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Published: January 30th 2010
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Most movies set in New York see the main character return time and time again to a favourite eating establishment, well we found ours. A little corner store that sold the best damn BLTs in the world, fact. As we devoured them we made our way to Central Park to undertake a tour which would point out where famous movies have been filmed and give a general history of the famous landmark.
As we made our way to the tour starting point we noticed the park was teeming with cyclists, rollerbladers, runners, walkers, sightseers and we even witnessed a game of cricket being played!
In her general history spiel our guide informed us that the park was opened in 1859, was about a square mile in size, attracts 25 million visitors per year and is man made/landscaped rather than being natural.
It contains several natural-looking lakes and ponds, extensive walking tracks, bridle paths, two ice-skating rinks one of which is a swimming pool in July and August, the Central Park Zoo, the Central Park Conservatory Garden, a wildlife sanctuary, a large area of natural woods, a billion gallon reservoir with an encircling running track, and an outdoor amphitheatre
which hosts the "Shakespeare in the Park" summer festivals. I also just read an interesting fact that the real-estate value of Central Park was estimated, by a property-appraisal firm to be $528,783,552,000 in December 2005. I don't even think Donald Trump could afford that.
Interestingly, sheep actually grazed on the Sheep Meadow from the 1860s until 1934, when they were moved upstate since it was feared they would be used for food by impoverished depression-era New Yorkers. Probably a good thing they're not there now with this whole recession thingy.
Ok now for some movie tour places we saw:
Plaza Hotel - this is the most filmed building in the world apparently and features in Arthur, Crocodile Dundee and Brewster’s Millions.
Small Pond - where Macaulay Culkin meets the pigeon lady in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York
Buildings along edge of the park - Establishing shot for Chandlers office in Friends (Friends is actually filmed in LA and they just add in a few establishing shots, many series use this same technique. Flight of The Conchords bucks this trend and is filmed in Little Italy, New York)
Ice Skating Rink - Seen in the films Serendipity,
Step mom and Night at the Museum
Writers Promenade - Seen in Serendipity, Big Daddy and Vanilla Sky
Band Shell - Seen in Breakfast at Tiffanys
Central water fountain with Angel - Ransom, Stuart Little 2, Home Alone 2, One Fine Day, Mr Deeds, Elf
Central Park Lake - Spiderman 3
Large apartment building - Seen in Ghostbusters when Rick Moranis and Sigourney Weaver become possessed and features Gargoyles on the eves in the movie.
We saw Central park West Street which is the second most expensive road in the world to purchase real estate, 5th street on the other side of the park is the most expensive. Sting, Jerry Seinfeld, Madonna and Bono all have houses along the street. It also contains the infamous Dakota building that John Lennon and Yoko Ono lived at together, it is outside here that he was shot. Yoko still lives on the 7th floor to this very day. It was used in Vanilla Sky as Tom Cruises apartment.
5th street on the opposite side of the park is stacked with museums of all types, you could spend some serious time down that street, it's a shame we only had 5 days.
Our tour finished near Columbus Circle which appears in the movie Ghostbusters as the site where the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man begins his trip towards 55 Central Park West. I wish I had have been there that day. At the nearby Time Warner Centre and Trump Hotel you might see more stars as Bruce Willis, Denzel Washington, Jay Z and Beyonce all live here. Wonder if Denzel cracks on to Beyonce and Jay Z has to sort him out?
After all that learning and walking we headed back to the hostel for a feet up, telly watching session. The New York Yankee Baseball team were playing Indiana and getting absolutely punished. Indiana scored 14 runs in the second innings, that’s usually about three times the amount of runs scored in a whole match.
Energized from our break we made our way on the subway trains to Brooklyn. We timed it perfectly as the sun began to set behind the financial district meaning we could take photos with the Brooklyn Bridge in the foreground and Manhattan and the sunset in the background. Nearby we found an authentic pizza joint, so dined on huge delicious wedges of pizza for only
$2.50 per bit and washed it down with tall cool Budweiser’s. It felt truly American.
After dinner we headed back to check out the Brooklyn Bridge at night, it’s an amazing sight, after soaking up the view we decided to walk across the iconic bridge. Once across, back in Manhattan, we checked out some of the humongous high-rises before getting a bit lost due to various subway stations being closed. Once again walking around at night we felt completely safe, I guess you have to head out into the dodgy boroughs to see some CSI New York style action.
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