoyed an excellent Italian meal
at
Lidia Bastianich's restaurant. Incidentally, I happen to admire this chef! What a perfect place to start our trip to New York.
After our dinner we needed to walk (obviously) and thus found ourselves at Rockefeller Center
and at the statue, Prometheus, who overlooks the Rink Bar, which is the area they flood in winter for the skating rink.
We walked past Radio City Music Hall
and just enjoyed the lights
We knew we had a full day on Saturday, so we left the party out there pretty early!
We woke to a nice view of Manhattan from our hotel window.
Our list of things to see on Saturday was long, so we put on our walking shoes for a full day of sightseeing. We started at a section of Central Park designated as
as a memorial to John Lennon,
who lived across the street in the exclusive Dakota Building. We learned Yoko Ono still owns everything in this building above the wrought iron fence surrounding the top floors. Kerching!!! Despite Yoko, I will always love John.
We walked along the street in front of St. Patrick's Cathedral,
which is across the street from the two ton statue of Atlas,
who resides in front of Rockefeller Center, which is actually a complex of nineteen buildings covering twenty two acres.
What a beautiful city!
We saw the 1902 Beaux-Arts style Flatiron Building. It was the tallest building in New York at its completion.
It is near Madison Square Park, named after James Madison. This park, which was dedicated a public space in 1686, was also the original home of the New York Knickerbocker Baseball Club!
We viewed the Empire State Building from this park. We decided next trip we would go to the top!
Next, we visited the historic South Street Seaport, located on the East River.
We listened to a tour guide, a moonlighting NYPD cop, point out numerous movie and television scene locations shot in this locale. I am not up on my movies, so retention was a struggle for me. Paul reminded me he had talked about Cagney movies, "Men in Black" and one we watched in the past year, "I Am Legend."
The docks are a prime vantage point for viewing "BMW":
The Brooklyn Bridge, the Manhattan Bridge and the Williamsburg Bridge. Very stunning.
Next, we boarded the Staten Island Ferry so we could see the Statue of Liberty. I kept thinking I should have seen her years ago.
Paul has always considered the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge to be one of the most famous bridges in the world and it was a must see for him. The bridge connects Brooklyn and Staten Island and we had a good view of it from the ferry.
I loved the view of Manhattan we enjoyed on our return trip from Staten Island.
Our next destination was the financial district to see the front of New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street
and the more familiar view of the rear of the building on Broad Street.
This was an important destination on our tour for me. Although we didn't spend a great deal of time here, probably the most profound moment of the day was standing at the site of the World Trade Center.
We headed back to our hotel and walked to a Szechuan restaurant we had read about. Spicy! Yum!
We called it a day after an evening walk. Whew! Lights out!!!! Great day.
We woke to a rainy Sunday morning. That didn't stop us from being at the
Metropolitan Museum of Art when their doors opened.
We could have easily spent a month there.
We had a difficult time prioritizing, like kids in a candy shop.
We had to leave in the afternoon so we could get to
Lincoln Center
for the afternoon matinee of
South Pacific,
the main reason I was so intent on a trip to New York. The beautiful leading lady, Laura Osnes, is an Eagan High School graduate and someone I hold very dear to my heart. It was so fun to see her on stage and even more fun to give her a hug after the show.
She graciously gave us a back stage tour, even showing us how she "washed that man right out of her hair."
We said our goodbyes, promising to come to see her in her next Broadway show and walked through the
Hell's Kitchen neighborhood on our way back to our hotel. After a slice of New York pizza, we were ready to crash for the evening.
The next morning we enjoyed our last view from our hotel and headed for the airport.
We both came away with a good, basic understanding of the city. We'll return! I just hope it doesn't take another fifty seven years to get there!!!!
