Advertisement
Published: November 24th 2012
World-class icon
Statue of Liberty, seen from the Staten Island ferryThankfully my second arrival in New York City (on Easter Monday, 25th April) was a much more enjoyable experience than the first - when my plane had been blown around all over the place on the way into Newark airport in New Jersey - with the weather being almost perfect as we descended into La Guardia airport in Queens, giving me the perfect picture-postcard view of Manhatten to the west as we came in to land.
A long but cheap bus ride later and I was at my hostel on Amsterdam Avenue/103rd Street, only a couple of blocks to the west of Central Park - the massive green space that occupies a rectangle 51 blocks long and about four blocks wide (blocks being much wider from east to west than they are long from north to south - making the park about four kilometres long and one kilometre wide) in the centre of uptown New York.
And in a further piece of good luck the weather that had improved from Toronto (0 - 5 degrees) to Chicago (10 - 15 degrees) had further improved by the time I got to New York (20 - 25 degrees), so that I
World-famous skyline
View of Downtown Manhatten from the Staten Island ferry was able to walk around in shorts, singlet and flip-flops for the first time since last summer - a more than welcome respite for any Queenslander!
My first full day in New York on tuesday saw me getting up early and taking my first subway ride the length of Broadway (only one block to the west of my hostel) all the way to the southern tip of Manhatten, where I then took the free Staten Island ferry to another of New York City's boroughs (of which there are five in all - Manhatten Island, Staten Island to the south, Brooklyn and Queens on the western end of Long Island to the east, and The Bronx on a peninsula on the mainland to the north) before turning around and coming straight back again, whilst enjoying the wonderful views of both the Statue of Liberty and - on the return trip - the famous skyline of downtown Manhatten.
Back in Manhatten I followed Broadway on foot - over the course of an entire afternoon - all the way back to the hostel, stopping off firstly at the World Trade Center construction site (where the Freedom Tower is currently standing about
The tallest of them all
View of the Empire State Building from street level 70 floors high and counting) before taking a detour to a sports bar named Nevada Smith's to watch the Champions League football - which unfortunately meant having to put up with a bunch of drunken Manchester United-supporting English tossers!
With the game having ended in an unfortunate United victory, I continued my sightseeing walk along Broadway, stopping off to check out the Empire State Building (where I took the elevator to the 86th floor observation deck for a view of New York City from about 320 metres above the ground) and Times Square - which despite the name is neither a square nor a pedestrianised public space in the common sense of the word, but nothing more than a highly-overrated, brightly-lit traffic intersection!
The next day brought a pleasant walk through Central Park and then an aerial cable car ride to Roosevelt Island (a long, thin island in the centre of the aptly-named East River), before once again heading to Nevada Smith's for the Champions League football... only to be told I would have to pay a $10 cover charge to get in because the match was a 'classico' between Barcelona and Real Madrid! After telling the guy
on the door where he could shove his ten dollars, I managed to (eventually) find my way to the Eleventh Street Bar - where not only did I not have to pay an entry fee, but I practically had the whole place (along with it's extensive craft beer list and three television screens on which to watch the football) to myself!
Suitably refreshed and satisfied - with Barcelona having beaten their arch rivals - I set off on an exploratory walk through midtown Manhatten's many and varied neighbourhoods, such as Chinatown (like Market Square in Sunnybank - only multiplied by ten!), Tribeca (an anagram of TRIangle BElow CAnal Street), SoHO (SOuth of HOuston Street - where the more affluent members of society obviously live) and Chelsea (where the gays live!) whilst filling up on all manner of cheap meals from the countless streetside food vendors that make eating in New York such a varied, easy and inexpensive experience.
Thursday started much the same as the previous days, but soon brought a torrential downpour - and right when I was at my most vulnerable, wandering around the huge expanse of Jackie Onassis Reservoir in Central Park! After backtracking to
the hostel for a much-needed change of clothes, I found myself inside the impressive St.Patrick's Cathedral admiring the ornate interior; before heading up to the multi-storey Top of the Rock observation deck on the 84th, 85th and 86th floors of the Rockefeller Center, which probably boasts even better views than the Empre State Building, given that you can actually see the Empire State Building as well as Central Park (only nine blocks to the north).
The following day brought a return to the sunny skies of the first couple of days, which I took full advantage of by walking south all the way along the western edge of Manhatten island beside the Hudson River, from about 116th Street to Battery Park (beside the Staten Island ferry terminal) before then continuing around the southern end of Manhatten and across the famous Brooklyn Bridge to Brooklyn Heights, for another great view of downtown Manhatten. A couple of inter-connected and amusing subway trips later (unlike on the Tube in London where nobody ever talks to each other, the Subway sees all sorts of interesting characters coming out of the woodwork!) and I was back in Uptown NYC digging into another massive feed
Top of the Rock
Looking up at the Rockefeller Centre from street level of Chinese from the restaurant opposite the hostel for only $6!
Saturday brought a continuation of my walk from the previous day, as I took the subway back to Brooklyn and then walked back across the Manhatten Bridge and north alongside the East River as far as Roosevelt Island, which again included a detour to a bar somehwere in midtown to watch my beloved Tottenham Hotspurs in action in the English Premier League; though I also took an ultimately unnecessary subway trip up to Yankee Stadium in The Bronx in the hope of getting a cheap ticket to the baseball - which at an almost extortionate $50 was well out of my price range!
I did however manage to secure a ticket to the following day's game online at a cost of $30 after returning to the hostel, so the next day (sunday May 1st) saw me taking another stroll through Central Park (the peace broken only be 30,000 cyclists making an annual pilgrimmage through the city!) before continuing once again alongside the East River all the way up to Yankee Stadium - thus completing my trilogy of baseball games in three different cities - which unlike Wrigley
Galaxy of lights
View from the top of the Rockefeller Center Field in Chicago was not only massive and modern, but also brought a home victory for the Yankees over the Bluejays!
Unfortunately though, I was only able to watch up until the 7th inning stretch, before having to head back to my hostel (which turned into a desperate race against time when I mistakenly took an express subway ride all the way to 59th Street and then had to backtrack to 103rd Street!) to collect my backpack and make my way out to Newark airport for my overnight trans-atlantic flight back to London's Heathrow airport! And thankfully I made it... especially given that I was then booked on a flight from London's Stansted airport to Turkey that same afternoon!
But that's a story for another day...
Advertisement
Tot: 0.051s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 12; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0287s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
