Thursday, 29 Dec 2016

This morning Adam went to Brooklyn for the meeting he was supposed to do on Tuesday.  It’s raining and windy so we’re not sure what we’ll do in the afternoon.  Holden is still feeling queasy, and Adam and I both aren’t quite 100% either.

Since the weather was unpleasant, we decided to go to the Natural History Museum.  After a long Uber ride in heavy traffic, we finally arrived and saw this line of people waiting to get into the museum.

Here are our dismayed faces, struggling to come up with a Plan B on the spot.  We’ve been Louvre’d out of yet a second museum in New York City.

All of these people wanting to do an “indoor” activity today are going to stand outside in the rain for probably 2+ hours 

The Arch in Washington Square Park.

We ordered another Uber and went down to Greenwich Village.  This is the where Monica, Chandler, et al. supposedly lived in Friends.  A lot of other famous people, mostly artists and musicians, lived here for real.

But first, Isabella needed to go potty.  We found a Starbucks and ordered a couple of drinks so we could use the bathroom.  The barista told us they didn’t have a public bathroom and we’d have to either go to Chipotle across the street or a different Starbucks several streets away.

Then she screwed up our drinks order.  We ordered a tall black coffee and a tall black tea.  She served us grandes, which was OK although we hadn’t wanted to carry the big ones around.  Once I got outside, I discovered she’d given me Earl Gray instead of black tea.  I hate Earl Gray. I held onto it long enough to get into the second Starbucks as a paying customer so we could use their facilities.

We found the other Starbucks a few blocks away.  They had one unisex bathroom.  Isabella went first, then Holden, Josie, and finally me.  When Josie came out, she said to me, “It STINKS in there.  Holden really messed it up.” I rolled my eyes, thinking he’d done a #2.  Instead, the place reeked of urine so badly it literally made my eyes water.  There were ammonia fumes.  It smelled like several weeks of pee that had never been properly cleaned up. It was revolting.  When I came out, Josie was bouncing around the door saying, “See?  You see?  I told you he messed it up.”  I said, “Holden didn’t do that.  That is what happens when you don’t clean a bathroom.”  She said, “Ew.  That’s even more gross than when I thought Holden did it.”

Here is me, smiling because I don’t yet know just how bad the bathroom is going to be.

NYU is right next to the Village – and the place has some cool shops to see along Bleeker Street. Great old names in Jazz clubs and comedy clubs, but nothing was going on when we were there.

This is the building used in the establishing exterior shots for Friends.  They lived on the 5th (top) floor and that little coffee shop at the bottom was supposed to be Central Perk.

Hard to see:  the archway made of lights over the street that reads “Welcome to Greenwich Village”

We walked around for a bit in the cold rain, didn’t find much of interest, and decided to Uber back home.

Adam keeps calling Greenwich Village “gritty.” I think a better word is “dirty.”  Also acceptable: ugly, disgusting, stinky, gross.  Now I can say that’ve been there, but that’s pretty much all I got from today’s outing.

Adam and I have reservations for dinner at Delmonico’s.  Delmonico’s is considered the very first fine dining restaurant opened in the country, back in 1837.  From their website: “In 1862, Charles Ranhofer was named Chef de Cuisine inventing many original dishes during his time at our stoves. He is most noted for his innovative creations, Eggs Benedict, Baked Alaska, Lobster Newburg and Chicken A la Keene.” If you enjoy any of these dishes, now you know who to thank.

From Adam:  Later that evening, Brenda and I went out to dinner – one of the things I most wanted to do on this trip… reservations at Delmonico’s. We had to book a table at 5:30 in order to get in, but that suits our time schedule anyway. I have been reading about Delmonico’s my entire life and wanted to experience it. This restaurant was THE place that the men of power met and ate throughout the 19th century. Lincoln, Roosevelt, Morgan, Oscar Wilde, Charles Dickens & on and on. I had the steak, Brenda ordered the lamb chops.

The Baked Alaska for dessert (below).  It was delicious.  Walnut cake base, banana gelato interior, meringue exterior.  I am not certain how banana flavored gelato translates into “Alaska” but it was delicious nonetheless.  Maybe the originals looked a bit like snowballs — although the way they piped the meringue on this one made it look more like a sea creature you’d find in the Tokyo Fish Market. The stuff around the plate edge is apricot preserves.

Me in front of the entrance after dinner with our doggie bag.  Adam was able to eat only half his steak.  We both overindulged considering our still-sensitive stomachs and had to bring about half of our meals home.  The kids polished off everything within 5 minutes of us walking in the door … except for my side order of roasted brussels sprouts.  Those were all mine.

Friday, 30 Dec 2016

Today we went to see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.  Adam:  We got up early and hit the ferries just after they opened. It was COLD and already crowded, but the visit turned out to be fun. We were especially grateful after we returned to Battery Park near lunchtime to see the lines extend several city blocks (no exaggeration) which must have been at least a 3-4 hour wait. Just crazy.

As early birds, we even got a spot on the bench for the ferry ride to Liberty Island.

View of New York City from the ferry.  The tall building with the spire on top is the new Freedom Tower.

Lady Liberty.

Proof they were actually here.

City skyline behind the kids.  I was off looking at birds.  There are a lot of seagulls and geese on this island. 

Here are some now.

After Liberty Island, you get back on the ferry and land at Ellis Island.  This (below) is the Great Hall/Registry Room where millions of immigrants were processed from the 1880s up to the late 1920s. The entire island is a museum now and very interesting – more so that we had imagined. It is well worth spending several hours going over the exhibits.

We didn’t get to spend as much time here as we would have liked.  We didn’t expect this part of the tour to be so neat and didn’t budget the time into our schedule.  Isabella and I had tickets to see Liev Schreiber in Les Liaisons Dangeruses at 2:00 p.m. and we needed to get back.

Some of the most interesting exhibits (in my opinion) are on the 3rd floor.  They have a collection of personal items from immigrants, examples of the luggage and household items, etc.  they brought from their home countries to start a new life here in America.

Back in the Wall Street area right off the Ellis Island ferry.  This is the famous Wall Street bull.  People were actually lined up to take their picture in front of it.

All those people, just waiting their turn for a photo with the Bull.  We’ve discovered that if you want to do anything in New York City, you need to get there really early in the day.  If you wait until 11:00 a.m., you will spend most of your time either standing in a line or (like us) scrambling for something way less popular to do instead.  The same goes for meals.  If you eat early, you can get in almost anywhere.  Wait until a “fashionable” hour to dine and you’ll starve.  

With that in mind, we made a beeline back to Koreatown and had lunch right before the noon crowd started forming.  We’re still all on a soup diet for the most part.

Isabella and I went to Times Square/Broadway for the 2:00 p.m. matinee of Les Liaisons Dangereuses.  We took an Uber, but traffic near Times Square was so bad we were forced to ditch the car and walk the rest of the way if we were going to make it on time.  A bunch of the roads were already shut off in preparation for tomorrow’s New Year Eve festivities.  People dressed in costumes were already out doing whatever it is they do:  Elmo, Mario, the snowman from Frozen, several male Statue of Liberties, Minnie Mouse, Spiderman — there didn’t seem to be much of a theme going on, but it was chaotic, crowded and festive.  They are expecting more than 2 million people to be here tomorrow night. Police are EVERYWHERE.

We made it to the theater on time and were treated to a truly wonderful show.  Most of you already know the storyline of Dangerous Liaisons, but Isabella did not.  She was most scandalized (especially by the partial nudity) but loved it in spite of her prudish tendencies.  She kept saying, “This is awesome, but so embarrassing to be watching with my mother!”  I said, “With whom else would you be here in New York watching a Broadway play?  Would you rather be watching this with Daddy?” and she said, “Fair point.  It could be worse.”

Note:  we originally bought the tickets for Adam and me.  We both wanted to see Ray Donovan (Liev Schreiber) on stage.  (Side note: he was excellent!)  We felt so rotten for Isabella missing The Lion King that Adam gave her his ticket so she could see a Broadway play in New York, even if it wasn’t the one she wanted.  She really enjoyed it, so I’m glad she got this experience. And in her case, a little de-prudification is probably good for her.

She and I walked home afterwards.  Weaving through the intense crowds (which were even worse at 5:00 p.m. than they were earlier in the afternoon) took a long time but it started to snow and created a rather magical experience.  It felt like a gift after our disappointments earlier in this trip.

We finally made it back to the apartment and Adam had the place cleaned up, a fruit and cheese platter ready, and a good bottle of wine open.  Today was a really good day.

Saturday, 31 Dec 2016     NEW YEAR’S EVE 

Trinity Church on Wall Street – this is actually the 3rd iteration on this property.  The first was constructed in 1697.

The inscription on this tombstone for William Bradford cracked me up.  He was a printer and, among other things, started New York’s first newspaper, the New-York Gazette.  I have typed out the inscription below the photo because it’s hard to read.

I’ve never seen a tombstone inscription quite this blunt.  I’ve also never seen a tombstone that included a reality-check for those of us still alive:  “Reader reflect how soon you’ll quit this Stage. You’ll find but few attain to such an Age. Life’s full of Pain.” In other words, “He made it to 92 but you shouldn’t get your hopes up… just sayin’.”

Here lies the body of Mr WILLIAM BRADFORD
Printer who departed this Life May 23
1752, aged 92 Years: He was born in
Liecestershire, in Old England, in 1660
and came over to America in 1682, before
the City of Philadelphia was laid out. He
was Printer to this Government for upwards
of 50 Years and being quite worn out
with Old age and labor, he left this
mortal State in the lively Hopes of a
blessed immortality.
Reader reflect how soon you’ll quit this Stage.
You’ll find but few attain to such an Age.
Life’s full of Pain. Lo here’s a Place of Rest.
Prepare to meet your GOD then you are blessed.
Here also lies the body of Elizabeth Wife to the
said William Bradford who departed
this Life July 8 1731 aged 68 Years.

His poor wife, also buried here, is nothing more than a footnote.  That doesn’t seem fair.

The photo below is the burial place of Alexander Hamilton.  He was interred here after he lost the duel with Aaron Burr.  Right next to him is a plaque telling us that Hamilton’s oldest son is also buried somewhere in this same cemetery but the exact location has been lost to the ages.  His son also died in a duel after he took offense to someone making disparaging remarks about his dad.  Holden remarked:  “The men in that family seem to have a genetic flaw with anger issues.  They keep engaging in duels when they aren’t good at them.  That’s bad survival technique.”

Walking along Wall Street.  The old City Hall (now a museum) is coming up on the left.  It’s where George Washington was sworn in as our first President.

A statue of Washington, and banners telling us “This place matters” in case we weren’t suitably impressed.

The New York Stock Exchange.  It’s closed today.

This is probably as close as our kids will ever get to it.  They look like weird long-legged creatures because of the wide-angle lens.

The Christmas tree in front of NY Stock Exchange.

This is the Federal Reserve (below).  They keep this building relatively nondescript.  No signs or anything identifying it, save a single American flag.

Adam:  Probably the most important building in the world – the Federal Reserve Bank of NY – the Fed. There are no labels on the building and it’s built like a fort.  More than 7000 tons of gold are buried in the vaults below ground. What decisions take place in the building affect everyone in the world, daily.

Now we’re coming up on the new One World Trade Center (aka Freedom Tower) and the memorial for Ground Zero.

Memorial fountains outlining the base of the original twin towers.

The metal edge has the names of all who perished that day.

Josie studied the new tower in her social studies class this semester.  She informed us that almost everything about the design is significant; for example, the building is 1776 feet tall (including the spire) to represent the year the Declaration of Independence was signed.  The actual top floor is exactly the same height as the World Trade Center that was destroyed on 9/11.

Adam:  We didn’t go up to the top because (as written before) we don’t go up stuff and they wanted $34/head for the pleasure. Plus the lines. Someone else go and tell me how great it was.

The interior of St. Paul’s Chapel nearby (photos below). This is where George and Martha went to Sunday services each week when he was President. It is an offshoot of Trinity Church that was built when more people started moving into the area and didn’t want to walk that far.

This is one of the first seals of the United States.  It features a turkey instead of an eagle because Benjamin Franklin wanted the turkey as our national bird.

From there we walked to Chinatown.  This store had some gorgeous, delicate gold jewelry.

We toyed with idea of getting lunch here, but noticed that many of the restaurants didn’t have very good health code ratings.  In New York, apparently it’s a law that restaurants much conspicuously display their health code grade in their front window.  Every single one we’ve seen throughout the city had a grade of A.  In Chinatown, many had a grade of B and we were making fun of them … then went a little further and found several with grade C.  We decided not to take a chance.

Onward to Little Italy.  We were starving and stopped at the first restaurant we came to.  (It had a grade A rating.  Yay.)  Signed publicity photos covered the walls, including pictures of Sinatra, Ray Romano, and Steven Van Zandt from The Sopranos. (He played Silvio Dante.)

Holden waiting for Josie to make up her mind so we can finally order.

The food was fine, but not spectacular.  We were a bit disappointed considering where we were.  We expected something better and more authentic from an old, established-in-1904 place in Little Italy.  If you happen to come here, maybe skip Vincent’s and try one of the many other restaurants instead.

Next stop: back to Ferrara Bakery to get some cannolis to take home for our New Year’s Eve treat.  This place is phenomenal.

Pretty, old-fashioned fire escapes.

Love the name of this shop.

We walked all the way back home, nearly 11 miles in total today.  We rested for a couple of hours in the afternoon (Adam watched half of a football game) and then headed back out around 5:00 p.m. to see what was going on in Times Square.

The Empire State Building, all lit up in it’s New Year’s Eve finery.

Nearly every street is blocked off.  They brought in 7,000 police officers and trucks filled with sand as a precaution against terrorists driving into the crowds like in Nice, France on Bastille Day and Berlin a few weeks ago.  Getting to Times Square is difficult as they are funneling everyone through just a couple of entrance points and doing security checks.

We gave up and walked home.  We had no intention of standing in one of the holding pens for several hours.  They manage the crowd by setting up corrals that contain 3,000 people each.  Once you are assigned to a corral, that’s where you stay.  The very idea gives me the creeps.  I don’t want to be crammed into a corral like a sheep waiting to be sheared.  (And if animals are crammed 3,000 deep into corrals, receiving a nonconsensual haircut is the very best thing one could hope for.) No thank you.

We thought we’d be able to hear the festivities of 2+ million people from our balcony since they weren’t that far away.  Much to our surprise, we couldn’t hear a thing.  We couldn’t hear or see the fireworks, either.  In fact, our area was strangely quiet until around 1:00 a.m. when 2 million people all tried to leave at the same time.  We watched the ball drop on TV just like everybody else, and went to bed.  We got about one hour of sleep, and then the mass exodus reached our street.  After that it was angry yelling and constant car horn blaring for nearly three hours straight.

Sunday 01 Jan 2017

We saved Central Park Zoo for today because I was afraid the streets of New York would be filled with barf after last night’s festivities and figured the zoo would be nice and clean.  A few years ago we rang in the new year in Paris.  The city on New Year’s Day was …. well, you can read about it on our blog post France, Dec 2011 and Jan 2012.  It was revolting.

My fears turned out to be unfounded.  New York avoided the vomit problem by banning drinking in Times Square.  I’m sure the purpose was to prevent a drunken mob from spiraling out of control, but a nice side effect is that the streets are surprisingly clean this morning.  Sober people don’t make such a mess.

I wanted to see Central Park Zoo because I’ve heard about it my entire life.  The kids wanted to see Central Park Zoo because they like Madagascar.  The zoo is much smaller than I expected, but quite nice and they have a wonderful bird collection.  I could have spent hours in their Tropical habitat (nice bonus, it was warm in there.)

Rules are you can’t touch the birds, but the birds are allowed to touch you.  Here we are trying to convince some ducks that we’ve just love to be petted.  They didn’t oblige.

Back outside to the sea lions.

This clock and archway was featured in the movie Madagascar.  It’s one of the only recognizable things from the movie.  What the real zoo lacks are any lions, hippos, giraffes, or zebras.  They have not a single one of the main character animals.  They do have a lot of penguins and lemurs though.

At the Tisch Children’s Zoo (part of Central Park Zoo but in a different area; a general admission ticket gets you access to both parts) they have domesticated animals kids can feed and touch, as well as some other interactive features designed for little kids.

Or, in the case of our own children, not-so-little kids.

The kids were so loud for this photo they scared the nearby Patagonian cavies and I had to tell them to be quiet.

Me feeding an alpaca.  She was my best friend until I ran out of pellets.

After we explored the zoo, we walked further into Central Park and found the Balto statue. Anyone who has little kids and has seen the movie Balto will be familiar with this one. (Anyone who grew up in Alaska and knows about the Iditarod will know about Balto, too.)   A plaque at the bottom of the statue reads:
Dedicated to the indomitable spirit of the sled dogs that relayed antitoxin six hundred miles over rough ice, across treacherous waters, through Arctic blizzards from Nenana to the relief of stricken Nome in the Winter of 1925.
Endurance · Fidelity · Intelligence

Pretty view of bridge in Central Park with the Manhattan skyline in the background.

A little further along we came to Strawberry Fields and the John Lennon memorial.  He was assassinated in front of his apartment very near this section of the park. Lots of people gathered here to pay their respects, and a guy sitting on a bench was playing Lennon songs on an acoustic guitar. (And we got to meet a mini Aussie puppy that looks just like Max!)

John Lennon’s apartment building, The Dakota.

Tom’s Restaurant, which most everyone will recognize as the diner as Monk’s Cafe from Seinfeld.  Tom’s Restaurant is a few blocks from Columbia University and Barnard College, where Suzanne Vega studied.  Tom’s was a frequent haunt of hers and she wrote the 1987 song Tom’s Diner about this place.  It’s open really late and has been a hang-out for college students for years.  It’s Upper Manhattan college district’s version of a Denny’s.

The inside looks nothing like the Seinfeld set.  They serve Greek-inspired diner food — gyros, hamburgers, grilled cheese, fries.

Isabella is going to be a senior in high school next year and has started thinking seriously about colleges.  Since we were in the vicinity, we walked to Columbia University and poked around a little.  With total annual tuition and board more than $70,000, she will not be attending Columbia, but she was interested in seeing it anyway.  We walked around the campus but on New Year’s Day, not much was open.

Pictured below is the Biomedical Engineering building.

The doors were open and we went to the 3rd floor and wandered the halls of the Biomedical Engineering department.  Every door had “biohazard” written on it and heavy-duty locks.  Many labs had emergency showers right outside their doors in the hallway.  The posters show projects different student research teams are working on.  We were all suitably impressed.  Isabella is excited about college and hopes she can find a less expensive school that has a research facility with (almost) this much opportunity.

The girls want to revisit Koreatown and buy some lip balm at the cute little bookstore/cosmetics counter we saw on our first day.  We decided to walk so we could see things on the way.  One of the things we saw was Tiffany & Co.  We went in, just to say we’d been there.

….And left with a little treat from their housewares department to start 2017.

Today was our last full day in New York.  Our flight tomorrow isn’t until 6:00 p.m., so we have the morning to do one more little activity before we leave for the airport at 2:00 p.m. (just to be on the safe side.)

Monday, 02 Jan 2017

We have one final morning to do something fun before we head to the airport this afternoon.  We spent the early hours packing and straightening up the apartment. Once the city began stirring, we went to Katz’s Deli — an old-school delicatessen in SOHO that is probably most famous for the “I’ll have what she’s having!” scene in When Harry Met Sally.

The sign in the photo above (“Katz’s, that’s all!”) has become one of the deli’s catch-phrases.  It started out as a mistake;  (from their wikipedia entry) the sign maker asked Harry Tarowsky what to say on the deli’s sign, and Harry replied “Katz’s, that’s all”. This was misinterpreted by the sign maker who painted the sign as it stands today on the side of the building.

The interior.

The deli counter.

The sign hanging from the ceiling reads:  Where Harry met Sally … hope you have what she had! Enjoy! The table directly below (red arrow) is the one used by Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan for that scene.

Above Holden’s head: a photo of young Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker with the deli owner on one of their visits.  Katz’s celebrity photos cover the walls of the entire restaurant.

We ordered the pastrami on rye (what else?!) and shared it amongst Adam, Holden, Josie and I.  Isabella ordered a bowl of chicken soup.  We needed to pace ourselves because all we have on our docket this morning is eating.

I loved this mural.

Some less talented street artist’s work.

Possibly the ugliest chaise lounge I’ve ever seen.  Holden noted, “Not only is it ugly, it also looks uncomfortable and too fragile to sit on.  That’s pretty much everything you don’t want in a piece of furniture.”

Street scene in Little Italy.

Our next stop was Caffe Napoli.  The kids ordered hot chocolate, Adam had an espresso, and I had an order of bruschetta.

Continuing our walk.

Our last stop was back to Ferrara Bakery for one last dessert.

Josie weighing the risks/rewards to finishing the entire chocolate mousse cake. She had to yield about 3/4 of the way through.

Holden ordered the black & white cake this time.

Cannoli for Adam and I.  Isabella tried the New York cheesecake.  (No photo of that one.)

Stuffed but happy, we ended our visit to New York on a high note.  This trip had some bumps in it, but overall we had a wonderful family vacation and made a lot of memories.

Until next time!!