I recently embarked on my first trip to New York, with my best friend D. We’d wanted to go since we were 13.
Day 1 to 4 have all been blogged (check them out in the Holidays Category if you missed those) so I’m swiftly moving on to the penultimate day which was amazing, beautiful, terrifying, heartbreaking and visually the most stunning city that your eyes could possibly take in, all in one day! Ladies and gentlemen I give you Day 5.
First plan of action on Day 5 was to go to The Top Of The Rock, or more specifically, the observation deck at the top of the Rockefeller Centre.
Whilst the view from the top of the rock was stunning, it was also terrifying for D and I as D suffers from Vertigo and I have a huge fear of heights. More than anything I was proud that we were able to go up the Rockefeller Centre at all and that we managed to stay up there and take some truly amazing photos that will help us remember this day always.
The one thing I wanted to get a clear photo of was my favourite building – The Chrysler Building. Unfortunately, from the top of the rock, the view of the Chrysler Building is somewhat marred by the Metlife Building standing in the way of getting a clear view. Below, regrettably, was the best I could do.
The Top Of The Rock fully explored – yes folks I went all the way up to the very top, all 70 floors of it – we headed to the Flatiron Building, my second favourite building in New York. Gorgeous architecture and I finally got daytime shots of it in all it’s glory.
I played around with the colour on that one but here’s one from the other side in all it’s natural glory.
Just a beautiful building. It might interest film buff’s to know that the Flatiron Building was used as the Daily Bugle Building in Spider-Man.
Continuing the movie theme we headed to the last stop on Lady K’s Movie Tour which we hadn’t had time to get to on Day 4. The Ghostbusters Fire House.
Anyone would think, looking at the stops on my movie tour, that I was the biggest Ghostbusters fan in the world. I do love it and I think it’s one of the best 80s films ever made, but I’m not the biggest Ghostbusters fan in the world. It’s just a very easy film to find the locations of as it’s set solely in New York and has some of the most famous NY iconography of probably any other film set there.
A lot of my friends had been to 8 Hook And Ladder before but not many had seen it when the main door was open. We were lucky enough to see not only the Ghostbusters 2 logo inside but also a series of melted telephones that had been rescued over the years.
After seeing the Fire House there was only one place on our minds. The newly built (although still in progress when we were there) Freedom Tower loomed in the distance showing us the way to Ground Zero.
We stopped at Starbucks to quench our thirst along the way but remained fairly sombre on our walk towards the spot where the twin towers once stood. We had wanted to go into the memorial and pay our respects but you can only get tickets online, and when we’d tried, it crashed our computers. Not wanting to push our luck for something that clearly wasn’t meant to be we simply went to see the new tower and the church that so many people had told us to visit.
One world trade centre, otherwise known as Freedom Tower, stands impressively in the vast open space left by the fallen twins. It really is a symbol of showing the world the finger and saying that America can go bigger and stronger when you knock them down. But it is still only a building. Not as beautiful or picturesque as some others New York has to offer. It’s merely what it stands for that makes you want to see it. The moment that it really hit home for D and I was when we visited the nearby church of St Paul’s Chapel.
This was the base for the firefighters during the rescue efforts. A display outside the church shows a time line from the moment the first tower was hit on 11th September 2001 to the present day. D and I held it together at the start but by the time we got to the part about the firemen leaving their boots on the church railings, and the ones unclaimed at the end of the day belonging to their fallen comrades, we were so moved that we both burst into tears.
The displays inside the church were equally moving and made the events of 10 years ago all the more real to someone who, thankfully, only experienced it via a series of images on TV and in newspapers. For anyone thinking of going to New York I would highly recommend going to see St Paul’s Chapel. It won’t be a fun part of your trip but it will be something you will never forget. Just like the events of that fateful day.
Outside the church you can see the church spire. Despite being so close to the towers, the church was relatively unscathed by the falling buildings around it and the spire was one of the first things the rescue workers saw when the dust started to settle. Inspiring, no matter what your faith.
Feeling very upset and in need of something sweet to cheer our spirits we decided to pay our only visit to Brooklyn and go to the Ice Cream Factory which sits just under Brooklyn Bridge.
We hailed several cabs, none of which would take us over the bridge (you have to ask them rather than just getting in the cab as many drivers won’t go). Eventually we hailed the nicest cab driver we’d had all trip, and he was from Egypt, not even a New Yorker!
He gave us lots of handy tips for our walk back over the bridge and was by far the friendliest cabbie we met. Worth the tip and then some! He took us straight to the factory where I ordered a chocolate and coffee cone. Bigger than my head and so delicious! Yum!
We lounged in the sun for a little while and then prepared ourselves to walk the Brooklyn Bridge back to Manhattan.
Ah, it looks like I’m caught in Spider-Man’s web but it’s just the view of Brooklyn Bridge from on the bridge!
After our very long walk across the bridge we headed back to the Pod to freshen up and get changed before going for our last supper at Thai 51, a lovely little Thai restaurant just down from our hotel. Delicious food, friendly and quick service and a cute little Thai Bar, perfect! One of the nicest places we ate in New York.
Full to bursting we hopped in a cab and made our way to The Empire State Building which was lit up in Hulk colours just for me!
We were determined our last night was going to be the finale to remember and so decided to end it by going up one of the most iconic buildings in New York. Forget King Kong, this was Lady K and D conquering our fear once and for all. “Would you like to purchase additional tickets for the 102nd floor?” “Err, no, the 86th will do just fine!”
I got a shot of the Flatiron at night
And finally got that longed for, uninterrupted view of the beauty that is the Chrysler Building
My recommendation for the Empire is to take a book or something to keep you occupied as the queues are long and no-where near as well managed as those in the Rockefeller (which didn’t feel like queues at all – more like being moved from place to place at a pace until you reached your destination – the Empire is the total opposite to this with queues that you’re in for over an hour). And make sure you’ve got the settings on your camera at their optimum for taking night shots. My camera could have taken much better pictures than these but was new and I hadn’t taken the time to study the manual (I should have done that in the queue). But overall I’m still pleased with the memories captured and the fear conquered.
See you all next time for the final day in the city that never sleeps. Lady K x
No comments:
Post a Comment