A wander around Manhattan

We started our first full day in New York with breakfast at the hotel, part of the tariff. Even back in 2011 (let alone now) we found it hard to come to terms with the hotel’s approach. Everything in the dining area was throw-away, either paper or plastic. That included cutlery, bowls, cups, beakers, plates, serviettes, single use tiny containers of jam, butter, and honey. You made your own toast and coffee, and you could make pancakes using a machine. Hot food wasn’t much more than scrambled eggs. Management had obviously set up to avoid the need for washing dishes. All the staff did was chuck everything into one of those bins lined up outside the front door. I assume the bins were emptied into trucks and taken off the island to landfill somewhere. I can’t imagine how much garbage this hotel generates every single day.

On a drizzly day Pete and I worked out how to use the subway and took the train down to Battery Park at the end of Manhattan Island. From there we could get over to the Statue of Liberty. But the weather was bleak and dreary and the queues to get on the ferry were already past my patience level, especially when we overheard some comments suggesting turnaround times had increased by about an hour. So we had a good look around the park instead. It’s called Battery Park because of a historic fortification which has a roof, ensuring a dry experience. We spent some time reading about the building, then admiring some of the monuments set around the site.

From there, we decided to walk up Broadway. I’d always thought ‘Broadway’ was a kind of theatre district. Um… no. It stretches for kilometres up the island and we would be passing quite close to a few of New York’s icons.

The weather started to clear as we approached the famous charging bull on Wall Street but somehow neither of us took a picture. Probably because of the squillions of tourists taking pictures.

We detoured to the site of the World Trade Centre where the new tower and the memorial to the horrific events of 2001 were rising. We stopped for lunch at a café in the Greenwich Village area, then we went on to Central Park.

It probably says a lot about me when I tell you that Central Park was my favourite place in New York. I’m not a big city person. The park is a welcome burst of nature, a wonderful contrast to concrete and glass canyons. There were lots of people there but it was easy enough to find space. Central Park has placid lakes, grassy knolls, rock-strewn hillsides – and Central Park zoo. That, of course, always reminds me of Madagascar the Movie. We found John Lennon’s memorial with its reference to Strawberry Fields.

We walked back down 5^th Avenue and took pictures of sky scrapers reflected in sky scrapers, and found out that Batman’s Gotham City really was New York. The fashion district in this classy end of town had fewer examples of scaffolding, and generally fewer people.

We passed by the Empire State building, where the queue for the ride to the top went around the block. We’d been told the Rockefeller Centre was easier to get into – but the queue for that snaked around the block, too. Whatever. I’d seen the view in Sleepless in Seattle. Here’s a picture somebody else took.

From there, we wandered back to 8^th Avenue and looked over the restaurants. They have spruikers outside to entice people to come on in, just like Lygon Street in Melbourne – though I suspect they did it in New York first. We stopped to chat to a young lady outside an Italian place and said we’d come back later, which we did. Gotta be honest, it was a long way from the best Italian we ever had, but at least we could say we tried a New York restaurant.