East Coast Trip - Part 2 - New York City

We woke up our next day to a very excited brother. Mike served his mission in New York City and he was dying to show us around. He found us some cheep parking using an app. It got us just a couple blocks from central park. We had a short drive from Stamford into Manhattan.

First sight of the city...it was huge.

Mike had studied the map the night before and figured out where our parking garage was located. After a pass by and lots of one way streets we found it. It was a basement garage and we drove right in, missing the sign saying stop here for vale parking, and found ourselves in the tightest smallest garage filled to the brim with cars. I was overcome with a serious attack of claustrophobia...I had to get out of the car and walk up to the entrance before Mike even got the car parked.

The neighborhood the garage was in was very nice. There was a fire station and police station just across the street. And this cool looking synagogue:

We had just a few blocks to reach Central Park. Our first mission was to locate the Balto Statue. After a short walk we found him:

Hello Balto

The park was gorgeous with all the old trees, pathways and rocky hillsides. Miles of benches and lots of joggers and bikers. Here are a few of my pictures:

This cool clock chimed the hour as we walked by.

 

Hello horsie.

There was a whole gazebo for playing checkers and chess

 We crossed the south end of the park and headed towards the Manhattan Temple.  Along the way were some cool old churches.

 

 Mike was hoping to find his mission President at the Temple. Apparently he is now the Temple President. Sadly we just missed him. It is a cute little temple. Sitting across the street from the Lincoln Center and Julliard.

 

We walked around Julliard and took some pictures...keeping our eyes open for August Rush.

Then we went down into the subterranean world to catch a subway to the southern tip of Manhattan. It was my first real experience with Subway travel. We had to change trains and everything...its a whole other world down there. The trains were air conditioned but the tunnels were hot, only getting air movement from the passing trains. After seeing the huge granite rocks in the park I understand now how the city is able to keep from collapsing in on itself from the layers and layers of tunnels underground.

Just when I was starting to get my "sea" legs, we arrived. We took the train to the new world trade center and ground zero. Walking from the station we passed by a glimpse of the Brooklyn Bridge. We also found where all the tourist were. We passed bus loads of people.

And then we rounded a corner and saw this:

It was enormous! We followed the crowds towards it. And were soon at ground zero. You can't really appreciate the size of the monuments until you are standing right next to them.

 

 

We played with the idea of going to the museum but after seeing the line of hundreds of people waiting to go in and also the cost...we passed and just walked around the park. Then headed further south to the tip of Manhattan to get a view of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.

Ellis Island

Lady Liberty

On every corner there were people yelling out tickets for ferries going to Liberty Island....Vegas has trained me to ignore them. It was about lunch time and we were in a park with lots of food carts. So of course I had to try a NY hot dog. We rested on some benches and enjoyed our hot dogs.

 

After our snack, we continued on, coming across Wall St. We snapped a picture of the Bull and just down the street we found a Native American Museum that was free. It was in a really cool old building. We found out that the building used to be the Customs Offices. It was where all the immigrants went after Ellis Island.

Film school across from the Wall Street Bull

Native American Museum

 

Then we got back on the Subway and headed back uptown towards the NY Library. We had to change trains twice and at one point we crossed a huge underground plaza that looked similar to the inside of a three story mall. It was very cool...we even saw musicians entertaining the passing crowds. A whole different world down there.

We came back up into the daylight just outside the Library. Behind the library was a nice little park. I was impressed on how many little parks there were scattered all around the city. We caught a glimpse of the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building through the trees.

Empire State Building

Chrysler Building

The NY Library is also an amazing building. The inside was very cool with tall columns and carved wood ceilings.

 

After walking around with our mouths open staring at the architecture, we decided to continue down the road a few blocks to Time Square. The people, the signs...everything about Time Square reminded me of Fremont Street in Vegas...only on a much larger scale.

 

Doug looking concerned about something

Nicole and Me

As we were walking around the square we discovered a real life NY brick oven Pizzeria...we had to stop and get some. It was the best pizza I've ever had and the water was pretty good too.

Mike, Nicole and Doug

Joshua and Me

Yummy!

With full tummies we decided travel above ground and started the long, long walk back to the car garage. Stopping at random shops, one being the hugest Disney Store I have seen outside Disneyland.

 

With it being Saturday we stumbled upon a huge street market going for blocks and blocks, from Time Square to Rockefeller Center.

 

At Rockefeller Center, I was sad to see that the ice rink had been converted into a cafe and no Christmas tree...yet. But it was still pretty cool. It felt smaller than it looks on TV because of all the tall buildings surrounding it.

As we were almost to Central Park again we came upon the most beautiful cathedral I have ever seen this side of the Atlantic. It was the St Patrick Cathedral where the Pope had visited the day before.

We finally arrived back at Central Park and passed by the famous Plaza Hotel.

We then made the last few blocks back to the parking garage. The vale guy went down into the deep depths for the garage to fish out our car as we waited up top on the street. Finally he emerged and we loaded up and pulled out into NY traffic....I have never seen so many cars fit into such small roads. There were traffic cops at every intersection. I was so glad Mike was driving....people walked through the cars to get to the other side of the road while the cars crawled forward. And huge SUV came out of nowhere...it was quite an experience.

After what seemed like forever we made it back to the southern tip of Manhattan and the Lincoln Tunnel. And were soon driving under the Hudson River.

We came back up onto dry land in New Jersey and saw New York City one last time.

Bye Bye NYC

Then we took off down the Jersey Shore to our hotel in Toms River, NJ. It was a nice little place. The hotel was attached to a small convention center so when I checked in there were kids running around the lobby and a loud party going on in the convention room. After making a stop at Walmart for some snacks, we settled in for the night....off to Philadelphia in the morning.