New York City

by Rumour Miller on August 17, 2012

Pin It

After the BlogHer conference was over (or almost over), Craig dropped the girls with my mom and flew out to NYC.  (I am so thankful to my Mom who, time after time, watches our girls so Craig and I can have time alone together.  Without her doing that this wouldn’t be possible).  After a terrible day of delayed flights, he made it to my hotel room at about 1:00 a.m.  I was so happy to see him and start our little adventures in the Concrete Jungle.

I love being a tourist.  My friend, Kir, even commented on just how much we looked like tourists.  Craig and I had a great time in New York and would both agree that buying the double-decker bus pass was money well spent.

Central Park – What a wonderful area to get away from all the buildings and concrete.

Craig and I starting off on Part 1 of the bus tour. We did both the downtown loop and the uptown loop. It was worth the $108.00 for the both us. The pass is good for 48 hours and we had excellent tour guides. Loved the bus!

Times Square and the ball that is dropped on NYE every year. Hard to imagine millions of people in this area on NYE.

Yellow should be NYC official colour. Taxi cabs really are everywhere. According to our tour guide, it is unusual to actually live in one of the Burroughs and own a vehicle so the cabs and mass transit are heavily used.

We took a boat cruise/tour. It was great to see the city from that perspective. The red boat in this photo was one of the boats used to pump water to the Twin Towers on 9/11.

The Brooklyn Bridge. I love Bridges and there is no shortage around NYC, being that NYC is an island and all.

Me and Lady Liberty. We didn’t make a stop at Staten Island as she was under construction and actually going inside wasn’t possible. Seeing her this close was just as awesome.

My handsome husband and Lady Liberty

There she is. Up close and personal. Many wonder why she is green. She is coated with copper and copper turns green with age due to chemical reactions between metal and water. Did you know that Lady Liberty was once a lighthouse? True, and the government had to reserve an entire energy plant just to power it.

Us in Times Square. Our hotel was within walking distance of Times Square, Broadway, 5th Avenue, Central Park and even the Empire State Building. So we actually ventured through Times Square a handful of times. I quite like the hustle and bustle and the lights at night. There are always people around.

Top of the Rock. The observation deck at 30 Rockefeller. Another tourist attraction where our money was well spent. We went on Sunday night around 10:00 in the rain. There was hardly another person there (there were but not many), so we got in quickly and were able to really enjoy the view that it provided. You can see the Empire State Building in the front left of this photo and Freedom Tower in the back right. I enjoyed the experience at the Top of the Rock much more than I did the Empire State Building.

Us again taking the bus tour. We spent a few hours on the bus on this particular day. Like I said, we really enjoyed it!

When you see this big button on the side of the street you will know you are entering the Fashion District! United States Postal Building. Those were the steps where Wil Smith met Kevin James in the movie Hitch. True Story.

View of the Empire State Building from our bus tour. We had a great tour guide on this particular day. Very knowledgable and told when to pull out the cameras and take a photo.

This is the water fountain made famous by the opening sequence of F*R*I*E*N*D*S. Although FRIENDS was never actually filmed in NYC, it was set in NYC and this sequence was filmed there.

We hopped off the bus at Pier 17 and had lunch overlooking the River and the Brooklyn Bridge off to the right.

We knew we wanted to take in a Broadway musical and deciding which one wasn’t hard when I saw Rock of Ages was playing. Craig knows my love for all things 80’s hair bands and was all for indulging me. He didn’t regret it. It was hilarious and fun. The theatre is set up like a bar and they have servers serving drinks, “waiting” tables, all through the show. It took all of my will power not to get up and dance and on the stage.

On our final day in NYC, we got tickets for the World Trade Center Memorial. It’s free, but because of the amount of people wanting to go it is recommended that you reserve tickets. This is Freedom Tower.

This is one of the fountains (there are two). The names of the men, women and children that were killed in the 9/11 attacks are inscribed into the bronze parapets surrounding the twin Memorial pools, which are located in the footprints of the twin towers. There is a data base on computers where you can search for a name and find out where their name is located.
I was so heartbroken for those that I saw looking on the data base for names. Searching for their loved ones.

Freedom Tower

The Survivor Tree
This Callery Pear tree was one of only a few trees recovered from the World Trade Center site. Prior to the attacks this tree had lived at the World Trade Center site for decades. When it was found it was taken to a Nursery in the Bronx to be cared for and then it was replanted at the Memorial site in or about December 2010. It remains there to this day.

The Charging Bull, can be found in the financial district. It appears in a few movies, including one I’ve previously mentioned, Hitch. Handeling or touching the Bull’s scrotum has turned into a tradition and is considered to be good luck.

The Empire State Building
The line up to get to the observation deck is long and the line up to get out is long. There are times of the day (at night, early morning) when you can go without much of a line, but when it is busy the wait can be hours.
It took us 2 hours to get up to the observation deck and get out. We spent less than 15 minutes on the observation deck because of the number of people.
I preferred the view from the Top of the Rock over the Empire State Building.

Leaving the observation deck, we opted to take the stairs (about 6 flights) instead of waiting for one of the elevators.

The Twin Towers of Central Park, is an apartment building. It has had many famous residents, including Bono (U2), Dustin Hoffman, Demi Moore and Steve Martin (to name a few).

View of the Twin Towers of Central Park through the trees and from 5th Avenue. Me. On the bus, tired and hot.

We really enjoyed our visit to New York City, no question.

Much of the information I have provided was given to us by our tour guides, I gathered further details from Wikipedia. The pictures were all taken by me and Craig.

Follow Me on Pinterest

{ 2 comments }

Emily @ablanket2keep August 18, 2012 at 8:36 pm

Awesome pics! You did more in a couple days than I have done in NYC in 29 years and I live so close! One of these days I am going to be a real tourist!
Emily @ablanket2keep recently posted..2ww – 5 weeks

Rumour Miller August 19, 2012 at 11:13 am

You should pick one thing a month and go and do it! So fun.
Rumour Miller recently posted..Big Girl

Previous post:

Next post: