The Park, The Rock and The Village

The weather has stayed perfect the past few days. Yesterday we hired bikes and cycled around Central Park which was great fun. Given the good weather, we then walked to midtown and went up the Rockefeller Center to 'Top of the Rock' for views of the city. We finished the day passing through the madness of Times Square. Today we started at Chelsea visiting an antiques (flea) market held on weekends, then walked downtown via Madison Square Park and Union Square (park) to Washington Park in Greenwich Village. With such great weather (and a long weekend here) there were lots of people and markets everywhere. I then took us on a long walking tour (from my book) of Greenwich Village and West Village, which was fantastic as it showed so many haunts of characters from modern culture and very characterful leafy streets lined and historic buildings. We popped down to the river too, where so many people were taking the sun and enjoying the amenities. Here's some pics....

Heading out from our place yesterday morning....

Very fancy building near bike hire place - the sun was at the right angle to show off the amazing stonework....

Cycling around Central Park - this is the Conservatory Pond with buildings on 5th Avenue in the background. It was meant to have an elaborate conservatory built to be reflected in the pond, but they ran out of money (1850's) so it never got built....

The view from the Belvedere, a 'castle' built on a rocky outcrop in the middle of the park....

The 'Belvedere' with San Remo towers (near our street) in the background...

St Patrick's Cathedral opposite the Rockefeller Centre....

Flags over Saks store on 5th Avenue....

View north from 'Top of the Rock'....

View south from 'Top of the Rock'...

Bryant Park in midtown was buzzing with people and had a market. It was very pleasant for such a busy place. It's surprising how many seats and tables/chairs are provided for public use....

Times Square - what a madhouse....

This is Broadway this morning, near Madison Square Park. Much of Broadway has restricted traffic with large areas dedicated to pedestrians, including tables and chairs etc. It's very impressive in such a large city....

Union Square had a very large farmers market...

Greenwich Village (and West Village which is the western part of it) has a lot of heritage (much of it early 1800's) and is very characterful. We saw all sorts of sites which were part of the birth of folk, jazz and rock music and lots of other stuff. A very interesting place and quite picturesque....

Scary....

More public tables/chairs down by the Hudson River....

Plenty of people walking along the river edge - so many people!....

Inside the White Horse Tavern, where we had a drink and where the famous residents of Greenwich Village frequented.....

Characterful streets....

Interesting buildings....

 

NYC Cityscapes

We've done a couple of days of hard touring. Yesterday we did a long walking tour around the Upper West Side (UWS) with a guide book I have, which pointed out all the people who have (and still do) live in the apartment buildings near us (and more broadly in the UWS). It's pretty surprising. It's also surprising that most streets were developed to appear as they are today, from farmland, during a short period from about 1870 to 1900. Today we caught a ferry down to Brooklyn, walked around DUMBO ('Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass'), walked along the foreshore parks, had a look at Brooklyn Heights, then walked back across the Brooklyn Bridge to Manhattan. It was a pretty long walk! Here's some pics....

This is a large building (now apartments), originally built as a Pythian Temple, for the Knights of Pythias (look it up in your Funken Wagnalls). It's pretty outrageous - this is the entry...

The Ansonia Apartments - originally built as a hotel in 1904 but converted to apartments a long time ago. The thick walls have apparently attracted many famous musicians to live there.... 

Peek-a-boo....

The streets on Riverside Drive up near West 90th Street have an almost European character...

Up near West 88th Street close to Central Park...

Grandeur on about West 86th - just past here there's a little park in a space about as wide as one or two townhouses - very cut,  heavily landscaped and maintained by the local community....

Toy car (note winder on front bumper!)....

Today we caught one of the many ferry's that now go around Manhattan and beyond (since 2017) - they are like our CityCats, but faster with more seating up the top. They're a bargain for sightseeing, particularly with great weather like we had today (and yesterday). We caught it from East 90th Street down to Brooklyn. This image is looking south, just north of Roosevelt Island, soon after leaving East 90th Street....

From south of Roosevelt Island. The United Nations is the square blue building on the left. The top of the Chrysler Buildings is also visible....

Downtown, looking across the Manhattan Bridge (foreground) and Brooklyn Bridge (background)....

Brooklyn Bridge and NYPD....

A ferry like the one we caught....

Brooklyn Bridge Park has appeared in many films - it provides a great perspective on downtown Manhattan....

Wider view....

Brooklyn Heights is a fabulous area with many heritage precincts, intact buildings and lots of treelined streets. It's high amenity (with high prices!).....

A higher perspective from the Brooklyn Heights Promenade...

Fine old townhouses in Brooklyn Heights....

Walking across Brooklyn Bridge - we couldn't believe how many people there were - this photo doesn't show hardly any (which is a little deceiving)....

It's a great view...

140 years old - once it was built, PC Barnum took 21 elephants over it to convince people it was safe!...

Walking back down our street at the end of a long day....

New York (Update)

Since my last post, Marian has arrived and we've pretty much finished choosing everything for the apartment, with the last items arriving (hopefully) this week. It's all coming together really well. John has also turned up and we've now turned our focus to being tourists! Our first 'tourist' day we went down to the High Line and visited the Chelsea Market and Pier 57 nearby. Today we spent most of the day Downtown, right at the bottom of Manhattan doing one of my walks on the historic beginnings of New York. We also visited the 9/11 memorial, which was very impressive. Here's some pics:

Urban wildlife - a Red Tailed Hawk on West 78th Street....

Our street - nice light....

And why not.....

Turtles and Towers in Central Park....

Mexican meal on our 34th Anniversary.....

Luis (our building 'super') and his 85 year old father Juan, visiting from Cuba, painting our railings white - it's made a big difference and we're really happy with it....

Plant eats building on West 79th Street....

Brilliant idea for graffiti - how does he think of these things....

Terracotta extravaganza - on about West 80th Street....

Central Park has massive spaces - very impressive....

Eleanor Roosevelt Reservoir - original water supply for New York in Central Park....

Incredible Tiffany Lamp exhibition at the New York Historical Society at the end of our street - really amazing and spectacular....

Warhol supermarket shelves - plus the Little Mermaid!....

Finished painting - the white bits on the stairs and railings are new....

The new rug....patiently waiting for more furniture to arrive.....

Chelsea Market - mostly food of all kinds....

View from the rooftop garden of Pier 57. In the foreground is 'Little Island' which is a landscape architecture triumph. It's an artificial island on white concrete pods, with sitting areas, play areas, lookouts and so on. Very well done. Back left is Downtown with the One World Trade Centre the highest building. Back right is New Jersey. 

Same view - zoomed...

Edge treatment all around Little Island - very organic and interesting. Not sure you could do it in Australia without 8ft barriers and warning signs....

Looking down at the supports of the pods....

The High Line is nearby and is another landscape architecture triumph. It's superb and offers very interesting perspectives on the streets below. All the old rail lines have been incorporated one way or another....

The High Line starts at the 'Meatpacking District', which is so named because the elevated railway would bring goods (a lot of meat) into the upper levels of warehouses, from where goods would be distributed throughout the city....

Surprisingly wide former industrial street looking down from the High Line....

Branch lines from the elevated railway would veer off to upper warehouse levels - now let to go to seed naturally as part of the landscape....

Sitting area oriented to a view up 10th Avenue, which in the very, very far distance changes its name to Columbus Avenue (close to us)....

Interesting 'stacker' car park to 5 levels, next to the High Line - I'm not sure how it works as we didn't see it in action....

More eastern views down streets - note how green it is....

This is 'The Shed', which is a striking building which transforms itself by rolling! It can slide backwards to create an open plaza, or slide forward (as it is now), to create a huge exhibition space...

New station and shopping centre adjacent to the World Trade Centre....

9/11 Memorial at the World Trade Centre - each pool is the footprint of the original towers. It is a brilliant concept for the memorial and very well done....

Historic graveyard at Trinity Church (near Wall Street). Whilst it was built in 1846, it was the third church on the site - the first was in 1667 (the graveyard dates from that period)....

A huge line of tourists lining up to have their photos taken at the rear end of the Charging Bull statue at Bowling Green on Broadway. I kid you not. There is a separate queue to be photographed at the front - bizzaro!....

Inside the Customs House, built in 1904 on the original site of Fort Amsterdam (on the water - then - at the very bottom tip of Manhattan). It is now a museum of Native American culture....

Wall Street, with Trinity Church at the end. Half way down on the left (the shorter building) is the New York Stock Exchange...