New York, New York Day 4

We started out Wednesday with Central Park, which is one of my favorite things about New York.  I can spend hours walking around and not get bored.  It is so beautiful and there are tons of great places to people watch!  

  Mom and Dad in front of the Gapstow Bridge  

Can you see the four turtles on the rock in Turtle Pond? Turtle Pond is near the Castle!! 

Belvedere Castle

Dad and Mom disappeared and then I saw them atop Belvedere Castle!

Whisper into one end and it travels to the other side:  Charles B. Stover Bench 

 Mom and me in front of  Shakespeare Garden 

Bow Bridge

Strawberry Fields

Dad and Mom in front of the Dakota.

Another view of the entrance to the Dakota.

 There was an event going on so much of the area was blocked off (including the beautiful Minton Tiles at Bethesda Arcade), but here are Dad and Mom at the Bethesda Fountain.  You can see a tent for the event behind Dad and Mom.

Dad and me between the  Bethesda Fountain and the   Lake 

I don't know why I love this statue so much, but I do!   It's the 

Hans Christian Andersen Statue.

I have never seen the  Alice in Wonderland statue without tons of people crawling all over it.  I've always wanted a good picture of it with no one on it and I got two: one with just the statue and one with Mom and Me!

A street performer made giant bubbles on the  The Mall and Literary Walk 

 Mom and Dad had had enough of Central Park and wanted some lunch, so we worked our way out of the park.  We decided to head over to Grand Central Station because (1) they wanted to see it and (2) they have a giant food court so I figured it would be an inexpensive and quick lunch.  We decided to walk down 5th Ave.  I sure made Dad walk for his supper all week!!  We did make a few detours along the way!

We stopped into the Plaza Hotel to check out the lobby.  It was beautiful!!

 We finally made it to Grand Central Station!

The picture doesn't do it justice, but the ceiling is covered in the constellations.

We had a nice lunch at Grand Central (it is the nicest food court I've been to) and then decided to head to the Chrysler Building.  You can't take a tour anymore, but can do into the lobby.  Here are some pictures of the lobby!

 After finishing up at the Chrysler Building, it was still early so we headed to the New York Public Library on 5th Ave--I guess it is the Stephen A Schwarz Building.  Now this place is amazing!!

I couldn't get a sharp picture, but I wanted to show the beautiful ceilings!

 After we finished at the library, we people watched in Bryant Park for a while.  We then headed back to the hotel for a little R&R before heading out to Astoria to my old neighborhood for dinner.  I had a great time showing my parents my old stomping grounds, but they were not too happy about how well lit the last 1/2 block of my walk was (I wasn't either, but I tried to play it down like it wasn't a big deal).  We had dinner at Mojave, which is a Southwestern place with yummy food and drinks!  I had to take them to Martha's Country Bakery for desert, which was (as usual) amazing!!

We really fit a TON of stuff into our days in New York City.  I'm tired just typing about everything we did!!

New York, New York Day 3

On Tuesday, We took a tour of Manhattan.  In fact, we took the same tour that I did a couple weeks after moving to New York in 2010.  However, the tour had changed a little become of the opening of the World Trade Center Memorial and because we took the tour on a weekday rather than a weekend so we were able to see a few different things.  

First stop was St. John the Divine Cathedral in Upper Manhattan.  Construction started in 1892 and it isn't finished yet!  That is right, they have been working on it for over 120 years!!  I think they are using some medieval techniques and that there was a fire so they had to do some repairs, but that is still a very long time!!  It is a beautiful building, but my heart belong to St. Patrick's!

After finishing up at the Cathedral, we headed to Grant's tomb.  It is a beautiful building, as is true of much of New York City.

I loved the ceiling at Grant's tomb.

I think this is one of the buildings at Columbia (I know it is a bell tower), but I don't  remember.  I guess that is what happens when you blog six weeks after doing something, haha!

We drove through Harlem and saw the Apollo Theather and Bill Clinton's offices from the tour bus before heading down to Lower Manhattan for lunch in Little Italy.  When I took the tour the first time, we didn't stop at St. John the Divine or Grant's Tomb, but we did stop in Central Park.  I had planned on taking Mom and Dad back to Central Park for a long day of walking so it didn't matter that we didn't stop this time.  After our yummy lunch, we headed to the South Street Seaport for our boat tour!  The boat tour was exactly the same.  We started going north to see the Brooklyn Bridge, then headed south and around the tip of lower Manhattan towards the Hudson River, then north again to about Mid-town Manhattan before heading back down to do a loop near Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty.

Brooklyn Bridge

Brooklyn Bridge

Mom and I on the boat!

View of lower Manhattan

Another view of lower Manhattan

The train station in Jersey where many of immigrants went to start their new lives in the USA

Ellis Island 

Statue of Liberty

After finishing the boat tour, we headed to Top of the Rock.  It was another cruddy day and there were tons of winds and clouds.  We hid on the floor that is enclosed in glass so that we see the city and not be blown away!!

he Strand

Times Square looks so small from here!!

After finishing up our tour, we decided to head to Union Square.  I used to spend a lot of time here and wanted to show Mom and Dad.  We headed to Nordstrom Rack and I happened to find $279.00 work pants for $27.00: I love this Rack!!  Anyway, we headed to Max Brenner's for dinner.  I thought we would end up  having some yummy deserts, but we were all too full!  We headed to my favorite book store in the world after dinner: The Strand.