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Published: August 22nd 2017
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Top of The Rock
The Empire State Building viewed form the Top of The Rock. I got up early to go to Brooklyn for some early morning pictures of Downtown Manhattan. Well that was the plan. Every way I went there was some kind of problem, either weekend engineering works for late night restrictions. I got on a train that would eventually take me in the right direction, albeit with a subsequent change, but it suddenly changed to an express (one minute the next station was Union Street, then it suddenly changed to 25th Street. Consequently I skipped past the station I wanted and had to make an extra change and come back again. By the time I got where I wanted to go it was too late and I was extremely frustrated.
The frustration was not helped by the information screens on the platforms. They seem to show everything except train times, including safety notices, advertising, more safety notices, the profile of poster-boy Officer Chin and his dog Bishop and still more safety notices, but no actual train times.
It least it was nice and peaceful in Brooklyn so I went for a walk along the waterfront anyway, which was a lot nicer than what we walked along in Philadelphia.
It took
Brooklyn View
Lower Manhattan some time after dawn. over two hours to get there and about 20 minutes to get back.
After breakfast we headed out to the Top of The Rock at the Rockefeller Center, which is definitely our favorite place to go for the views. It is the most spacious, it is on several levels, it all out in the open air and, most importantly, large parts of it (there there is another viewing level below) are not surrounded by intrusive metal grills, restricting the views.
One other thing we discovered when we were up there was that we were looking down on the somewhat shorter and inferior Trump Tower.
One thing that put us off the Top of The Rock slightly was the price to go up. It was an unbelievable $148, which is about £115 for the four of us. Yes, £115 for four people to go to the top. And it is another $15 each if you want to go back at night (which the Empire State offered for free last time we came here) and another $5 if you want the usual green screen photo (which we didn't). We did it anyway as we had set our hearts on
Solar Eclipse
As far as the eclipse went when viewed from New York. it, but we did have to mull it over first.
The green-screen photographer controlled everyone like a tyrant and would not let those of us (most of us) who didn't want a photo skip round without waiting unnecessarily. The views at the time were fantastic as usual.
Sadly the Rockefeller Center is in the middle of the shopping district, so I was unable to stop any browsing going on. My daughter was trying to persuade my wife to get some Tiffany perfume, but I doubt that my wife would get much of a look-in when it comes to using it. She didn't think so either thankfully.
We walked through Times Square, which is always phenomenal to see with all the huge electronic screens. It meant however running the gauntlet of all the touts for the bus tours. If you run any of the New York bus tours, take it from me the touts are actually doing your tours more harm than good!
It was the day of the solar eclipse today, although it was only a partial eclipse from New York. We had got some of the required black-out glasses, so we were able to have
Nachos
Eating at the Hard Rock Cafe. a look. Loads of people were outside looking, with some having found a new, alternative use for a welding mask.
CNN were interviewing Bonnie Tyler about it. Clearly the fact that she sang "Total Eclipse of The Heart" back in the 80s makes her worth interviewing about such an unique astrological event. It wasn't clear if she was their first choice or if all of the available astrologists and astro-physicists had been snapped-up by the other networks.
We then headed down to China Town, which is near where we had booked an "Escape Room", to try and solve as a family. Sadly, we didn't solve it, but we had fun and made it to the last clue, with only minimal help (honest).
We needed to use the Subway to get there and back, which seems to be running normally now.
We went out for movie themed evening by eating at the Hard Rock Café.
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