New York Trip Report

I'm sorry it's taken me so long to get this up! It's still only the first four days, but it's a *long* read, even though I tried to be brief! I'm working my way through editing the pics, but there are over 900 to wade through, weed out the bad ones, and edit and upload the good ones, and now that I'm getting more 'into' my photography, I do more to them, which makes it slower! I'm working on it, promise!

New York, Part One

Monday - I met Debbie, Daniel and Dom at the railway station and travelled to Heathrow airport by train and Tube. We got there at 1pm, collected our boarding passes and dropped off our suitcases at bag drop, then went through security control and had lunch at O'Neills, before buying last minute sweets and reading material for the plane and heading for the departure lounge. Our flight was called for boarding on time, and we took off at around 4:30pm, arriving at New York's John F Kennedy Airport on time at 7pm, after a smooth but boring flight. Immigration was pretty quiet, and we were through in less than half an hour, so headed to baggage reclaim and customs, before making our way out to the cabs. We hopped in a cab immediately, and were at our hotel, the Milford Plaza on west 45th Street and 8th Avenue, in about 30 minutes. Checking in was simple, though as the only person without a credit card I had to leave a $75 cash deposit for any incidental charges, which was fine. After we checked in, we went to our rooms on the 21st floor, and I was pleased to find that our position on a higher floor afforded me a view of at least a tiny snippet of Times Square, though mostly, I could see more of our hotel and a building below.

After we'd all had a chance to look at our rooms, and freshen up a bit, we met in Daniel's room. Debbie and Dom weren't hungry, and didn't want to go out again, but Daniel and I were, and did! It wasn't even 10pm, and we were in New York for heaven's sake, so we went off to explore Times Square. We didn't stray too far from the hotel - with it being only a couple of hundred yards from Times Square, we had no need to, but we did find McDonalds. Traditionally the staple diet for our breakfasts while on holiday, today it was our evening meal instead, and although the food was up to scratch when we finally received it, all I can say is that it was a good thing that branch is open 24 hours - they'd need to be to make sure everyone eventually gets served! It was raining hard when we left, so we didn't go anywhere, just walked back to the hotel, and arranged to meet up at 9am the following morning. I unpacked the essentials, set my alarm for 7:30am, and nodded off - with the time difference and the extra hour or two that Daniel and I had spent out, it was almost midnight local time - which was almost 5am for me!

Tuesday - I woke at 7:30am, looked out off the window, and saw that far from the sunshine I had expected, it was grey, foggy, and raining. Hmm. I jumped in the bath, which was lovely and deep, though not long enough really, and got ready for the day ahead. At 9am I called Dom and Debbie, and Daniel. Daniel replied to my "Are you ready?" with "Ready? I might have already had breakfast at McDonalds, walked to 31st street and back, and been back in the hotel for half an hour .... "" and we all met in my room, and headed out for breakfast. Debbie had brought an umbrella with her, as well as full length trousers and a sweatshirt, but me being optimistic, had only brought a thin cardigan and cropped trousers, though it wasn't raining too hard yet. Dom, Debbie and I had breakfast at Café Europa, a deli/café chain that we saw all around Manhattan, and we all went for a traditional American breakfast of French toast and maple syrup, with sausage for me and Dom, and bacon for Debbie. Rather yummy, too! Debbie was a bit overwhelmed at the speed at which the deli staff take orders, and the fact that they were constantly shouting "Next!" while she was still trying to decide what she wanted, and never did really get used to the fast pace of New York life!

After breakfast we went to Madame Tussauds, as it was just a couple of streets away, on 42nd Street. our New York Pass got us in free, and after being taken up to the seventh floor in the elevator (glass, and outside the building - very cool!) we were told to follow the floors downwards, ending on the second floor. As for the floor we were starting on, our hotess told us that "the exit to the next floor is right behind Whoopi Goldberg, and restrooms are in back of John Travolta ...." I'd never been to a Madame Tussauds before, and was pleasantly surprised by the standard of many of the waxwork figures, as well as by the people who were featured. I asked everyone to let me know if they saw Jon Bon Jovi, as I wanted my photo taken with him, though I didn't actually know if he had ever sat for Tussauds, but as it happened, Daniel spotted him later. I also had my picture taken with John Wayne, who was a favourite of my grandad, and whose films I like as well. We rubbed shoulders with people like Robin Williams, George W Bush, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Martin Luther King Jr (another hero of mine), Ghandi, Chief Sitting Bull, Duke Ellington, Billie Holliday, Jennifer Aniston, Susan Sarandon, and too many more to remember, yet the whole museum took only an hour to get around, then we had a quick look around the gift shop, where I bought a keyring and a Madame Tussauds umbrella, and we made our way out.

Our next stop was the Empire State Building, though as it was now even foggier and raining pretty hard, we knew there would be poor, or even no, visibility. We decided that we could still get a look at the building, the lobby, and do the NY Skyride, which is a simulated helicopter ride over, under, and through, New York City, with actor Kevin Bacon as your guide. When we arrived, we found that the observation deck was actually closed, as the visibility was indeed zero. We went to the news store and collected our tickets for the Skyride, which was also on our New York Pass, as was the Empire State Building observation deck, hence why we weren't bothered at having to go back later in the week. The Skyride was fun - definitely worth doing, though pretty violent at times, with the simulated motion of a helicopter. I was glad I'd taken a travel sickness tablet!

Because Daniel had taken himself off and eaten breakfast a couple of hours ahead of the rest of us, we had stopped at KFC on the way to the Empire State Building for him to eat lunch, so we were hungry by now, but he wasn't! We stopped at Subway, and grabbed lunch there, then headed for Madison Square Garden, where our New York Passes got us into the All Access Tour free. It was much more interesting than I had been expecting, and as well as the history of MSG, the facts and figures, etc, we got to visit the locker rooms of the New York Knicks and the New York Rangers, the rival basketball teams who both call MSG home, as well as sit in one of the 89 executive boxes that are hired out to corporate companies on an annual basis. One other British guy asked our guide how much it costs to hire a suite for a year, given the great views of the court, private seating, and table service dining, and was told to guess. He guessed at half a million dollars, and was then told that the guide couldn't give an exact figure, but double that ...!

We were tiring now, but at least it had more or less stopped raining! We made our way back to the hotel, where we had a couple of hours to relax, bath, shower, change, or just nap, before we all met at 7pm to go and have dinner. We decided on the Hard Rock Cafe. where Dom had a burger, Debbie had a chicken and pasta dish, and Daniel and I went for the herb grilled chicken breast, with mashed potatoes, broccoli, and a mushroom sauce. Daniel had had it before in Detroit, and raved about it, and I thought it was nice, but nothing very special. When you enter the Hard Rock Cafe, each group has their picture taken, and then the packages are brought to your table while you eat to see if you want to buy them. At $25 for two large pictures, four small ones, a keyring photo and a magnet photo, I thought it was a good deal, and wanted to buy one, as did Daniel, but he stopped me. i was puzzled at first, then he said that he was getting one, and only wanted one of the large photos, and we could go halves, which we did. He also put way more money towards the bill than he should have, citing the extra $40 that he'd been given at the Travelex counter in Heathrow, when he picked up his currency, as the reason! Thanks Daniel :-)
We were all pretty tired by the time we had finished dinner, so wandered through the Times Square area back to the hotel, and were back in our rooms for 10pm or so. I went straight to bed - the earliest I've been in bed for ages!

Wednesday dawned grey and warm, but not too warm, and it was dry! Hurray! As usual, we met in the corridor at 9am, and Daniel and I went for breakfast at McDonalds, while Dom and Debbie went to a deli they liked the look of. After breakfast was done, and we'd all met up again, we headed towards the United Nations headquarters complex, as one of the 'behind the scenes' tours that our New York Passes gave us free access to was the UN tour, which Dom and I thought would be quite interesting, and especially for Dom, as his dad used to live in New York, and work in quite a senior position at the UN.

We walked down to 42nd Street, and then merely had to walk on 42nd Street all the way over the the UN at the far East side of Manhattan, as it's right on the river. We stopped for a while at grand Central Terminal, which is the most beautiful train station I can imagine! Completely done in marble (the original quarry was reopened specially in the 1990s when another staircase was added inside the station concourse, just to ensure the marble would match the original!) and with absolutely gorgeous architecture, the station has over 117 tracks leading in and out of it, shopping and dining concourses, and the ceiling is decorated with constellations, that actually have little twinkling lights for each star. It's definitely worth a visit for anyone ever in New York, and I would have liked to stay and explore more of it, but time was getting on.

On arrival at the UN complex we stopped to take photos of the sculptures in the grounds, as well as the flags that line the perimeter fence. There is one for every one of the 192 member countries, and they fly only when the weather is good, and not at weekends. I wouldn't like to be the person who has to raise and lower all those flags each day! We had to go through security, just as you would in an airport - all cameras, wallets, belts, keys in the plastic tray, and those and your bags went through the X-ray machine, while you walked through the metal detector. Once inside, I was taken by how spacious and airy the interior of the building we were in was, as well as how many paintings, sculptures, and similar works of art there were around. We went to the tour tickets desk, and collected tickets for tour number 14, which was due to leave in 10-30 minutes, as 13 was just leaving. We sat down on a *very* comfy bench, only for those people waiting for tour 14 to be called to the glass doors, where we were issued security passes and given a few instructions.

I have to admit, I can't remember all the areas we visited, but our guide knew her stuff, though she was very quietly spoken, as well as being from South Korea, and at times it was hard to hear her, especially when there were other tour groups in the same area as we were. Debbie found her accent quite hard to understand, and unfortunately missed out on a lot of what was said because of that, but on the whole it was an interesting way to spend an hour. It was quite novel being on UN territory, as strictly speaking we were no longer in the US. The UN complex and the land it occupies has special status, and belongs to all 192 member countries. The obligatory "did you bring your passports?" question was asked by the guide, and it took one or two people a few seconds to realise that she was joking,

I took some pictures inside the buildings, but most of them are out of focus, as we didn't have very long to take pics. The ones from outside are much better, and will appear in due course with my other trip pics. After the tour, I visited the gift shop, as did Daniel and Debbie, who both bought batteries, and then we walked around the grounds again so that Daniel could take the photos he hadn't been able to before we went inside, as his camera batteries had been dead at that point.

It was around lunchtime by now, and we were all hungry, so we headed in the general direction of Rockefeller Centre, where we wanted to 'do' Top of the Rock, the observation deck at the top of the GE building. We had lunch at a very nice deli/sandwich bar, and continued heading back to midtown. When we arrived at Rockefeller Centre it took a few minutes to find the right entrance for the Top of the Rock, but we eventually did - right opposite Radio City Music Hall, so the photos had to be taken, of course! We made our way inside, and downstairs to the ticket counter, where we actually had to *pay* for this
admission! $17.95 plus sales tax, so it wasn't too bad. By now it was becoming misty again, and in the time it took us to buy tickets and watch the 3 four minute pre-show video clips, then go through security and ride the elevator to the 67th floor, it started drizzling again. The observation deck actually starts on the 68th floor, and you can then go up to the 69th and 70th as well, but when we got up to the top level, we were disappointed to see just how poor the visibility was. Although the Empire State Building was just visible, Central Park was nothing more than a faint green blur, and not much else was visible either. We didn't stay there very long, and I have to admit, i was very disappointed by how bad the weather had become, as Top of the Rock was possibly the thing I had most been looking forward to, largely because of the fact that the Empire State Building and all of Central Park should have been clearly visible, which they aren't from the ESB itself.

We headed back down, after a brief look in the gift shop, and made our way back towards the hotel. It was approaching 4pm, and we wanted to do the same as the previous day, and have a bit of a break in our rooms before going out again for dinner and whatever else we fancied in the evening. We ended up meeting at 6:30pm again, and going to Planet Hollywood, where once again we had to have a group photo taken, though we didn't buy this one. The service was great, and the atmosphere was fun - lots of loud music, and upbeat servers as well. I combined the buffalo chicken tenders with a side order of fries, and while it was really tasty, the chicken tenders were too spicy for me, and I only ate three of the six. I did have the *best* ever strawberry milkshake though - thick and creamy, and just bursting with strawberry flavour! I can almost taste it now ... yummy.

After the meal, we went back into Times Square, as we ended up doing most evenings. We had planned to do the night time bus tour, and waited at the bus stop until after 9:30pm, when it should have turned up. No bus though, so although we were a little disappointed, it wasn't the end of the world, and we hailed a cab to the tip of Manhattan, in order to take a ride on the Staten Island Ferry by night. It's free, and something we all wanted to do, and it was a nice evening by now. The cab cost $16 and I paid, giving the driver $20 with tip - only £10, and Dom and Debbie split the return cab fare between them later. On arrival at the ferry terminal, we discovered that the 10pm ferry was just leaving, and so sat down to wait for the 10:30pm one, When it came, we boarded, and went upstairs, to the open deck. It was a bit chilly, but the views of Manhattan as we sailed towards Staten island were more than sufficient compensation. I tried to get some photos, but taking pictures of tiny twinkling lights from a moving boat isn't the easiest, and unfortunately none of them were worth keeping. We sailed past the Statue of Liberty, and even in the darkness it was easy to get an idea of just how huge she is. When we got to Staten Island, Dom asked one of the workers whether this was the next ferry out, to which the answer was yes, and then asked whether we were allowed to stay on board, as we were returning to Manhattan straight away. This guy, a gruff, middle aged man, said "Ya gotta get off ..." and Dom didn't hear exactly what he said, so said "Pardon?". The guy then said "Ya gotta get OFF. GET OFF" ... okay, we get it! I understand that he probably gets asked that every single night by countless tourists, but a little politeness would have been nice - we actually found it amusing though, as it was our first encounter with a "typical" New Yorker! We got off....

... walked out into the ferry terminal, out of the exit doors, straight back in the entrance doors, and back on to the same ferry, to the same positions we'd had just a minute or two before! The journey back was just as nice, with general silliness from Daniel, and the same gorgeous views. Back at Manhattan, we grabbed a cab back to the hotel, and were in bed by midnight, later than we'd originally planned, as we had an early start the next morning.

Thursday ... we had an early start, leaving the hotel at 7:30am, for a quick breakfast at McDonalds, then on to 42nd Street/Times Square subway station, to get the subway down to South Ferry. We figured out the self service ticket machines and bought $7 one day passes - a bargain. The subway was quick and comfortable, and the air conditioning on the train was heavenly after a 20 minute walk through the station corridors to get to the right platform for our train! We were soon at South Ferry, and walked a short way to Castle Clinton, at Battery Park, where we used our New York passes to collect our free tickets for the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island Ferry, and admission to the Ellis Island Immigration Museum. The first ferry took about 15 minutes to reach Liberty Island, and I got some great close up pictures of the statue as we approached, though sadly it was pretty foggy again and I didn't get any good shots of lower Manhattan as we left. Liberty Island and the grounds surrounding the statue are pretty, and although you can't climb the inside of the statue any more, because of security concerns since 9/11, we got a good look at her. She's pretty amazing - 305ft tall! We spent an hour or so there, then visited the gift shop, where we all saw the same British guy from Madison Square Garden on Tuesday! Small world!

Next was the ferry over to Ellis Island, which was another short crossing. Ellis Island was the main immigration centre where those immigration to the US through New York, by sea, were sent fro processing, and because of the harsh, cramped conditions, and the fact that families often became separated when members were sent back home, it gained the name "Island of Tears". It's been beautifully restored to the period between 1918 and 1924, which were the busiest years, and has some excellent exhibits, though we really didn't do it justice. We wanted to get the ferry back to Manhattan, as it was lunchtime, and I'd thrown a spanner in the works by suddenly feeling *very* sick and low blood sugary. Not ideal, but I ran to the gift shop and bought a regular Coke, instead of my usual Diet, and a bag of Jelly Belly beans, and munched on them until we were on the ferry, where I bought a cheap hotdog that was totally disgusting, pretty tiny, but was stodgy and plain, and eased my nausea. When we got back to Manhattan we walked back through Battery Park to the subway station, where we caught the subway to Rector Street, which seemed the closest stop to Ground Zero, which was our next 'destination'.

We had lunch at a pizza place, and it was great, though I was the only one who only ate one of their two slices. I'd had that hotdog not long before, remember. We walked to the World Financial Centre after lunch, and found ourselves right on the edge of Ground Zero, where we didn't linger more than a few minutes. It's really just a big square construction site now, and seems strangely normal. It doesn't feel like it *should* be normal though, given the horrors that took place there. It was a very strange and uncomfortable feeling, and none of us had any real desire to spend much time there. We thought about going to the Tribute 9/11 visitor centre, but it was way over on the other side of the site, and I think we all felt that there was no real need to. Not because it wouldn't have been interesting, but certainly for me, because I don't need to see that to remember, and be respectful of what that day meant. I think I might have lost it if we had visited the tribute centre, or St. Paul's Chapel, which was the church on the edge of Ground Zero that was miraculously undamaged, and used as a base to feed volunteers and those working in the recovery efforts. As we walked away, I noticed tourists taking pictures of the site, which I had mixed emotions about. I understand the desire to have visual reminders of such a site, but for myself, I couldn't imagine standing and taking photos. It's still too recent, too raw. Walking towards the subway station, I felt subdued, and then angry, when I noticed the street vendors selling World Trade Center pictures, T-shirts, crystal ornaments etc. To me, they are making money from the tragedy, and that's just disgusting. I was glad to be away from the area, but at the same time, am glad we saw it. People need to see it, to 'get' the sheer scale of the events. I said that the site was smaller than I had expected, but it's still vast, and when you realise that both buildings were 110 stories high ... I remember walking away, and someone saying something that I smiled at, then feeling guilty for it. It didn't seem right to be smiling *there*.

On then, and we caught the subway to Canal Street, and Chinatown. We had all been told how great Canal Street is, for knock-off designer handbags, and cheap street stalls, and that's true. I was on a mission to pick up a fake Louis Vuitton handbag, and Daniel had a friend who had asked him to pick her up a bag too, so when we were approached by a woman with a laminated sheet of handbag photos in her hand, we went with her to the 'shop'. I knew what to expect, and it was a five minute walk to a plain building, with a plain front door, which she unlocked, and a flight of stairs leading down to another door, which was also locked. Inside, all four walls, including the back of the door, were lined with handbags - some of them quite nice, and most of them pretty good quality, with good stitching, and decent materials, but nothing that either of us liked - no fake Vuitton, anyway! We left without buying, and she wasn't particularly pleased, but hey ho. We walked onwards, past an endless line of stalls and shops selling handbags, T-shirts, New York souvenirs, discount electronics, etc, and fending off countless people trying to get us to buy. After a while we decided there was nothing more to see, and as some of us were beginning to feel really uncomfortable there, we headed back to the Canal Street subway station, and Manhattan, where we got off at 34th Street this time.

The weather had cleared up a lot from the fog that morning, and there were big areas of blue sky and some fluffy white clouds, so I had suggested going to the Empire State Building again, and seeing what the visibility was like now. It *had* to be better than it had been on Tuesday morning! When we got there, we got our tickets, and went upstairs, through security, then the elevator to the 80th floor, where we had to queue again, have our photo taken against the Empire State Building background, and then get the elevator to the 86th floor observatory. It was packed up there, but the view was amazing - it was only 5 mile visibility, and I was blown away by the views, and how far you could see - I can't imagine being up there on a crystal clear day when you can see up to 80 miles, and five states! I got some decent photos from all four sides, and after about an hour, we headed back to the hotel. On the way down, you pass the display of photos, but at $25 for two photos and the digital image on a CD, I thought it was a rip-off, and didn't buy. We headed back to the hotel for a couple of hours rest before dinner.

Meeting for dinner at 7pm, we headed to TGI Fridays, which was the restaurant I had most been looking forward to eating at. I chose the 12oz New York Strip Steak, with shrimp and fries. When the drinks came, Debbie was about halfway through her chocolate milkshake when she found two hairs! She got a replacement, but no apology, and although the food was great, the service was lacklustre, there were hairs in her drink, and the final straw was when we went to the bathrooms before we left. There was water and soggy toilet rolls all over the floor, as well as the wash absin area, one of the two stalls was out of use, and in the one that was in use, the toilet tissue holder was broken and hanging open, and the door didn't lock! We laughed about it on the way out, and we actually did go back there later in the week, for a much more successful visit!

We headed to the bus stop next, for the 9:00pm Night Loop, as we had the previous evening. 9:28, still no bus ... until Daniel said "Where do we want? 8th Avenue and 47th?" to which I said yes. he then said "We're on Broadway and 47th .... ". *That* probably explained the lack of a bus, as well as the same thing happening the previous evening! What we had done, was froget that although all the North-South streets in Manhattan are the avenues, 1st to 12th, Broadway is the one road that cuts across the avenues and sits in between 7th and 8th, so when we had walked one block over from 7th, it had only taken us to Broadway, not 8th! There were two buses still waiting at the right stop, and we found seats upstairs, on the open deck.

Our tour guide was Tim, a native Brooklyn-ite, who knew his stuff, and cracked some pretty good jokes too. The tour took us through the Garment District, Greenwich Village, Soho, Chinatown, Little Italy, across tha Manhattan Bridge to Brooklyn, around Brooklyn Heights, then back to Manhattan, through the Lower East Side, back up past the Chrysler Building, Empire State Building, etc, to Midtown, and our drop off point at Times Square. It was really interesting, and I'm glad we did it, finally. I always love open top bus tours of new cities, and there would be a couple more to do while we were in new York.

Dom and Debbie headed back to the hotel after we were dropped off - well, it was 11:30pm, and we had been up before 7. Daniel and I looked in a few shops, like Virgin Megastore, then made our way back to the hotel via a 24hr Duane reade drugstore, where I got some Diet Coke, and McDonalds, as we were hungry again! I got a Big Mac meal, and had the burger and drink, while Daniel had the fries! As we left the elevator on our floor of the hotel, to go to our rooms, we agreed I would call Daniel at 9:30am the next morning, as it would be just us, Debbie and Dom taking one of their two planned 'couple' days

Little did I know what the next morning would bring ....