New York, New York

It was just after noon on Friday when we rolled into the Liberty Harbour Marina and RV Park in Jersey City, New Jersey, right across the Hudson River from Manhattan. We had seen some swollen rivers and creeks along the way but nothing like the disastrous warnings the media had been crying wolf about the night before.

Janice was relieved that her trepidations about dragging the trailer along the I-78 into the city ended up to be mostly unfounded. As long as one keeps the speed up to most of the traffic (65 to 70 miles an hour), on four to seven lanes of traffic, the drive goes as smoothly as can be expected.

It turned out the ferry that we had heard about has a limited schedule and doesn’t run at all on weekends so, after we had some lunch, waiting for the rain to abate, we set out on foot to the subway station about a half mile from our campsite. Twenty minutes later we got off in the centre of Manhattan. We didn’t realize until later that we were right at the foot of the Empire State Building because, from our vantage point from the street, the buildings all around us towered skyward so steeply that we couldn’t see their tops, so that we couldn’t tell one from the other. It had stopped raining though. Perfect timing for us.

It took us a few bewildering minutes to get oriented to the map before we walked a block to where one of the tour bus stops was located. We paid $172.00 for two three-day passes that would allow us: To jump on and off the buses when and where we wanted; a free ferry ride to Ellis Island or a scenic harbour cruise; a trip to the top of either the Empire State Building or the Rockefeller Center as well as some discount coupons.

It was the right thing to do because the first loop around downtown took about an hour and, not only did it give us our bearings, but we learned a lot from a great tour guide narrating. Every single block in downtown has something of historical, artistic or architectural significance, or some famous person who has lived or, is living there. I bet you didn’t know that Katherine Hepburn and Kurt Vonnegut Jr. lived side by side, for years, in the same building. We toured Soho, Greenwich Village, the Downtown East and West Sides, Chinatown and Ground Zero.

Picture below: The Village Vanguard where all the jazz heavyweights have played. It’s still operating under the same family. The Blue Note is also still going and, if you go after 12:30am, the admission is just $8. I haven’t listened to any jazz in years. In high school and for several years after I listened to either R&B or jazz pretty well exclusively, but when I heard Frank Zappa, Jeff Beck, Cream and Led Zeppelin, it changed my focus.







The tour buses drop you off wherever you want and run every ten minutes so we did some exploring of Times Square, The Rockefeller Center, The Waldorf Astoria and Madison Square Gardens before ducking into a great little Irish bar that was packed with Rangers Fans waiting for the game to begin against Ottawa. We had a couple of glasses of wine and figured we’d head closer to home for dinner, leaving the Empire State Building until the next day. We were hoping the view might be better if the skies cleared.
Pictured below is Times Square.










Just as we left the bar, about 7:00pm, the clouds parted and a beautiful evening light broke through to cast a luminous golden hue on the buildings. We turned the corner to the Empire State Building and were whisked right to the Observation Deck where we got spectacular views of the city - you’ll see from the photos below that a rainbow even appeared for us. Awesome.
Pictured: The view from The Empire State Building and the bar where we had a drink beforehand.















We found out the next day how lucky we were because, once the sun is out, the lineups to get up to the Observation Deck go halfway around the block and it usually takes an hour or two to for people to get up.

When we exited the Empire State Building Janice noticed a Papaya Dog on the corner. Anthony Bordaine made a big deal of a loaded Papaya Dog when he was half-loaded, as is his habit, on his show No Reservations. Janice ordered a two dollar dog and the guy tried to short change her on her twenty dollar bill. She probably wouldn’t have noticed except she was going to tip him. When she looked at her bills he’d only given her change for a five. She pointed it out to him and he apologized innocently. He never got his tip.

Pictured is the Papaya Dog and the Empire State Building right after we had descended form the Observation Deck on the 86th floor. By the way, The Rockefeller Center Observation deck is on the 72nd floor.









We hopped on the Subway back to Jersey City and then stopped at Edward’s Steak House for dinner, which we had noticed on our walk to the subway earlier. Janice had Rack of Lamb while I had Flat Iron Steak. It was all really good and helped replace the millions of calories we’d burned humping it around Manhattan. By the way we, felt very safe on the subway. Both a young black guy and a young Latino guy offered their seats to Janice on separate occasions.

Pictured below is our subway ride.







The next day was sunny and brisk. Perfect. We jumped back on the subway and took the tour bus again, with the idea of getting off at Battery Park and taking the ferry to Ellis Island. The tour guide was not as good this time around but the picture taking was better due to the sunshine. We found ourselves filling in some of our fellow passengers on what we’d learned the day before from the better tour guide.

Pictured below are: The Empire State Building, The Flat Iron Building, the Woolworth’s Building, the Chrysler Building, Rockefeller Square and the Statue of Liberty from Battery Park.














Back on the bus we got another great guide. The guides are all a little different and, even though we were on the same route as the day previous, this guy pointed out different things about the same things. He was a proud and street wise New Yorker and pointed out a lot of stuff that he recommended tourists should either avoid, or go for. Mostly avoid red Lobster, Olive Garden and so on around Times Square - get away and go for something local, as we did when we stopped for a couple slices of delicious and inexpensive pizza.

We walked the six or eight blocks to Central Park and then walked for miles, seeing Strawberry Fields and John Lennon’s memorial, where lots of people were still paying their respects and laying flowers. We also saw some break dancers, and an incredible fifty-ish African American drummer playing plastic buckets and other junk, for tips. There are lots of other performances and exhibitions going on throughout the park but we only saw a couple hundred of the 880 acres it comprises.

We hopped back onto the Uptown tour bus and toured the Upper east Side, Harlem, Spanish Harlem and the Upper West Side. Even Harlem has become tourist friendly. We saw families of all ethnicities playing in a park that no one would have gone near in the seventies, for fear of their lives.

We had planned on touring the Metropolitan Museum of Art but once again, the lineups were enormous, so we looked over the lobby before jumping back onto the bus. Traffic was so backed up though that we decided to walk back to downtown via 5th Avenue. It was a long way but, despite the crush of people, we saw a lot of stuff that you can only get on foot.

Pictured are: Central Park, where the break dancers are performing on the far left; an enormous non-denominational church, built by the Rockefellers, that hosts major events on the Upper East Side; the Apollo Theatre and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.











Back at our subway connection we looked for the closest bar to have a refresher. Janice talked to a Dispatcher for a courier company while I talked to an architect that had just finished a couple of hours at the office on a Saturday - very informative because, as he agreed, there’s no other place in the world as diversified and with as many examples of different and important architecture than New York City.

We got back to Jersey City just as it was getting dark and found a nice happening little restaurant just a few blocks from our campsite, where we had a really nice bottle of wine with some gourmet burgers - to replace the trillions of calories we’d burned during our touring on foot. Most people were aghast when we told them about the territory we covered on foot.

When we got up in the morning it had clouded over. We took a walk over to the Jersey Shore and realized that we could have gotten a nice shot of Manhattan at night but, too late.

The forecast was for wet weather again and we didn’t have the budget to keep up to NYC so we decided, somewhat reluctantly, to hit the road. We now have two places we’d like to revisit. Newfoundland in the summer and NYC in the spring or fall. New York really requires at least a week and a bigger budget. There was a lot we missed like, walking the Brooklyn Bridge, Yankee Stadium, (preferably for a ball game) Staten Island or Ellis Island Ferry, more restaurants, taxis, the theatre, etc, etc.
When we got up in the morning it had clouded over. We took a walk over to the Jersey Shore and realized that we could have gotten a nice shot of Manhattan at night but, too late. Pictured is Manhattan from Jersey City - a profile you don’t usually see. Also, a building on the Jersey Shore.



We took the Garden City Parkway, where we had to pay a number of tolls, and found our way to Paradise Lakes campground in New Jersey where we spent an uneventful night.

In the morning we woke to rain again and drove through Delaware in about an hour, where we accidentally ran across the warehouse for Amazon.Com. We crossed into Maryland where we drove across a miles-long bridge that spanned Chesapeake Bay before landing at the Duncan Family Campground, where we are positioned to take The Metro into Washington DC.



















The forecast was for wet weather again and we didn’t have the budget to keep up to NYC so we decided, somewhat reluctantly, to hit the road. We now have two places we’d like to revisit. Newfoundland in the summer and NYC in the spring or fall. New York really requires at least a week and a bigger budget. There was a lot we missed like, walking the Brooklyn Bridge, Yankee Stadium, (preferably for a ball game) Staten Island or Ellis Island Ferry, more restaurants, taxis, the theatre, etc, etc.

We took the Garden City Parkway, where we had to pay a number of tolls, and found our way to Paradise Lakes campground in New Jersey where we spent an uneventful night.

In the morning we woke to rain again and drove through Delaware in about an hour, where we accidentally ran across the warehouse for Amazon.Com. We crossed into Maryland where we drove across a miles-long bridge that spanned Chesapeake Bay before landing at the Duncan Family Campground, where we are positioned to take The Metro into Washington DC.