New York - Day Two

We got up the next day, bandaged our feet and caught the subway up to Central Park. The subway map is here. We hopped on the green line at the bottom of the island at the Bowling Green station and went up to 86th street, halfway up Central Park.

We walked the 3 long blocks across to Central Park and found that we had entered just below the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir

On the left is the pumphouse at the south end of the reservoir. ('B' on the map) There are two of them and they are "Manhattan schist with granite facings", so now you know.

Here's a map of our wanderings.

We limped up to the south end as out feet had noticed that we were walking again and had sent a delegation to register their complaint. We stopped and rested against the fence and spotted a bumble bee on the flowers behind the fence.


I also shot a panorama of the reservoir from the north end.


There was also a tortoise.


We walked down the west side of the park, the buildings were poking through




There were also some cute garden settings tucked in the park.


We came into Colombus Circle at the south west corner of the park and realise that the Trump Tower was next to us.


On the park corner is a memorial to the USS Maine.


On the opposite corner was the Time Warner centre where we stopped and had some lunch at Bouchon Bakery.

New boots

My new safety boots with steel toe caps.

New York - Day One - still more.

Yes, we're still going. Our feet hurt and our backs hurt but we'd had a great day and were almost back to the hotel.

We wandered down Broadway, past more awesome buildings.


Past Wall St. which was more of a laneway, than a street. It's actually named for the boundary wall from the New Amsterdam settlement in 1640.


Past the crowd gathered around the Charging Bull on the Bowling Green Park in the middle of the road.


With one chap intent on making the Bull wince.


And back into the hotel. We shed bags and cameras, bandaged feet, changed shoes and wandered back out to find some dinner. The cloud had lifted slightly and the sun was lighting up the buildings opposite the hotel.


We found a reasonably good restaurant that accepted two weary travellers and ate some pasta to stock up on carbs for the next day. We had a seat overlooking the statue and had fun watching everyone enjoying the foreshore.


This is Governors Island with a couple of old forts on the foreshore.


This guy had obviously ridden a bit too hard ... or he was enjoying the grass.


There was an interesting sculpture.


They were eyes.


We wandered back around the foreshore, looking at the buildings.


And the park.


There was a building across Battery park from the hotel, that was lit up as though the flagpole was dividing it.


And last but not least, we said goodnight to the statue.

New York - Day One - continued again.

Yes, we did a lot on day one, I'm not even halfway through the photos.

We did have a rest in Washington Square Park, just near to Giuseppe Garibaldi statue. I'm not quite sure why they like him, but they obviously do. We may not have stayed as long as we did, if we had realised that the land was used as a burial ground in the 1800's and there are the remains of 20,00 people under the park ...


Looking west across the park to the apartment buildings in Soho.


Another view of church and the more modern building behind it.


The streets were fascinating, very diverse styles and you could see the history as it was built up.


There were a lot of flags on the buildings, I'm not sure if it is for the tourists, to remind them which country they are in, or for the inhabitants, to remind them which country they are in.


The little church in front was obviously too small so they built the large church behind it.


This graffiti was on the wall of the second floor. Judging by the height of the other graffiti at the base, it must have been sprayed with a pressure sprayer.


A lot of the buildings had mirrored windows, which showed some crazy reflections.




Spot the ...


Too hard ?!? How's this ?


What ? Closer ? Now it's too easy.

Yes, it's the window washer.

More architecture. I would not like to drive in New York, it was a bit mad.


This is the United States Court house.


We spotted this building over the top of the trees, which we later found to be a new apartment building. The outside is sculpted and rippled.


We found a park to sit in and spotted this statue on top of a nearby building.


The squirrels popped up to see if we had anything interesting to eat.


We swapped seats and this lady came up and fed them.


The black one was evil. Look at his eyes !!

Lemon cucumber

On the inside.

Uh huh

Straight ahead ? Ya reckon ? ;)

NYC Day 1 continued.

After Dean & Delucas, we wandered north west through the back streets of Soho. Here's the map, continued from yesterday.

There's was a street fashion shoot by a very pregnant photographer.


A cute shop with locals out the front.


Crazy New York colours.


And weird old taxis.


We walked up 6th Ave to Blecker st, which we had marked as having a couple of good food shops.


Blecker st


We walked to the end of Blecker at 8th ave, where we found one of the Magnolia bakeries that are dotted around the city. It wasn't very photogenic, so we turned around and headed towards Buvette, which was a lot more photogenic. And had a lovely cool ice coffee.


We paused for a sit at Sir Winston Churchill Square, which was on the corner of Downing st and 6th Ave. and was 0.05 acres in size. Almost all the parks and squares that we saw had their size on the information board.


We walked up MacDougal st towards Washington Square Park. There were lots of interesting shops along the street under the trees.


There is a church opposite the park with an encompassing ad on the wall.




The park had a miniature of the L'Arc de Triomphe which celebrated the centennial of George Washington's inauguration. More importantly, for some people, it marked the start of Fifth Ave.