NYC Wanderings

We've continued to tour different neighbourhoods and occasionally visit a gallery or museum. Marian and I aren't too ambitious and have a reasonable amount of down time, waking up way too late most days! We've got admin on various things and I had a bug for a day or two which took me out of action. We can't keep up with John, who is out the door before us every morning! Here are some pics.....

We toured Tribeca, which is famous for association with the film industry and Robert de Niro, Beyonce and JZ et al. Many famous people choose to live here in $30m apartments, but it's a bit odd. Compared to the rest of NYC it's very quiet with little street activation (which is why the celebs like it I suppose - there were lots of very dark chauffeured vehicles around). But its a bit boring and out of the way. Very nice buildings though and near the river.....

Alley in Tribeca....

We see this all over NYC (but usually only one caboose at a time!). Child Care kids getting taken to the park. At least it's safe! Very small kids, very cute....

The 9/11 museum below the memorial pools exceeded expectations. It has a great deal of detailed information at the end,  so we didn't get time to finish. The concrete box is one of the reflection pools above, and replicates the original Twin Towers north building. The steel footings of the tower still are there around the box (zoom in). The blue wall is an art piece where people who were there were asked to paint the colour of the sky on the day as they remembered it. There were lots of artefacts, broken fire engines etc. It was impressive....

In 44th Street near 5th Avenue there are many private clubs - lots of money to spend on things like fire escapes.....

This is the New York Yacht Club - do the window sills remind you of anything?.....

On Broadway is the Brill Building, which is the home of much popular music - the 'factory' where many famous 60's musicians used to work in offices and produce hits for others - until they all decided to do it for themselves....

Marian got us a pass to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the 'Met') and we've been several times now (short drop ins). It's close to us across the park and is incredible - huge. It's unique in that it has serious art as well as museum items. They had a Van Gogh exhibition focussed on his Cypresses. It chronologically followed his arrival in Arles to St Remy, including letters to Theo with sketches etc. I thought this one very interesting - it was a very early sketch arriving at St Remy when he wasn't allowed out - done with mixed materials obviously very quickly. They had Starry Night as well as several pretty dodgy ones - I really enjoyed it .....

A Met hallway - there are lots of huge spaces and galleries....

Nice mural - even the fire escape is painted....

Soho - where cast iron was used in construction for industrial buildings the first time - often replicating masonry or timber.....

Soho....note cobbled street....

The bike scheme is very popular throughout NYC, but apparently not in Soho! All the columns are cast iron - you could see rust on some of them....

Most cast iron industrial buildings (which are now either office or residential) are 1850 - 1890 vintage. They were built on a village of townhouses from 1800-1820, of which several remain. This is one....

Speccy....

The same 'jenga' building is visible from Tribeca from the opposite direction - you can walk between these different areas but it's a bit of a hike....

Little Italy (near Soho). John wanted to buy a little cheese at this deli and ended up with a LOT of mozzarella!....

Rockefeller Centre on 5th Avenue - the artwork around the building is fabulous (1932 vintage)....

St Patricks Cathedral on 5th Avenue, opposite Rockefeller Centre. Built from mid 1850's for all the Irish Catholics streaming into NYC from the potato famine (the landed gentry in Ireland facilitated their passage to remove the problem). It was finished around 1890. Perfectly maintained and richly detailed - ironically I thought it was beautiful but lacked soul......

NYC Update

We've been pretty busy. It's been a mix of walks featuring interesting things about the history, culture and architecture of the city, plus visits to museums and galleries. The weather has remained pretty good, but varying between really hot and a bit chilly. We've had a small amount of rain - not much. Here's some pics....

Up on West 87th Street there's a community park that holds free concerts on Sundays. It's a bummer but we completely forgot about it today - I really wanted to go to as they had an American Jazz band. The previous Sunday was a Brazilian jazz group, the highlight of which was the piano player, that looked like an unassuming 1960's school teacher (but was a fantastic jazz pianist!). Unfortunately, the band leader wasn't a very good singer!....

This is a panorama south across the Central Park reservoir - the 'west side' and 'east side' of the park are left and right (you should be able to zoom in for detail)....

Guggenheim - the taller light brown building on the left is part of it ......

The Metropolitan Museum of Art. We have a pass and have been once - it is so huge - had a great time focussing on about 1/20th of what is there....

One of our walks was up Bowery, a major thoroughfare along the Lower East Side, which once had an elevated railway along it - see next picture (these 'el's' or elevated railways used to run up several avenues including Columbus next to us - thankfully they were torn down years ago). We went to the Tenement Museum here, which illustrated how the immigrants from Europe lived around 1900 - very interesting area. David Bowie's $17m apartment was nearby....

The school buses have enormous cantilevers at the back - not sure how that works. The dark building behind is an apartment building which has over the years housed several known characters - like the artist Mark Rothko who had a studio there for some time....

The black awning on the right is the site of CBGB's - famous music venue now a clothes shop. The situation is very nondescript, just facing a major thoroughfare (Bowery).....

Glimpse of buildings through wild landscape in Central Park - we've been through many times and it's fantastic....

Manhattan from Roosevelt Island....

South Street Sea Port area next to Downtown (very bottom tip of Manhattan). There are great public spaces now along the waterfront and on the renovated wharves. The improvements to Manhattan in the past 20 years or so have been enormous - a significant amount of parkland, bikeways and connected pathways have been installed. Every inch is utilised very well .....

A fantastic jazz group playing nearby as part of a downtown public service. They were awesome individual musicians and collectively. Note very small bass drum and second snare as tom....

St Paul's Church next to the World Trade Centre site. It is from 1760 or so. George Washington used to go here....

Cityscape with new World Trade Centre in centre....

St Paul's spire lost in the towers.....

The NYC Public Library is a major site in Midtown. Their 'Treasures' display is great - and holds the original Winnie the Poo, Tigger et al - ie. they are the ones the real Christopher Robin used to play with and his father wrote the books about....

The foyer of the Chrysler Building is great - I'd never been inside before. The second picture is looking up at the ceiling of the first picture.....

We went up to the Apollo Theatre in Harlem for the famous Amateur Night - what a hoot - you can clap or boo! The crowd boo'd off about 3 contestants!....

Cityscape - the very thin towers are all pretty new and are the ones you can see in the shots I have taken from Central Park looking back at the city (it's called 'Billionaires Row' given the price of living in the towers)....

We loved the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA). This is a picture of architectural elements from the early 1900's, including works by Gaudi and Frank Loyd Wright....

The original soup cans, without the Little Mermaid (see earlier post).....

7th Avenue was closed off yesterday for some kind of market - it was pretty long - not sure why or whether it is regular....

Also yesterday, was the first ever Haitian Flag Day where they celebrated 220 years of independence. The parade went to Central Park West and was mostly staged at the end of our street - lots of dancing and bright costumes.....

For some reason, an iconic old cab was in front of the NYC Public Library .....

Inside the Guggenheim. The building is fantastic and now very well renovated.....

St John's Cathedral at the border of the Upper West Side and Harlem - it's the biggest in the city. Today we did a big walk through Harlem which was fascinating - now much gentrified but still pretty run down in parts....

Waiting for the subway on the way home....

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....