Chapter 23 - Spending Time in the Big Apple - New York City - Week 1

Hi again, it's Corp & Tammy again....this time sharing our adventure in New York City! 

We had a jam packed two weeks in Manhattan, so we decided to split the trip between two chapters.  Chapter 23 will cover our first week in Chelsea and Chapter 24 will cover our second week in the Lower East Side. 

On July 6, we flew into Newark, NJ and checked into the Chelsea Savoy Hotel for 7-nights.  Next time, we will fly into JFK or LaGuardia and take the subway to the hotel.  We didn't want to deal with a subway ride between New York and New Jersey.   

First stop was the Empire State Building, which is one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World and arguably the most famous skyscraper in the world.  It was the world’s first 100+ story building when it was completed in 1931.  At 102 stories, it is one of the most recognized buildings in Manhattan and the most photographed building in the world.  

It seemed like we could always see the
Empire State Building no matter where we were in Manhattan. 

Then we were off to the Chrysler Building, which is another Art Deco building like the Empire State Building.  Only the lobby is open to the public and there is not much to see but elevators to the offices above. 
 

 

The Chrysler Building is famously known for the gargoyles and eagle statues
that are on the corners of five stories of the building. 
Photo above shows the eagle statues. 
I can't believe I didn't get a photo of the gargoyles.

The next stop on our first day 10-mile walk was the Grand Central Terminal, which was much larger than expected.  It is a 56-track commuter rail terminal that has tons of shops and dining options.   Grand Central Terminal is one of the most-visited destinations in New York City, second only to Times Square.  

The art on the ceiling was incredible.

We had to take a photo at one of Grand Central’s main attractions, the four-faced opal clock, that sits in the center of the Main Concourse above the Information Booth.  It was hard to get a good inside photo.

We visited Times Square several times; both during the day and at night.  Everyone should see this crazy place!  The massive amount and size of illuminated signs is nuts...it's visual stimulation overload!  I loved it!  

Times Square at dusk.

Times Square during the day.

There are always pop up street performers shows in Times Square.  We saw a pretty good break dancing show.  

Corp was "lucky" and got picked to be in the finale of the break dancing show.  While waiting, he felt something on the back of his neck.  When brushing it off, he was stung by a bee in the middle finger.  

Yes, Corp got stung by a bee (black dot) in Times Square!

Corp in the middle of the line.

 

We had the best blueberry cheesecake at Juniors.  

We tried our first Italian sausage from a street vendor.  So yummy.  

The vendor suggested the hot version. 
It was delicious with the onions and peppers and super soft bun.  

 
We also had our first slice of New York-style pizza in Times Square.  New York-style pizza is large with a hand-tossed thin crust.  It is sold in big slices and eaten by folding up the slice lengthwise.  At the time, we thought Ray's Pizza was pretty good, but little did we know that we were going to have even better pizza during the next two weeks.  

After walking 10+ miles our first day, we decided it was time to ride the subway.  The unlimited Metro card is $33 per person per week.  What a great price compared to taking an Uber everywhere.  We discovered the Metro card works on the bus too.  We think NY public transit is the best!

The subway was really hot, but always clean. 
The air conditioned train cars felt great during days
when the real feel temperature was 100+ degrees.

 
The transit directions on Google Maps was impressive too.  In all our subway trips, we only got on the wrong train once and that because we were rushing and not paying close enough attention to the signs.

The first time we stopped by the NY Public Library it was closed in the middle of the afternoon.  We found out the SWAT team was called because there was yellow residue in the garage can outside the library.  

The second time we stopped by, they were open so in we went.  

We were so surprised that we saw little to no books in the library.  It was all meeting and study spaces.  I imagined we would see huge rooms of books and moving ladders would be needed to pull out upper level books.  Not the case.  

The ceiling in the McGraw Rotunda in the New York Public Library was incredible.

 
On July 7, we took the subway to our first stop of the day, Central Park.  This urban park is between the Upper West Side and Upper East Side.  It contains 843 acres and is the most visited urban park in the U.S.  The park is 2.5 miles long and .5 miles wide so we rented Citi Bike bikes to see as much as we could.  We thought we rented electric bikes, but nope, we rent old-fashioned pedal bikes and were not happy about it.  

Central Park is designed with meandering in mind.  It was kinda frustrating when you are trying to get somewhere.  We kept biking in circles and seeing the The Carousel over and over.

The Carousel is one of the largest merry-go-rounds in the U.S. with
57 hand-carved horses and two chariots. 

The video below shows the carousel operator is not very enthusiastic about her job. 

 
During our 2-week visit we went to Central Park several times and saw a ton of attractions, such as the Bethesda Terrace and Fountain, Umpire Rock, The Lake, The Reservoir, and Belvedere Castle, to name a few. 

The Metropolitan Museum of Art (the Met) is the largest art museum in the Americas and is located in Central Park.  The Met displays some of the greatest cultural treasures in the world from the Stone Age to the present.   

We spent a few hours going through the Greek and Roman Art, Egyptian Art,
and Medieval Art galleries.

The Fabergé Eggs were beautiful!  They were created by the House of Fabergé, in Saint Petersburg, Russia. As many as 69 were created, of which 57 survive today.
All were manufactured between 1885 and 1917.

 

I really liked these "America Today" paintings by Thomas Hart Benton.  They provide a panorama of American life throughout the 1920s.

We also went through Vincent Van Gogh's Cypresses exhibit at The Met.  The exhibit included 40 works that depicted his fascination with evergreens in the South of France over a two year period.  Happy we saw it, but don't need to see again.

Van Gogh's most famous painting "Starry Night" (1889).

 
We found a great "dive" bar in Chelsea called the Trailer Park Lounge.  George, a super friendly bartender there, shared a ton of great recommendations with us.  The decor was vintage "trailer park" and it was so fun!

The video below gives you the real retro feel of the Trailer Park Lounge.  Every time we went there we discovered something new and funny to laugh at. 

On July 8, we went to the Chelsea Market.  

The Chelsea Market was nothing special...
an indoor food hall with lots of food options, drinks, and shopping.

After the Chelsea Market, we visited Little Island Park, which is a new island park at Pier 55 in the Hudson River.  It began as a simple plan to revive a pier destroyed by Hurricane Sandy and turned into an award-winning public park that was at the top of my list of things I'm glad we saw.

 Little Island Park has great views of the Hudson River and Lower Manhattan. 

The park had some fun "top like" chairs.  Corp was much better at spinning around then me.  I love seeing these types of creative spaces in our travels.

Next, we walked The High Line, which is a 1.45-mile-long elevated linear park, greenway and rail trail created on a former New York Central Railroad spur.  I loved it, even though it was super hot and humid...real feel temperature was 104 degrees that day.  

The plants and buildings on The High Line were so great.

We discovered a super futuristic condo complex that looked like a beehive.  Only in New York.

I really wanted to see the insides of these condos.

  A new sculpture, “Old Tree,” is now on view on The High Line through Fall 2024.

We couldn't pass up a photo with the "Old Tree".  It is really stunning!

We took the bus to Greenwich Village ("The Village") and visited Washington Square Park.  

Check out this street performer "balancing" on the front tire of his bike. 
Corp figured out the trick.

The arch honors George Washington (1732-1799), who was the
first president of the United States.

 

We ate at the world-famous Katz's Delicatessen.  They are a no-frills deli with cranky service serving mile-high sandwiches since 1888.  Ordering is an interesting experience.

We got a 1/2 pastrami and 1/2 brisket sandwich.  Awesome and huge!

On July 9, we visited Harry Potter World.  

I'm a Harry Potter lover, so there were many fun things to see...especially the life-sized Hagrid shoes.

We finally saw the Flat Iron after walking by it three times.  Really, how could we miss it.

We met George, our bartender friend from the Trailer Park Lounge, and his friend Meghan at Kettle of Fish Bar in Greenwich Village.  They took us to Bleeker Street Pizza, which was another great New York style pizza option. 

On July 10, we took the bus to Harlem.  It looked like any other neighborhood in the afternoon.  

We saw the Apollo Theater, but couldn't go inside.

We went to Silvia's to try Soul food.  The restaurant was highly reviewed, but we were pretty disappointed.  Turns out, the restaurant was recently sold and the older reviews were keeping the rating up, but the newer reviews were not impressive.  Lesson learned....always sort reviews by date.    

We saw Radio City Music Hall and Rockefeller Plaza, both New York City icons.

This is where the New York City Rockettes perform.

The famous place of the ice skating rink and
huge Christmas tree during the holidays.

We decided to buy rush tickets to see Back to the Future - The Musical.  It was our first Broadway show and it was awesome!  We paid $90 per ticket and it was so worth it. 

 

I thought Doc Brown looked familiar.  Turns out he was the murderous pharmacist in the Desperate Housewives TV show in the mid-2000s.  I loved that show!

On July 11, we took the subway to Soho (meaning South of Houston St.).  We ate pizza at the oldest pizza place in NY - Lombardi's.  Another great pizza, but not New York style.

Corp had his first Guinness at the Swift Hiberian Lounge, which is an Irish Pub known for serving the best Guinness in Soho. 

Corp said it wasn't too bad and glad he tried it there.

We ate our first Ukrainian meal at Vaselkas....stuffed cabbage, kielbasa, and perogies.  It was tasty!

When we walked by the Levain Bakery in Noho (meaning North of Houston St.), we had to stop and get a Chocolate Chip Walnut cookie.  I have their famous cookie recipe and make them a lot.  I tried theirs and it was so delicious.  Mine are pretty yummy, but not as good as theirs.

Our second theater performance was the Empire Strips Back at the Orpheum.   It was a Star Wars burlesque parody that was full of comedy, allure, and sci-fi dropping the saga's most iconic characters into the world of burlesque.  We had no idea what to expect. It was an unexpected surprise that we really liked!   

 

Miscellaneous random cute/funny/interesting/weird pics/videos below...

 

We didn't see this car/bicycle accident happen, but by the looks of the bicycle pinned underneath the car, it was not a good day for the pedal biker.

Times Square has lots of street performers.  This one was especially weird
with his/her get up and screaming songs.

 

We saw two TV stars our first week in Manhattan.

Outside of The Met, we saw Sadie Munroe, who plays
Alice Carlson, on the TV show Workin' Moms.

 

Outside our hotel, Corp saw Brennan Brown, who plays Robert Childan,
on the TV show The Man In The High Castle.

Whew, we packed a lot into Chapter 23!  Hope you enjoyed it.  

Stay tuned for Chapter 24 coming out soon!

Corp (Crabby) and Tammy (Chipper)