New York City (Part I)
2:20 am Wednesday, 28 February, 2007
I had been told by more than one person that while I was travelling out of DC, it was worth my while to fly from National at least once for the view. I had flown there once before but was on the wrong side of a full plane. This time however, I had my choice of seats on a small jet and a helpful pilot to find out which side I should sit on to see DC as we went up.
I think the results speak for themselves. It’s quite an astounding view and more than worth seeing. I’m hugely pleased with how crappy photos through glass came out. Turns out I was not the only one, DCist approved too. This is great for the whoring my photos, the last time was the biggest increase in contacts I’d had since a fleeting Interestingness Top 10 a good while ago.
So out of DCA and into JFK. That was all fine, not a problem at all straight from the plane to the AirTrain to the NYC subway. Off close to Times Square and then a 4 block walk to my hotel. I had taken a chance and booked this on Priceline and I’m way more than impressed. I had a better than 3 star hotel on Madison Avenue (1 over from Fifth) within 2 blocks of Grand Central station, 3 blocks from the Empire State building and the aforementioned 4 from Times Square. I’ll more than happily be using Priceline again. I found out that at the $102 I was paying per night, I was paying less than half what many others were paying for the same or lesser hotels. So very pleased with that.
OK, so I got there and checked in and all that good stuff and then I hit the streets with my camera. Actually I lie, there was a fine pint, perhaps even two in the nearest bar which happened to be a decent enough Irish place (Mulligans on Madison). Then there were photos, many many photos and several hours of walking around. This was good fun, I really enjoyed the feeling of being in a city and having life move around me. I’ve not had that for a while and it as a very nice change and a reminder of life gone by. So yes that was all good. I didn’t really go in anywhere, I just got my bearings and did some street shooting.
Dinner in some American diner type place just off Times Square followed by a few beers in the hotel bar and then it was off to bed.
Thursday was more planned out. Up and out of bed and the hotel early and straight to the Empire State Building. As I’ve said before, I skipped it the last time I was in NYC and I wanted to do it this time. So that was probably around 9.30 and it was decent. The weather was not great but it was enough to see most of the city and a good bit around. The sky was dull so I’ve had to crop and tweak the photos but I don’t mind that so much for tourist shots. Unusually for me, I did pay the extra and rented the audio guide. Ignoring the whole “Tony the New Yorker” stuff it was surprisingly good. For one thing it was up to you when and what you listened to. There are 8 points around the top and you simply hit the matching button to hear about what you are looking at and some trivia about the building itself. I figured it would be handy to know what to take photos of in some cases (and it was, the Titanic berth now being a baseball cage is odd) but it was also good to get my bearings on some things I wasn’t sure of (Hell’s Kitchen, the bridges). So very impressed and more than worth the extra few dollars.
All done in there (but still lots of photos to be posted), it was a walk down 5th Avenue to check out the Flat Iron, over to Union Square for some lunch and then a subway ride down to the Brooklyn Bridge. So a nice walk across this stopping every 10 feet it must have been to take some photos followed by an hour or so around the Brooklyn Bridge Park shooting the bridges and the shorelines. I did have a park ranger come over to ask me what the photos were for. I said I was a tourist and taking some shots over a long weekend. He then wanted to know who I’d be showing the photos to and I said friends and family. He seemed fine with this, in fairness he was very polite and kind of apologised for even coming over but apperently in National Parks you may need extra permission to take photos. That cleared up, I carried on taking photos and then took a short walk around the Brooklyn riverfront. Not finding too much there to shoot, I went to the next bridge up, Williamsburg Bridge and walked back into Manhattan again stopping to take lots of photos. This brought me back into Chinatown which I had a quick wander around but it was raining fairly heavily at this stage so I had my camera all packed away. I had planned on doing the American Museum of Natural Historyon Friday but with the rain I figured a cab up there and I’d wander there for the afternoon.
This didn’t work out quite as planned. I had a bad feeling when I had to pay $14 to get in but then it was hugely disapointing as museums go. I can’t quite put my finger on why, I think it was just an overuse of glass. Everything was behind glass, there didn’t seem to be anything that was outside of glass or anything that didn’t have some sort of painted mural behind it. I guess it may just not have been my type of museum but it seemed odd. The Rose Center for Earth and Space, as part of the musuem, was ok and I was glad to have taken a walk around that. But when I realised it wasn’t raining anymore I decided to go for a walk in Central Park.
I just crossed the road and went walking and that was nice. I came across Belvedere Castle and spent some time around there wandering and taking photos before heading back towards my hotel through the Ramble. That was also nice, stopping off to take photos of ducks or squirrels etc etc. By now it was getting dark and I had a dinner planned. I did take note of the Apple Store to wander back to but pretty much just walked back to my hotel then. A quick shower and a cab ride and then a nice home cooked dinner at my cousins very nice apartment on 86th street. A few beers while watching the hockey game and some catching up. Turns out the sister of the husband of another cousin lives nearby and while I’m sure we’d met at a wedding or so before, I don’t think we’d really spoken.
Then a quick cab back to the hotel later on, another couple of drinks in the bar and then sleep. 36 hours in the city and I’d taken 811 photos. I quickly jumped online to figure out where the breakfast meeting was for Friday and to post a couple of photos. Rather nicely in a whoring my photos way Warren Ellis blogged one which lead to a nice surge in comments & favourites and even better a nice jump in contacts. Along with DCist, it’s really made it a good week for getting more people to look at my photos. Most people will take the time to click from the photo that brought them in to someone’s favourites or most interesting set and then with luck it’s a new contact or at the least a few more views!
Now, I’m pleased to report that my bag was delievered late this evening. There was nothing of major value in it (camera etc is always in carry on) but it’s nice to get back none the less.
After all that, I’m going back to bed. I actaully got up to type this because I wasn’t able to sleep. Hopefully that wil change shortly.