Sunday morning was quiet, very quiet. I checked out around noon and left my bags at the hotel while I went wandering. I had nothing in particular planned and so I found myself wandering up Fifth Avenue. I had forgotten about the Rockefeller Center and so I took a walk around there and took some photos. I wasn’t pushed for time, nor did I have tons to spare but I did have a couple of hours to kill. I was quite tired from all the running around the few days before. I figured that the “Top of the Rock” would do nicely timewise and that was decent. Still a bit overcast but lots of photos and some good views.
Then I just walked up to Central Park, sat for a while and walked back towards the hotel. I didn’t mean to stop off for a couple of pints but somehow it happened, mainly due to still having some time to spare. Then I collected my bags, headed to the airport and then it pretty much comes around to this post Snowpocalypse!
So all in all an excellent time. The delay home wasn’t so bad and I got my bag back the day after that. I’m still tired, I’m hoping I can shake this shitty cold and be up and running again by the weekend.
So Friday morning rolls around. It’s up and out early to meet up with Justin and other NY Comic Con folks for some breakfast. The meeting point is the Times Square Westin. Should be no problem as I know how to get to Times Square easily enough. 10 minutes of lost wandering followed by a quick chat with a helpful police officer and it turns out that it’s actually a block away and is Times Square in name alone. So I get there now no problem and then get a call from Justin asking where the thing is, he too is wandering.
So anyway we make it and meet up with some of the folks from CBR, the comic site that Justin writes for. We turn out to have breakfast at the Westin which was nice enough but expensive. Handily Jonah who owns CBR picked it all up. Adi joined late and as usual is nothing like as argumentative in person. That carried on for a couple of hours until the guys went over to the con early to start their work. I went off to tour some more.
So straight onto the E line from Times Square to World Trade Center which was quite handy as I’d been lost on parts of the subway before. Off the train, up out of the nice clean station onto a nice clean marble(ish?) plaza and oh a construction fence. So that’s it then, once you come up those steps you are standing at “Ground Zero” and it’s odd. I find myself using that word a lot lately, I’m not sure what else to call it. There are photographs all along the fence, poster size and it’s hard not to flash back to memories of that day. There are a lot of people walking the fence looking at the photos, several openly crying. Walking the fence and reading the timelines and other such details and looking at the pictures and it certainly has an impact, it’s a sad place.
Then onto the viewing point, to find that it’s not really such a thing it’s another construction fence. In fact the entire site has a large fence around it. There isn’t a single place to actually view (and yes in this case take photos of), the site and the rebuilding efforts. I found this strange to be honest, like it or not it is a tourist attraction and people do want to see the site. So I got very few photos, best I could find was a slot in a bridge on the far side. I was unimpressed by this, a viewing platform should allow a view. But maybe that’s just me.
Next was on down to Battery Park. It’s gotten quite cold at this stage and I’m regretting having left my gloves in my other bag. I had done the Statue of Liberty before and while I would like to have done it again with the camera there was a long queue and I’d have had to drop my camera bag off somewhere. So instead I took a wander through the park. I decided I would do a quick round trip on the Staten Island Ferry. As it turns out this was an excellent choice. It’s got great views from start to finish. The statue, Ellis island, Manhattan and the Narrows bridge. And it’s free! I must have spent 5 minutes looking to buy a ticket, finally thinking I had to use my subway card or get a ticket in that station before I went up to the info desk tho had a tiny sign up saying that it was free. So that was excellent. I went over and back on the same ferry and took lots and lots of photos. It was however very fucking cold and standing outside to take photos all the time was taking it’s toll. Off to the nearest coffee shop (Dunking Donuts, coffee was hot which was all I cared about) for a warmup and then realising I was close to Wall Street I thought I’d wander over that way.
Before I managed to find Wall Street…ok I lie, after I had passed it not realising that this small little side street could be it, I found a nice little Irish pub and so naturally stopped for a pint. A short walk later on to the Stock Exchange and I thought it was time to call it quits on that for the day. A quick subway back to the hotel, a shower and some dinner, a map reference and a walk to the Javits Centre for the New York Comic Con.
Ok, well it started off looking pretty bad when there were queues out the door. I was not impressed by this but the queue was moving pretty well so I joined the end. In fairness it was a very fast moving queue and I was no more than 15 minutes waiting to get in. So inside I wandered around, looking at the pretty nerdy things and taking a photo or too. It’s fairly packed, in particular along artists alley. This isn’t so bad but I’m starting to feel a tad claustrophobic. So I figure I’ll just take some photos for about ninty minutes on the floor then go and watch BSG and try and hook up with the V crowd. I do play a few minutes of the upcoming Darkness game but it really fails to impress. Anyway a few floor shots (still to be posted) later and I’m thinking I’ll go and see where all the costumed folks are and take photos there.
Now the rage starts to build. I’m stopped by a guy in a Star Wars costume on the way to the events room and asked if I’m going to the New York Jedi show to take photos. I said I wasn’t and he suggest it was worth a look. Note to anyone reading at this point, if you didn’t know already listening to something that someone in a fucking Star Wars costume says is stupid. So I go down to the show and well while I’m sure they are all lovely people, it’s a bunch of nerds in Star Wars costume not hitting each other in somewhat badly choreographed moves while other Jedi’s and I could have sworn a guy in a predator mask play drums & guitar (fairly well too). It was sad, it was sadder how the audience was lapping it up. I moved on. On the stairs on the way back, the same guy was talking to a twenty something convention goer. There conversation actually stopped me in my tracks. The con-goer had “mad Jedi skills” but had never heard of the “New York Jedi”, was there someone who he could test out with. He’s promptly send down the stairs to meet the “New York Jedi Master” to “battle it out with”. You know you just can’t make this shit up, some nerds need to be hunted down and put out of their misery.
Moving away quickly I head down to the area where most of the costumes seem to be gathered to quite simply find groups of nerds following any girl in a costume around asking for a pose and then another one with them. So at this stage filled with nerd rage and fed up of the entire thing already, there was no way I was waiting an hour for the BSG showing and I left vowing never to return. Fuckin’ nerds. I had forgotten how much I hate conventions. Sure they are great for bringing people together but the actual cons, fucking nerds. (No offense to you lovely con going people, it’s just not anywhere near my thing).
On the way back to my hotel, I found a bar called the Galway Hooker and well I just couldn’t walk past. So around 8 pints later (9 if you count this one) I was feeling much better about the world and slept very well that evening thank you very much.
Saturday. Oh god, Saturday. Ireland were playing England in what was already going to be an historic match in Croke Park. It was due to start at 12.30 EST. Having another couple of cousins in town on holiday, we all met up in Fionas, a small Irish bar way up on 86 & York (?). The match was glorious to say the least. Aside from the win (and lets not put that too far aside), it was absolutely beautiful to watch the build-up, to watch the TV coverage start, to watch the crowds stand quietly while the English anthem was sung and to not have a single bit of trouble. So then, Ireland played rugby and England stood around somewhat confused and we drank and drank and drank. The idea of taking it easy and having 3 pints only so that I could make V NYC drinks sober later on just died in infancy. I dread to think how many there were but there was a lot.
And so later on, it was a “I must go now” and a cab ride down to meet the New York crowd. So lets see, when I got there there was Todd & Laurenn, Mike & Jen, Ted, Justin, Sean, Ed along with John Cecil and his brother Mathew(?). During the evening we had Kira (with hot friend) and James Smanzi join us along with dropins from Jeremy Love, Sam Humphries, Brendan McFeely and then Travis Johnson. I don’t think I’ve left anyone out, but there was much drinking involved. While I did try the Guinness, more precisely Kira’s Guinness, Mike suggested a Brooklyn Lager and there was much of that. The pizza was great, the pub doesn’t do food so Todd just collected dollars and ordered in and damn it was good pizza. Although by that stage cardboard would probably have qualified as good pizza.
Later on, despite having started at 11.30 that morning, I alongside Cecil and Justin (I think) was last man standing. While I may have lost my tolerance over here it still beats the Americans hands down. Conversation like all other V drinks was random, there was much merriment of Cecil’s tale of drinking with us down Brick Lane and being threatened with having to pay for the barrier Neil charged into.
An excellent night. It was really good meeting people and Sunday morning, to save you the suspense of waiting till part iii, was a sleep in!
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.