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Published: December 30th 2009
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Eating healthily is cheating in the US, so for breakfast I devoured a McGriddle. They are definitely heart attack material - jam flavoured pancake mixture on the outside, sausage, egg and cheese on the inside. It's like eating three courses at once. It did however give me the required energy to get up the Empire State Building, in a lift that is, no one would wanto walk up all that way. Before going up we had to queue for quite some time, and I had my swiss army knife confiscated by security. What on earth was I going to do with that? Get my phillips screwdriver out and dismantle the building? I think we timed it terribly as there were damn tourists everywhere, pesky b@stards.
Before taking the elevator up we went on a virtual Skyride, where you sit in chairs that rock and move whilst watching a large screen, making you feel like you are taking a helicopter ride over the city. Afterwards I felt sick, I wasn't sure whether it was from the motion or from narrator Kevin Bacon's terrible jokes.
Once atop the famous building we decided to go for the audio tour. So I learnt
a few facts and have bolstered them with a few off Wikipedia. It is 102 stories high and was built in 1930 during the depression, and only took 410 days to build. They used a novel technique of constructing train tracks on each level so carts of equipment could be moved around quickly. It held the title of the Worlds highest building for 40 years until the World Trade Towers were built. After their demise, the Empire State became the highest building in New York once more. It is currently undergoing a $120 million renovation in an effort to transform the building into a more energy efficient and eco-friendly structure. The building has some bizzare tenants including an Italian airlines ofices and the Senegal Tourist Office.
The building's distinctive Art Deco spire was originally designed to be a mooring mast and depot for zepplin airships. The 102nd floor was originally a landing platform with a gangplank. However, the idea proved to be impractical and dangerous after a few attempts with airships, due to the powerful updrafts caused by the size of the building itself. I would definitely not have been a starter to go on one of those!
In 1945 a (B-25 Mitchell bomber) plane crashed into the north side of the Empire State Building, between the 79th and 80th floors. One engine shot through the side opposite the impact and flew as far as the next block where it landed on the roof of a nearby building, starting a fire that destroyed a penthouse. The other engine and part of the landing gear plummeted down an elevator shaft. The resulting fire was extinguished in 40 minutes. Elevator operator Betty Lou Oliver survived a plunge of 75 stories inside an elevator, which still stands as the Guinness World Record for the longest survived elevator fall recorded. Despite the damage and loss of life, the building was open for business on many floors on the following Monday.
Over the years, more than thirty people have committed suicide from the top of the building. The first suicide occurred even before its completion, by a worker who had been laid off. The fence around the observatory terrace was put up in 1947 after five people tried to jump during a three-week span. In 1979, Elvita Adams jumped from the 86th floor, only to be blown back onto the 85th floor
and left with only a broken hip.
During building they had planned for 1 death per floor, meaning they would have lost 102 lives. Only 5 perished, 2 of which fell. One had a pretty horific demise, he looked up in an elevator shift to see when it was coming down. You guessed it, he timed it terribly and was decapitated, ouch.
The viewing platform gives magnificent 360 degree views, you could spend days marvelling at the city. The financial district was clearly visible, the World Trade Towers would have risen above the rest of the buildings by miles. We saw the pier where the Titanic was supposed to disembark, spotted various districts and boroughs and seas of yellow taxis on the roads below. Wow that's a lot of Empire State facts.
From the Empire State Building we made the short trek to check out Grand Central Station, for you movie buffs we visited the stairs where Untouchables was filmed, it's a shame we didn't have our machine guns for a bit of an afternoon duel.
Intent on getting as much value for money from our New York passes we piled onto a bus that took
us to a pier near the financial district. As we queued for our 3 hour boat cruise we chowed down a few hotdogs. This gave us the energy to run aboard the boat and get seats on the top deck, we thought we'd planned it perfectly with seats on the side, that is until the boat pulled out and went the opposite diredtion to what we'd imagined. Therefore, we had to stand to take photos over peoples heads, boooo. Despite this, it was a fantastic way to see the city and get your bearings. We passed the financial district, made a detour out towards the Statue of Liberty, cruised under the Brooklyn, Manhattan and Williamsburg Bridges, saw the worlds largest clockface and then both the old and new Yankee stadiums which are adjacent to each other. We passed affluent areas and some desserted areas, one of which was a small island in the Hudson which used to house a smallpox hospital. It was prime real estate, I'd buy it, despite its previous inhabitants. If I went back to New York again I'd take the trip again, there's just so much to look at.
Once back on dry land, we
made our way to Canal Street, this seperates China Town from Little Italy. The markets nearby are colourful and vibrant and after getting some help from a friendly local we decided to dine in Little Italy. I was on the lookout for Tony Soprano. If we had have gone to Chinatown we would have been only a few streets away from where Flight of the Conchords was filmed. I wonder if Tony Soprano dines with Bret and Jermaine? The restaurant we ended up dining at was the original restaurant in Little Italy, well maybe they all say that, but I believed them. It was a fantastic feed, Nic, Jaimee and I got two courses for $20 USD. No one ate them all, I would have been happy with just the starter. Joel ordered the lobster / seafood pasta dish. It was a lobster butterflied open with pasta and huge helpings of various seafood. It only cost Joel $29 US, he was worried they'd left a zero of the end of the menu. In an impressive effort, Joel soldiered his way to finishing it all. I was beginning to wonder if he was the real life Tony Soprano.
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