In July 2007, I visited my favorite city, New York City! I was last there in December but I wanted to experience it in the summer too. I have to saw as fun it was in the winter, it was so much better in the summer. The parks and gardens were so beautiful and everbody was outside enjoying the great weather. It was hot but that was part of the fun.
After checking into our hotel (Intercontinental The Barclay), we headed to Lower Manhattan for viewing a view sites. Our first stop was Ground Zero to pay our respects. It looks different everytime I go there. Very somber place though. I took this picture as a reflection in the hotel across the street.
Very near Ground Zero is St. Paul’s church. There is a bit of a museum there with all kindos of momentos left over from 9/11. It too is a somber place and a very beautiful church.
From there, we walked over to the stock exchange. You still can’t tour it but there was lots of activity in the vicinity that day. And it’s fairly neat to be in the area when it is trading.
Next, we decided to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. The views were really amazing up there and it was a lot cooler too. It took a while to do but we stopped and took many, many pictures. There is a nice walkway right above the middle of the bridge. Just watch out for bikes. I took this shot, which I rather like (there are many more in the album).
After diner in Brooklyn and going back to our hotel to freshen up, we headed for the Rockefeller Center to the “Top of the Rock”. An elevator whisks you to the top of the Rockefeller where you have really amazing views over all of Manhattan. We spent quite a while up there! It was just before dusk when we got there so we stayed to see all the lights come up. The city never sleeps!
From there it was off to Times Square where we spent a long while waiting for some celebrity to come out of this hotel. I’m still not sure who it was but we thought maybe Kid Rock???
The next day we toured the United Nations. I had never been here before and it is was a very interesting tour. You get to see all the main rooms where the delegates do their work. Our guide was very informative. There is artwork all over donated by member nations. I was surprised at how old much of the furniture was, however.
From there we walked up Fifth Avenue (Rob will point out the theme around the word “walked”) and stopped in a few stores. My favorite!
Next stop was Central Park. It was *so* beautiful in the summer! Nothing like the other times I was there. It was really nice and relaxing to walk through the park. There were people all over the place just having a good time and enjoying a Saturday afternoon in the city.
From there, we went down to Greenwich Village to take in a walking tour. The tour was really good and the guy seemed to know the history of every single house we passed! Very impressive. I think he had his art history PhD from NYU or something. We toured around the neighborhood and learned a lot about this very pretty section of the city.
As Rob was Italian, it seemed only fitting to have dinner in Little Italy…. there were SO many people there!
The next day, we hit up the Natural History Museum. I have to be honest here and admit that compared to the other museums in New York, I wasn’t impressed. It certainly doesn’t compare to the Field Museum in Chicago. It is huge, however, and has lots of these old “dioramas” which were somewhat interesting, especially if you have seen “Night at the Museum”. The dinosaur exhibit was also rather good. I liked this shot of the blue whale, however.
Another awesome site in New York is St. Patrick’s Cathedral. This is an amazing church and I have to pop in for a visit each time I am there.
The “Simpsons Movie” was out while we were there and we got to see one of the few Kwik-E-Marts in the US!
On our final morning there, we walked over to watch the Today show live. It was pretty neat to see, actually. There were lots of people there but not hard to get a good view. Al Roker came out more than anybody else. In fact, he came right over to the lady standing next to me!
We had one last jaunt (i.e. long walk) across the city before departing. I wanted to check out the union square/flatiron area. There aren’t tons of touristy things there but it was interesting all the same. I especially wanted to see the Flatiron building. It’s really unique!
I love New York!!! There is no other city like it anywhere (that i’ve been to anyway). I had a lot of fun with Rob. Maybe he’ll be able to endure me in Europe next summer!
Of course there are lots more pictures in the Album:
New York 2007 Pictures
Tags: brooklybridge · centralpark · newyorkcity · nyc · rockefeller · timesquare · un2 Comments
You got some awesome pictures on this trip to NYC! I especially like the one bridge pic. Very cool!
That was me trying to be “artistic”.