New York, Day Two
New York is a weird place. It’s hard to discern why places are busy. Is it all tourism? Or are the locals all out and about during the day? Having lived in suburbia for the past 10 years (and a glorified fishing village before that, no offence meant!) I’m finding New York a bit claustrophobic. The houses are so tall and so close, and there are people everywhere. Somewhat bizarrely we find that the city is littered with drug stores, somewhat akin to how California is littered with gas stations. But it’s got good food, which is non-trivial!
I’m also inclined to whine about the subway system. Yes, it has trains, and they get you from point A to B. But travelling with a stroller is a major headache. Every time we want to check into a station, we must take Bjarki out of the stroller, fold it, and somehow get it past the gate-posts. We then haul the stroller up and down stairs because very few stations appear to have elevators or even escalators. It is perhaps no wonder that we appear to be the only people crazy enough to be using the subway with a stroller in tow.
I can also happily report to Londoners and Parisians and Tokyoeans that their subway systems are in much better shape than the system we’ve seen here. There are no notifications on how long it is until the next train arrives, and stations are inconsistently marked (we got off early one time because scaffolding was hiding the markings and I panicked). Most of the stations look grungy and dirty, although they seem to be working on sprucing up some of them. We did get lucky one time and got on a new train which had a fancy “this is where you are, and here are the next stops” on a fancy screen, so perhaps there is a bright future ahead, but it seems a long way off.
Speaking of scaffolding, it would appear New York is Under Construction. Almost every single block has a bit of scaffolding covering up the first floor of some building. It’s a little bit amazing! Even the fancy buildings in the financial sector had lots of scaffolding, not to mention a good portion of Times Square.
So what is there to like? Well, I can see how people can really enjoy living here. It’s The City in the US if you like city living, and Central Park is just a stroke of genius. So, assuming you have tons of money, and can afford a big place with a good climate control (we keep the AC in the hotel off most of the time because it’s just so darn loud) next to Central Park, then you’ve probably got it made. (Did I mention that most of the big grocery stores deliver to your door?!?)
Anyway, today’s out-and-about was set off by a desire to see the Statue of Liberty. So we rode the subway pretty much as far down south on Manhattan as we could and then walked around.
Policemen on horses. Anna wanted to ride one too. Erm... no.
By an entrance to Battery Park. There be tourists.
A glimpse of the sad underbelly found in all cities.
A can-collector eats his lunch.
A pretty building by the waterfront. Probably belongs to an eeeevil bank...
A threesome squints at the sun in front of a huge line of tourists waiting to board a ferry to take them to the Statue of Liberty, visible in the far background.
Next to the huuuge line were a group of street performers. We noticed them mostly because one kept playing the drums which caught Bjarki's attention. We then sat down just as the next show was about to begin. Here's their leader in the middle of some acrobatics.
That can't be comfortable.
Towards the end the main jumper jumped over this kid...
... then for the grand finale he jumped over a whole line of people!
Landing after a long airborne somersault. Note the complete lack of padded surfacing... Shockingly un-American! 🙂
Finnur and Bjarki with the Statue of Liberty in the background, far far away.
This was really neat. Each of the nine squares emitted a different bell pitch when jumped on. We contemplated figuring out the note pattern, but others wanted to try jumping so we left.
Inside the rather bare-looking Battery Park playground.
The playground was all about wooden pillars, which was pretty neat and great for climbing.
After hanging out at the playground for a good while, we headed off again. This "statue-guy" stood by the exit to the park, two others were further inside.
Exiting Battery Park. Note the police-on-bikes and the lovely buildings in the background.
This pretty little parklet is right below the...
... bottom end of the Charging Bull. Quite a few people had themselves photographed handling its enormous balls, hidden between its legs. Charming.
The obligatory picture from the front of the bull. We didn't navigate Bjarki into position because the cobblestones made it difficult, and there was a lot of people waiting their turn by the bull's head.
Being in New York is a little like being at the bottom of multiple criss-crossing canyons.
An impossible sign not to photograph.
Pit-stop. We'd obviously missed the lunch rush-hour because they were washing the floors, and most of the employees were in the back watching Mexico beat France in the World Cup. They were pretty stoked when the first goal came... 🙂
We stumbled on to Trinity Church. This root-sculpture is really neat, and I was surprised to see how deep the roots were.
Yup, it's a church all right.
Information about the tree-root sculpture.
Nothing quite says 'holy' like a men's shoe outlet.
We sat at the front of the church as I tried to explain 'religions' to Anna, and in particular Christianity. Boy, am I rusty! These days we belong to the spiritual-agnostics-to-atheists camp and I see that we've failed utterly in providing Anna with a window into the religious realm. Her first question as we entered the church was "what's a church?". Uhhh...
"... so see the guy in the middle, draped in red...". The church organ was most impressive!
This little gem is found at the entrance to the church. I cannot get over the fact that Prince Philip 'stood nearby'! Wasn't there enough space on the placard for a "to her left?" or "due south-east" or "while picking his nose?"!? 🙂
Obligatory street-sign picture. This is basically right outside the church. I find that a tad ironic.
Yet another 'oh goodness, we're at the bottom of a canyon' picture.
These headstones, next to the church, are really quite old. One could even say they clash a bit with the gleaming shiny-ness of the buildings of the financial world.
This one is from the seventeen-hundreds.
Anna and Finnur under some red famous sculpture. Behind them is Ground Zero. And no, I don't know who taught Anna all her new 'poses'!
They're busy building something new on Ground Zero.
We stopped for a bit at this sculpture park on Park Place.
I think I remember seeing a segment of Andy Rooney's on 60 minutes where he expressed is deep unhappiness with neon-colored 'art'.
We were too lazy to walk to our 'straight to the hotel' subway station, so we took a different one and had to change over on Times Square. We popped up from the ground for a bit, just long enough to find a restroom (non-trivial in mass-tourist-land) and find the 2010 crystal-ball.
Mind-overload. Eject, eject, eject!!
At a restaurant on 69th street. Friendly, with ok food.
Bjarki does his very best to lick Finnur's ear. Finnur has only himself to blame. 🙂
Anna was tremendously happy with her dinner. Thirty minutes earlier she had been reduced to tears over an ear-ache but we'd gone to a drug-store and bought her some pain-medicine. By the end of the meal she was right as rain again, and all better a couple of days later.