New York City Pt 6

We've seen some great stuff since the last post, which wasn't too long ago. It's just Marian and I now. We're really enjoying 'living' in NYC, even though we leave next week! The apartment is awesome and the location is great. Unfortunately, the hot weather has returned the past few days - with 36C and very humid! We went to the local comedy club tonight which was a hoot - we've been there a few times as it's so easy to get to (a few streets away). Here's some pics...

We took the local ferry over to Governor Island, which is just off the bottom of Manhattan. It is where the Dutch originally landed to establish a settlement in 1624 - until they moved over to Manhattan island in 1625 - a bit like the first settlement at Redcliffe in 1824 prior to moving to Brisbane in 1825! This is looking back to the terminal on the left (fabulous Beaux Arts building from 1909) against downtown buildings...

The ferry trip is only 10 minutes. It was very interesting visiting the island - very busy with people using it  as a park. There are many historic military buildings that are now used by community and artist groups. There was a jazz festival on the day we visited. We went on a group bird walk there as well...

We finally made it up to The Cloisters, to see the medieval collection of The Met. Wow. It most certainly 'exceeded expectations'. It was purpose built in the 1930's with money from the Rockefeller's, to initially house a collection The Met purchased from an artist in New York. They've subsequently expanded it significantly. It has cloisters, frescos, statues, chapels and artworks all over the place...

We returned and visited the former Eldridge Street Synagogue (it was closed when we visited with Kathy). It was fantastic, as it included a great tour with a very knowledgeable and interesting lady. It operates as a museum now and has been completely restored from the 1880's...

One evening we went for a walk down to Riverside Park and found the water very still at sunset - noice....

Yesterday we visited The Intrepid Museum, being the USS Intrepid aircraft carrier, which was in service from 1943 to 1974. It saw active service in WW2 and the Vietnam War - amazing place. Lots of very interesting displays and equipment were inside in the massive Hangar Deck (where the planes were stored below the flight deck), as well as being able to go all through the ship to see how it functioned. Just great. Then, up on the flight deck they had many planes (and a Space Shuttle?!)....

The plaque for this blue plane says: "During a Tiger test flight in September 1956, a Grumman pilot shot himself down. While performing a dive, he caught up to his own cannon fire, which damaged his plane. The pilot survived the ensuing emergency landing.'...

This is Marian in front of a 40mm Bofors Gun. John Wheeler (Marian's dad) was tasked with manning one on his ship in WW2 from the UK to India (in 1945). Fortunately he never had to use it! He tells us they were 'issued with time-honoured pith helmets for the duty'...

Pulled up alongside the Intrepid is a submarine, used to launch early nuclear missiles. These missiles had to be launched from the surface - they subsequently developed the technology to launch them underwater (as they still can). It was so interesting - completely intact as if they just walked out - we could go through from one end to the other and there were good descriptions...

There's also one of the few remaining Concorde's at the museum. We didn't go inside - we'll do that next time...

We had a very nice walk over to the south-east corner of the park late yesterday afternoon. This is another of the original bridges by the architect Calvert Vaux who designed Central Park with the landscape architect Frederick Olmsted. It remains a tour de force...

Pickle Ball anyone? In winter it is an ice rink...

Throughout the nearby West 81st Street subway station (at the Natural History Museum) there are great artworks on the tiles and floor. This is quite a large one on walls at the bottom of the stairs leading to another platform - the idea is you are going down to the depths...

This morning was a real treat. We went for a tour of the UN building. It was fantastic. We saw the four big chambers as well as meeting rooms and lots of other parts of the establishment. This picture is of the Security Council. We also saw a few others and the main General Assembly in session, talking about the Gaza issue. We were able to sit up the back and watch for a little while - I put on the earpiece and you could switch channels into 6 or 7 languages being translated in real time....

The building is a 1950's mid-century treat as well...

Front entrance (the glazed vertical strips in the above internal photo are the darker vertical strips on the external photo below)...

There are artworks all through the building inside as well as outside...

Walking back from the UN - this is the very top of the General Electric Building - an Art Deco extravaganza from 1931...

New York City Pt 5

Since the last post our rhythm has settled to slower mornings, often starting our tourist activities around lunch time or after! This is partly due to the heat. It's also partly due to settling into 'living' mode. I'm happy to say the last few days have been much more pleasant weather-wise, which is a welcome relief. We've still done a lot of different things with Kathy whilst she was here. She left yesterday for San Francisco. We've got another two and a half weeks here until we do the same. Here are some pics....

In the 1980's the NYC council changed its voting structure to reflect where the population actually lived. Up until then, Staten Island had a huge impact on how the city was run, even though it was by far the smallest borough. They were annoyed, so they voted to secede and leave the city. Incoming mayor Giuliani did a few things to try to appease them, one being to make the Staten Island ferry free. They didn't secede, and the ferry is still free. We caught it over to Staten Island for the view and caught a different council ferry back to midtown on the Hudson River. The views were awesome....

After we got off the ferry we took Kathy through the High Line...

The very next day we were on the water again, this time to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. It was a little windy on the way over....

There is a very interesting museum on Liberty Island, including the original torch. It is very interesting how it was/is constructed. A 1.3m high clay model was sculpted (in the museum), then three successively bigger versions of each part were made with wood/copper until scale was achieved....

It is quite big...

Note people for scale. You can't see the feet, which have broken shackles lying adjacent, symbolising liberty. The date of the Declaration of Independence is etched on the book...

Ellis Island is nearby and very worthwhile. It is where 12 million immigrants were processed to enter the United States - many of whom ended up in New York. There were very interesting displays. This is the main registration hall, where every day thousands of immigrants came after their voyage seeking to enter the country. A small proportion were turned back, but it still added up to 240,000 people...

The weather turned out nicely later in the afternoon...

In July there is one evening called 'Manhattanhenge'. It's when the sun perfectly aligns with the street grid, so the sun sets at the end of the vista. We arrived a minute too late! But there was a street party with a Salsa band as a consolation...

We went out to Rockaway Beach to do some bird watching at Jamaica Bay Wetlands and on the beach. The beach (boardwalk) walk was led by a local expert. We got there on one of our usual subway trains - but toward the end of its route. We were surprised how big and lengthy the boardwalk was, as well as how many people were using the beaches....

This is a nice section of Riverside Drive up near West 93rd Street....

Near the above curved street is the Soldiers and Sailers Monument (to those in the Union Army in the Civil War). In summer they have free plays on a terrace behind it - we went to see Sense and Sensibility (usually it's Shakespeare). It was great...

I went off to the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) by myself as Marian and Kathy had already been. The lady at the ticket office was from Sydney and gave me a free 'guest' pass into the museum - noice! It's fantastic, with a great range and quality of exhibits. I loved a major retrospective about Jack Whitten, who I didn't know about, but was awesome. This is a room full of Henri Mattise works...

Courtyard sculpture garden out a window...

Jasper Johns flag is interesting close up, as you can see the strips of newspaper he coloured to put it together...

The famous NY logo started as a doodle on a napkin drawn in a cab - on display in a modern 'design' exhibition, together with the original mock-ups presented to the council. It was in 1976 when NY was burning and broke...

We took a different local train down to Coney Island (no longer an island). Very interesting. It is quite a large beach (sand not as white as ours) with lots of people and umbrellas etc. It has multiple amusement 'parks', but there's no entry fee - only for each separate ride. The boardwalk is very wide and long - made of timber - with food vendors all along. There are lots of housing towers for some distance along the foreshore as well (not upmarket like you might expect). I suppose in winter it must be pretty exposed!...

Nathans Famous is a historic hot dog joint - had chilli cheese hot dog - pretty fantastic....

Went to a musical 'Hell's Kitchen' by Alicia Keys in one of the historic theatres (the Shubert Theatre) on Broadway. It was great. 'Broadway' is a loose term to describe the theatre precinct, as it really is the name of the road along the eastern edge of the precinct. The Shubert Theatre is on West 44th Street, not far from Broadway (the road). The musical was about Manhattan Plaza, a huge housing development (1,600 apartments) nearby on West 43rd Street where Alecia Keys grew up - it has legislation that requires 70% of the tenants to be in the arts - plenty of famous people have lived there - Samuel L Jackson was a doorman there - Larry David and Kramer lived there...

We visited Bronx Zoo for a day. It is huge, on a massive site and great fun. Also very historic. Here is a mountain goat practicing (viewed from the monorail that takes you though different environments)...

Very pink...

There is a huge mountain gorilla display/enclosure. This big fellow was watching us in the little glass box, watching him. I'm not sure who the exhibit was....

This is the Delacorte Clock in Central Park. On the hour the characters move around - it's next to the Central Park Zoo. It was donated (1965) by a chap called Delacorte who lived nearby - he also donated a brilliant large sculpture of Alice in Wonderland with multiple characters, as well as an open air theatre still used for Shakespeare in the Park every year....

A very handsome apartment building (The Parkview) on a walking tour of the Upper East Side. It had only two apartments per floor (originally) each with a dozen or more rooms each. It was one of the first on the Upper East Side (1908) completed at a time when the well-to-do did not live in apartments - it soon changed....

The Conservatory Water in Central Park - looking east...

It was surprising how good the view was from the One World Observatory (the tower which replaced the World Trade Centre). We had a reasonably clear day and the views were amazing. This view shows a little part of the Hudson River and how they have turned most of it over to new parkland over the past 30 years...

Looking north (from Downtown) toward Midtown (the towers in the distance) - Central Park is further beyond the super skinny towers in the distance...

Looking east toward Brooklyn (Brooklyn Bridge the one on the right). The trees in the foreground surround St Paul's Chapel (1766), now dwarfed. The Woolworths Building (1913) has the green top to the left (the tallest building in the world until 1929). The super-skinny one top right on the East River is a failed construction and can't be completed because it is unstable!...

Here I've overlaid the current bottom tip of Manhattan with a plan from the late 1600s (of New Amsterdam), to see how much of this part of the island is reclaimed...

'nuff said....

Trinity Church in Downtown setting...

Federal Hall on Wall Street. It's now a monument/museum to the beginnings of the United States, but was first built as a Customs House, being near the docks (this is the hall where you would come to pay your taxes)...

This is a cartoon from 1913 about the geezer who instigated the first zoning laws to require the towers to be set back from the street for light and air (resulting in the classic New York skyscraper form)...

View down West 74th to San Remo towers...

In the New York Historical Society was a very interesting map from 1804. I've marked it up. The green is British (Canada didn't exist yet). Red is Spanish. Blue was French until the year before (1803) when Jefferson (USA) bought it from Napoleon (France) for $15m (the 'Louisianna Purchase'). Until then, the USA was only those States on the right hand side...

Visited the Met again - I hardly touch the surface each time. This visit I spent most time in the Egyptian and American sections (but only saw a third of the latter). This is a temple gifted to the USA from Egypt in 1968, because it was going to be flooded by the Aswan Dam. They built the building around it in the 1972, with the terrace reflecting a terrace for the original and the water the Nile River....

This is the American Wing. The building facade is from a demolished building on Wall Street...

The brass and steel staircase is from the Chicago Stock Exchange building (built 1894; demolished 1972) by the influential architect Louis Sullivan. I loved the design. In background is a headlight window from Tiffany's which was also pretty spectacular...

Cast iron Haughwout building (1857) in Soho on the alignment of the proposed Lower Manhattan Expressway, a 10 lane elevated freeway across lower Manhattan proposed in the late 1950's/early 1960's. It was a huge controversy at the time and was obviously defeated, followed by heritage protection for much of the area. Cast iron allowed taller buildings with more glass. They coincided with a new lift system by Mr Otis, which enabled taller buildings - eventually leading to skyscrapers....

Several streets in Soho are cobbled...

Waiting for the subway. Unlike London, many subways were built with 4 tracks - two uptown and two downtown - with express services racing along the centre tracks. In London, each 'tube' is for one track...

The Woolworths Building referred to earlier (the one with the green roof). It is very ornate - almost a gothic skyscraper...

We did an interesting walking tour through the Lower East Side, Chinatown and Little Italy. This is Orchard Street, closed to traffic for the afternoon. It was a hub of activity in the late 1800's and early 1900's, being a hot spot of immigrant life with an incredible density of people living in the tenement buildings here (tenement buildings were just rental apartment buildings - built for the purpose)...

Fire escapes became law in NYC from the 1860's...

Little Italy - we had cannoli from Casa d'Angelo's...

Little Italy - we then had pizza on the left - note Empire State Building in distance to the north...