| I’ve been to New York four times in the last five years, so this last
trip I was really more interested in visiting with Michelle
and Bernadine. Michelle is my good friend from
College, and Bernadine lived with us in an apartment in Sunnyvale for four
very fun years after college.
For first time visitors to New York I would recommend the following:
- Trip to Ellis Island.
See the Statue of Liberty from the boat or the observation platform,
but DO NOT waste your time standing in line to get to the top.
It is absolutely not worth it. Leave lots of time for Ellis
Island, though, it's fascinating.
- See the City from the Empire
State Building.
- Walk around 42nd Street, maybe have lunch or dinner at
Carmine's. 42nd Street has the reputation of being
"trashy" but I found it kinda cool, and you gotta see it.
- Walk around Greenwich Village--especially if you like bargain
shopping. It's a very lively part of the City, and I've gotten
some cool stuff from the street vendors that put me about two months
ahead style-wise when I got home.
- Picnic in Central Park. Very relaxing.
Other things to do if you've got the time are visit the
South
Street Seaport. While you're walking around down there you might
stumble on a little church and graveyard left over from the 17th
Century--a nice contrast to the hussle and bustle that surrounds it.
Of course you know about Broadway and Off-Broadway shows. Because I
relish the different, I have yet to make it to a Broadway show although I
have seen some good (and not so good) Off-Broadway ones. You have got to
ride the subways everywhere so you can get a sense of what it's like to be
a New Yorker. Pretty cool.
On this trip, I left for New York on Wednesday, June 28th in the
morning. San Jose now has a
direct flight to New York, so I didn’t have to stop in Dallas this time
around. Yay. The plane arrived safely and on time, and I went to get my
luggage. I’d forgotten what
a dump JFK is. It’s just so
rundown, and the luggage retrieval system is chaotic at best. So I had to wait for about a half hour for my wheely bag to
arrive. Then I went to the ground transportation booth to inquire about a
super shuttle—90 minutes to get one going to the Upper West side of
Manhattan! No thanks.
So I went outside and got a taxi (flat fee of $30.00 gets you
anywhere in Manhattan). The
driver was nice, took a “shortcut” because freeway traffic was bad,
and kept assuring me that the area of Queens he was going to was safe.
Shoot, I could see that! I
got to Michelle’s building on West 116th (which is right up
near Harlem, near Columbia University).
Michelle's apartment is cute—it’s very long and skinny, but with hard
wood floors and good lighting in the rooms.
After I settled in and gave her roommate a bottle of wine I’d
brought as a peace offering, we went to the Seinfeld Diner for dinner, and
then to a local coffee shop/ hangout place.
The next day we went to an excellent bagel place called Wu and Nussbaum
(I think that’s how you spell it) for breakfast.
Then we took the subway to the Lower East side to the Tenement
Museum. They have a website
where you can walk through the restored tenement house, but I wanted to
see it up close and personal. Before
the museum opened at 1:00, we had been advised that there was cute
shopping around there. I
don’t think we ever found the exact area people were referring to—it’s
supposed to be on the edge of Greenwich Village—but we did have fun.
We wound up all the way on 20th street (from 3rd)
so we went to lunch at the Heartland Brewery.
After that we walked  back to the Tenement Museum, which was very
interesting. I even got to
see a linoleum rug, which was something I’d read about in my old house
magazines but never actually seen. By
now I was getting a little tired from all this walking, so we took the
subway back up to Michelle’s place.
When we got off of the train, we stopped at an excellent gourmet
grocery store, so we got the makings for a nice dinner there instead of
going out.
The next day we had melon and bagels we’d bought the day before for
breakfast, and then went to The
Cloisters, a museum in the way way Upper
West Side of Manhattan—the tip of the island.
This is a medieval museum that’s connected to the Metropolitan
Museum of Art. It’s a very nice building, built to look like a medieval
church or something. But
being as I’d only just been to Spain and Portugal, it was a bit
redundant for me (because that’s where all the stuff came from) so we
just looked around quickly and headed off to meet Bernadine for lunch.
Once we got to Midtown Manhattan where she works, we went through
Grand Central station so we could see the renovation they’d done there.
That sure is a nice building.
Coming out of there we went in the wrong direction and therefore
wound up walking about three times longer than we had to, but we did find
a  nice Italian restaurant where we had one of those all-out meals
(appetizer, main course, desert). It was all very yummy, and the service
was wonderful, probably because we were the only people in there at 3:00
in the afternoon. Then we all
went to the subway and
Bernadine went her way to meet her daughter and husband
on the train, and we went for a drink at Windows
on the World, on the top of the World Trade Center.
That
night we had tickets to an off-broadway show called “The Donkey Show”
that had been highly recommended to Michelle by other teachers at her
school. Well, it was
certainly different…..It was supposed to be a takeoff of “A midsummer
night’s dream” done to 70’s songs, but I think they were reaching on
that description. It was
complete with women dressed as men, and “fairies” who were flaming gay
guys with glitter all over their bodies.
Maybe it was supposed to shock?
You didn’t sit, you stood on the dance floor and the action took
place around you. After the show, we went to a nearby coffee shop for desert
(‘cause you know we hadn’t eaten quite enough yet that day).
Saturday we were supposed to go to Coney Island, but instead we decided
to  take it easy
and to the new
Planetarium in the Museum of Natural History next to Central Park.
We had a nice picnic lunch in the park, and then went back to the
museum for a bit and then slowly made our way home.
That night we had a simple spaghetti dinner.
The following day was the day we were scheduled to meet Bernadine and Brad at
their “club”. We took the
train from Penn Station to Forest Hills, Queens, and walked to their
apartment. It’s in a very nice building built in 1906. Classy. The
club is virtually next door to their place—it’s a tennis club where
the US Open used to be held, and they just recently put in a pool.
So we hung out around the kiddie pool so we could watch their
daughter Julia play, and also did a little playing ourselves in the big
pool. We stayed for the very
yummy barbeque dinner served by the club too.
Some of the members there were snotty about the “pool” people,
but we did talk to some who seemed very friendly.
Forest Hills is a beautiful neighborhood, with tree-lined streets
and old homes. We even saw fireflies!
Monday
was the day I was scheduled to leave, but not until the afternoon, so
Michelle and I headed to Greenwich Village, where unfortunately many of
the shops were closed. But
it’s still fun to walk around there.
We went to a place called “Tea and Sympathy” for lunch. This
has to be the smallest place ever  devised—everything was very squished.
But we had a very good time.
We also saw yet another of the decorated cows that can be found all around
the City. We
arrived back at her place in plenty of time to meet my Super Shuttle,
which didn’t come and didn’t come.
Finally we called and they said he was right around the corner. True enough, he came right after that…and drove right by
us! So we had to call again,
and they sent someone else out and by now it’s an hour later and I’m
starting to be cutting it close. The
guy was driving like a maniac, and unfortunately couldn’t figure out how
to get us on to the right bridge (it was right there, but the on-ramp was
nowhere to be found). He did
finally figure it out, and by going 90 mph on the bumpy freeway was able
to make it to JFK one hour before my flight.
I checked in, and boarded the plane, and then due to weather got to
sit on the runway for two hours. Way
to drag out an already long flight! But
Mark was waiting for me at the gate, so that was very nice. It was a
very good trip--the best I've had there yet! |
