New York – Day 2

The Pictures are:
1. Our guide at Ground Zero outside the firehouse that was nearest the World Trade Center.
2. Lunch at the Blarney Stone Pub.
3. Our first seat was in this crowd on the concrete.
4. Our final seat on top of the boat dock. We were nearer the fireworks than anyone!
5. Time Square after the fireworks. This is at the entrance to the Marriott.

Well the day started out a little slower than yesterday. Ed got up and had breakfast and they we both left and went to the Flea Market in Hell’s Kitchen. It was interesting, but we didn’t buy anything.

Then we hopped a cab to go to Ground Zero. We took a tour from the official World Trade Center site office and our tour guide had been in Tower #1 when the first plane hit the 93rd floor. He was on the 82nd floor and his tale of getting out was very emotional.

After the tour, we went to a pub that the tour guide had recommended and Barb had huge pastrami and Ed had a roast beef and they were very good.

We then went to Chinatown and Barb bought a purse and a couple of other items.

Then onto the subway and to Rockefeller Center when we went to the Top of the Rock and the view from the top was breathtaking and the weather was perfect. We met an actor who was in a play, The Heights, on Broadway. We had fun talking about New York on the long subway ride from lower Manhattan to Mid Town.

At 6:30pm we headed for the Hudson River to join “millions” of our friends and watch the fireworks. It was totally unlike Chicago last year. Security was very tight and there were police at each entrance to 12th street, which was the river road. We squeezed into a space on the concrete and then got very lucky. Ed had talked to a security person who was guarding the entrance to a Circle Lines boat dock and a ½ hour when Ed went back, he said that they had a couple of tickets left for the second story of the boat dock. There was no question that it was the best place to see the fireworks.

The fireworks started at 9:30pm and they went for 30 minutes – they shot off 1,000 fireworks a minute from a total of 6 barges in the Hudson. Unbelievable – they said that it was the largest display of 4th of July fireworks in the United States!

It then took us 45 minutes to walk from the pier to the hotel and every street was closed to traffic – what a mass of people.

Into the room and it is now time for sleep – a fun day.

New York City – July 3, 2009

What a day – we left the house at 4:45am on the way to the airport. A flight to Atlanta followed by a flight to New York City and we were here at 12:30pm.

The pictures are:
The view from our room of Times Square
Times Square.
Carriage ride in Central Park
Petal cab ride to dinner.
Katz Deli

The Marriott New York Marquis is right in the middle of Times Square. As a matter of fact, you can hardly see the hotel because of all the billboards on every piece of real estate in Time Square.

They upgraded us to a beautiful mini-suite on the 30th floor, overlooking Times Square.

As usual, we took off walking, first stopping at a hot dog vendor on the Square for a New York hot dog, another gourmet lunch!

We walked the Diamond Market, a block on 47th street with 2,600 individual vendors, it is quite a sight and Barb didn’t buy a thing.

We then walked to Grand Central Station and up Park Avenue to see St. Bartholomew’s Church and St. Patrick’s Cathedral, they are beautiful.

Then we walked up to Central Park and took a carriage ride through part of the park. The next stop was the Apple Store which was crowed with hundreds of people buying the new Apple phone. We could not believe the number of people in line to buy.

Walking down 5th Avenue we arrived at the NBC Studios where we had a 5:30pm tour of the Studios and finally got to sit down for awhile during the tour.

We then walked back to the hotel to drop some stuff off and took a pedal cab for about an hour to lower Manhattan to what is supposed to be one of the best delis in the City, Katz Deli.

After splitting a Reuben, we took a cab back to Times Square and walked for a little bit and then crashed at about 10:00pm. I was too tired to even type so this is being written on the second morning as we are getting ready for day 2.