New York City (Part 1) NY USA

On Sunday 7 October we took the train into Penn Station, New York from Port Washington.  The station in Port Washington is a 20min walk up the hill from the town quay, where we left the dinghy, and the trains run every 20-30min through the day and every hour at night, even on a Sunday.  There’s an automatic ticket vending machine from which you can buy your tickets (including Metro/subway tickets should you wish) and the journey in takes about 45minutes.  As one of our friends described it, it’s like getting into central London from Wimbledon but on better trains.

But Penn Station is not the most impressive station at which to arrive in such an iconic city.  As our ancient Rough Guide to the USA has it, arriving at Penn Station is like arriving like a rat through the sewers.  And when we surfaced the view wasn’t that much better. We’d left Port Washington in grey overcast skies and unsurprisingly things hadn’t improved much on the short train ride into the city.  The skies were still overcast, the clouds were quite low and the tops of all the tall skyscrapers were in those clouds.  Just as well we hadn’t booked to go up the Empire State Building or the Rockefeller Centre!

Approaching Times Square

Times Square looking south

We decided that we needed to take a walk around midtown Manhattan to try to get a feel for the place and so headed for Times Square as a start point.  Despite it being a Sunday, Times Square was really busy and even in the daylight the LED billboards were mesmerising.

(Bottom left) The American Radiator Building, now the Bryant Park Hotel; (bottom centre) The Empire State Building (with its top in the cloud); (right) The Chrysler Building

From there we just set out and walked… and walked….and walked.  We had a fabulous day, pounding the pavementssidewalks of myriad film sets.  Up, down and across all those famous streets and avenues; Penn Station to Central Park, down to the Flatiron Building and back to Penn and from the East River to well west of 5^th.  Our feet ached in protest at the end of it but we saw so much. The buildings are a fantastic mixture of old and new.  Iconic buildings like the Empire State Building and the Woolworth Building rubbing shoulders with the brand new 1 World Trade Centre and the like.

Busy, busy, busy …… and this was a Sunday!

Whilst we stared up at the skyscrapers, most people more focussed on the mad rush of humanity at ground level. And in and around our mad wanderings, the NYPD were organising for a major Polish parade, closing streets and whistling at recalcitrant motorists, all of whom were leaning on their horns. Yes, the New York traffic of the filmsmovies is just as bad in real life [Ed: though the taxis are now mostly from Japanese companies rather than Chevy and Ford].

Grand Central Station

Having arrived at Penn, there’s not much more one can say about Grand Central Station other than ‘wow!’.  Or ‘Wow!’ Or, ‘OMG, Wow!’  It’s a fabulous station (and we didn’t visit the renowned Oyster Bar in its subterranean depths).

The ceiling of Grand Central Station is hugely impressive – it’s just a shame that the photos didn’t come out too well

Peninsula Hotel (L) and Trump Tower viewed from 5^thAvenue (R)

The strangely orange waterfall in the atrium of Trump Tower

Just south of Central Park we gawped at the Peninsula Hotel and, after having our bags searched by the Secret Service (yes, the Secret Service) we goggled at the hideous orange of the atrium in Trump Tower – but we didn’t see His Orangeness himself.

We took a short stroll in Central Park – it’s far too large a park for us to have done it justice on this visit and we, like 90% of tourists I imagine, just stepped inside the park’s southeastern corner.  Friends we met later talked about beautiful, almost empty areas further north – something to explore on a future visit.

The UN Building on the East River with the statue of St George killing the ‘nuclear missile dragon’

From Central Park we headed east, specifically to the East River and the UN Building.  It being a Sunday the only flag flying was the UN flag, not the full array of country flags, which disappointed Nicky, but the statues in the grounds were impressive and partly made up for it.

(Top) The Empire State Building clear of cloud; (bottom left) Met Life Tower (with clock, not to be
confused with the Met Life Building); (bottom right) New York Life Building

As the day progressed, the cloud lifted and when we criss-crossed back through central midtown Manhattan we had great views of the Empire State Building against a sunny backdrop.

The Flatiron Building

And from there we continued a good way south – to just south of 23^rdStreet, to view the Flatiron Building, a National Historic Landmark, and one of the most recognisable buildings in a city of recognisable buildings.  It’s one of the prettiest too, with lots of beautiful ornamental stonework.  But, at only 20 stories high, it’s now dwarfed by most of the rest of the city, even if it was one of the tallest in the city when it was completed in 1902.  It’s quite amazing the heights buildings in this city have reached in the past 116 years.

New York, New York, USA