Manhattan

 Time's Square at night.

August 22, 2011

We were only in Manhattan for two days but we did everything. Our trip began with a ride into Penn Station on the Long Island Railroad. The station was on her way, so my Aunt Terri dropped us off, we each paid our six bucks and boarded the train. From Penn Station we rode the escalator up to the street and got our first taste of the Big Apple. For those of you who have never been there, it's hard to describe, but the feeling is something of being in a concrete forest. All around you are tall buildings, some hundreds of feet high, stretching towards the sky. The buildings are so tall and there are so many that most of the day the streets are shaded. And then there's the noise. Yellow cabs honk as they weave in and out of j-walking pedestrians. Other cars crowd the streets so much that sometimes nothing moves even when the light turns green. All the sidewalks are at least ten feet wide and are full of a diverse mix of people. There's everyone from business-types in their crisp suits and leather shoes to teenagers in saggy pants and Vans. One thing that everyone in Manhattan has in common though is they know where they're going and they're in a hurry to get there.

Penn Station is on 33rd Street and 8th Avenue and my aunt and uncle live on 66th street, so we started walking north. A quick side lesson on Manhattan navigation (because even though I've been there a handful of times, everyone already assumed I knew): streets go east-west and avenues go north-south. First avenue is on the east side of the island and the avenues go up as you walk west. Same with streets: numbers get bigger as you walk north. Now you too can navigate the Big Apple! Anyway, we arrived a couple hours before my aunt and uncle were going to be in the city, so to pass the time we strolled up 8th avenue and then part of the way through Central Park before turning west to their beautiful apartment on West End Avenue.

We had only walked a few blocks when a city bus passed with a giant picture of Daniel Radcliffe's face advertising some sort of show. Now I'm not sure what it is about him, but girls go ape-shit for Daniel and when Amelia saw his face it wasn't much different. Fortunately the bus was moving so it wasn't too long before his smiling face was out of sight and we could continue walking. But then, not ten blocks later, it happened again only this time Daniel's face was on a building. The building was the Hirschfeld theater and the poster was for a show called “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” starring Daniel Radcliffe. So in we went and even though we swore we weren't going to see a broadway show, how many chances does one have to see Harry Potter live on stage? A large chunk of change later we walked out with 12th row seats in the center section for the next day's show. We finished our walk in a kind of daze as the realization that we were in New York City, The New York City where things actually happen, dawned on us.

The rest of Monday was taken up with the Museum of Natural History, or as I've started calling it, the Museum of Natural Taxidermy for the thousands of specimens we saw. Even without the taxidermy though, that place would be overwhelming. You could spend most of a day in each room about the peoples of different parts of the world. And then there's the whole gem collection which is at least another afternoon. Because we didn't get there until the early afternoon, we did the lightning version of the museum, drifting from massive exhibit to massive exhibit until the museum closed. After we squeezed the very last minute out of the museum we reluctantly exited and walked back to my aunt Susan and uncle Irv's place. That night we talked with them down to 45th street through Lincoln Center and Times Square to their favorite pizza place, John's Pizzeria (“no slices”). The food was delicious and it was a great way to end our first day in The City.