Whirlwind New York City Experience
6:00:00 AM
Hello my friends! Today’s post is a little bit different
than my usual crafts/DIY/home/recipe type post. I wanted to share some pictures
of something that’s near and dear to my heart: architecture. Recently, for an
early birthday/anniversary present, my husband took me up to New York City for
a weekend. I had never been there before! I loved it, and I wanted to share an
architect’s perspective of a whirlwind visit to Manhattan.
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If you’re a regular reader of this little blog, you know
that my “day job” is architecture. I design buildings for a living. But what
you may not know is when I was in college, I worked for 2 years as a teacher’s
assistant for the main history professor in the architecture school at the
time. He taught a class for non-majors – American Architecture, and he
taught a series of 2 semesters of
architectural history that are required for all architecture majors. This
professor was also writing a book about elevators and taught the occasional
elective seminar as well. I tell you this because between my duties as a TA and
the requirements of my major, I attended classes (as a student or TA) that
discussed the American skyscraper in 5 different classes and did many hours of
research on them for my papers and his book. By the time my last semester
rolled around, when we got to the introduction to the skyscraper in the survey
class, my boss at the time joked that I should be giving the lecture. So to
visit New York, which is arguably one of the birthplaces of the skyscraper, I
was more like a kid in a candy shop that is completely normal for a tourist.
Let me tell you right now, I’m going to tell you about a
bunch of attractions and services. None of these are sponsored by anyone; these
are just who we used and where we went. Because of our schedule, we really only
had one day to explore the city, so we took advantage of the New York Pass.
This is a card like a credit card that you buy and then you get access to all
kinds of tourist locations just by showing your card. Many places have an
“express line” for card holders. This saved us a bunch of money; a 1 day pass
is around $100; and my estimate is that between my husband and I we saved over
$125 with all of the attractions.
We flew in and out of La Guardia. The thing to remember with
this airport is that you will either need to take a shuttle bus or a taxi to
get to Manhattan. You should expect a rather steep take off and landing because
the runways are short. You take off and land over water which can be scary. I
knew this, but I did hear someone comment to the pilot about the landing and he
explained it to them. However, the advantage to arriving at this airport is
that if you are approaching from the south, which we did, you fly right by
Manhattan and when it’s clear it gives you an amazing view of the skyline.
All of these pictures were taken with my iphone. If you want to see more, you should check out my instagram account.
We stayed at the Empire Hotel. I loved the location – only a couple of blocks from Central Park and right across the street from the Lincoln Center. The hotel was nice and has a pool deck on the roof with a spectacular view. It’s about a block from a subway stop, too.
We stayed at the Empire Hotel. I loved the location – only a couple of blocks from Central Park and right across the street from the Lincoln Center. The hotel was nice and has a pool deck on the roof with a spectacular view. It’s about a block from a subway stop, too.
We started our day with a quick subway ride to Times Square.
This area was the most tourist-driven area in the whole city. We quickly used
our passes to get double decker hop-on/hop-off tickets and then moved on to the
Rockefeller Center.
Keep in mind that there are several TV stations in this
area, which can get a little crazy dealing with lines when you’re just going
from point A to point B.
Top of the Rock early in the morning is great. (We accessed
it with our New York Pass.) It wasn’t busy and we were able to get some amazing
views. If you want to photograph the Empire State Building, this is a great
perspective.
We then walked past the Public Library and Bryant Park,
taking some pictures of the lions for one of my girls who adores them.
Then we went to the Empire State Building. (We accessed it
with our New York Pass.) We got there mid-morning, and it was already very busy
and crowded. Be prepared. It was pretty amazing, though. We went to the first
observation deck; I’m sure the higher one is less crowded since it’s almost
twice the price. I finally got a good view of the Chrystler building there.
We then used the double decker tour bus to get down town. I
was happy to get an amazing shot of the flatiron building, as well as see some
of the more historic buildings in downtown. For all you history buffs out
there, New York City basically grew from the southern tip of Manhattan
northward.
We got off at Battery Park. We wanted to tour the harbor,
and since we had the New York Passes, we did a tour with Circle Line. If you
aren’t using passes, you can take the Staten Island Ferry, which is free and
goes right by the Statue of Liberty. Our tour took us under the Brooklyn
Bridge, along the downtown coast to view the skyline, and then out past the
Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.
We then took the subway back up to Central Park. Be sure you
are aware of closings and maintenance on the subway; while we were there, the
line that we would have taken from downtown was closed. Luckily, we knew about
this and found a different route.
We bought hot dogs from a stand and ate them on a bench in
Central Park. Then, after freshening up in the hotel, we took a cab to the
Natural History Museum. We could have walked there, but our legs were needing a
rest at that point. This museum was fun, but it was very, very crowded on a
Saturday afternoon.
After that, we cut through Central Park. Central Park
reminds me a lot of the grounds of the Biltmore Estate, which makes a lot of
sense: the same person designed both! We truly loved the Castle in the middle
of the park.
Then we went to the Met. My husband wasn’t thrilled by the
idea of going to an art museum, but then he changed his mind when he realized
that they have an extensive exhibit of weapons and armor. I eventually pried
him away from that and the Egypt and Greco-Roman exhibits to go upstairs to the
impressionist painters. You can also enjoy many Tiffany stained glass
installations along the way.
By the time we finished our whirlwind tour, we were
exhausted. Luckily, there are restaurants everywhere and we went to one that
was right across the street from our hotel.
1 comments
Rachel,
ReplyDeleteI love NYC. I've only been there a couple of times, but I would move there in a heartbeat. :)
Happy, happy day to you rock star!
karianne