I <3 NY?

After living in New York State for close to three years, I just now got down to visit the city. Shall we say it wasn't high on the priority list? But now I've got a critical mass of friends that ended up in the NYC/Jersey areas that we had to all get together, and NYC was the most central place.

For those of you who haven't been, NYC is a crazy, concentrated mass of humanity.

Lower Manhattan from the ferry.

I headed down late Friday night, to Harlem area where one of my friends lives. I was a little apprehensive about having my car down there, but (1) Harlem isn't the ghetto anymore (at least up near Washington Heights where I was) and (2) Driving and parking there was a cinch. I found a spot 30 feet from the apartment, and didn't even feel too bad about leaving the car there for a couple days (it was well lit street, and many cars much nicer than my own).

The next morning we all met up at Port Authority for a full day of seeing the city. I was told to eat as much as I could down there, so I happily obliged. Breakfast was at a diner in Midtown where I had some crazy good french toast made out of some kind of hearty Jewish bread. We headed down to Battery Park where we waited a while to get on the ferry to go out to Liberty Island (Statue of Liberty). It's an uber touristy thing to do, but I guess I'm ok with doing it once. Been there, done that. Lady Liberty was nothing unexpected (just like the pictures) but cool to see up close. We just walked around a bit and hopped back on the ferry, which stopped by Ellis Island on the way back to mainland. We didn't get off (just some museums and stuff there) but it's cool to think of all the people who came to the US through that piece of land.

'Ole Lady Liberty

After that, we hopped back onto the metro and popped out in Chinatown for some good eats. The place we went had "only" 233 items on the menu. Talk about choices. The teryaki chicken I ended up with was excellent. After that, we headed back to Midtown and stopped by Times Square. That block certainly wins for the most number of video and flashing advertisements I've ever seen anywhere. The pictures you see of it don't convey just how animated the whole scene is. Practically every surface in view is flashing, scrolling, or at least very brightly colored with some product advertisement. We waited in line in Times Square for a good while in hopes of discount tickets to a Broadway show that night, but ended up having better (and cheaper) luck just going to the theater and buying directly. After that was figured out (see below), we hopped back onto the metro and went to central park for a bit. Not enough to see any real portion of it (it is quite large... maybe 3 mi long?), but enough to appreciate its presence in the middle of such a huge city.

Some skyscraper on Columbus circle, next to Central park

After that, we stopped for dinner along 9th street at an awesome little restaurant where we could get authentic NY style pizza. Again amazing food, and the sort of place that the manager is out and about making sure everyone is happy and cared for. Then it was time to head back over to Broadway for the show.

Honestly, although I can't say I am particularly into the arts, or even necessarily a fan of musicals, this seemed like a crucial piece of NYC culture and I was not disappointed. We saw Mary Poppins (at the New Amsterdam Theatre), which fulfilled our expectations of being a fun, classic Broadway show. The singing, acting, choreography, dialog, and music were great, but it was (not surprisingly) the set and special "effects" that were most interesting to me. There was litereally an entire house as part of the set, cut away at different points. The main 2 floors, which moved back to allow the attic to come down and open up, or the basement floor to come up out of the stage. And, this wasn't a small house either. Other technical highlights involve Mary Poppins emptying her bag (pulling, say a 5 ft tall hat rack out of her handbag that was sitting on a table), Bert tap dancing and singing upside-down on the ceiling of the frame around the stage (40 feet up), and Mary Poppins herself flying out over the crowd and up past the balconey (where we were) at her final exit. Of course, I have a pretty good idea how all these things were carried out, but its cool to see them done so flawlessly.

Inside the New Amsterdam awaiting the start of the Mary Poppins Musical. Of course pictures during the show were strictly prohibited.

After the show, we were all ready to head back and get some rest. Church the next morning and having lunch rounded out the weekend for me. The food again did not dissapoint, and my dijon-apple-cheese-chicken grilled sandwich was nothing short of phenomonal. (it was SO much better than that might sound to you!) I had a dinner to get back to, but fortunately traffic was nonexistant, so the drive took just under 4 hours to get home.

Times Square at night. The picture does not convey just how animated this whole scene was. Pretty much everything was moving.

Altogether, would I ever live in NYC? Absolutely not. Was it a blast to visit for a couple days? Absolutely. Good times with good friends!