New York City – Day 6

The day dawned bright and sunny with the promise of a warm spring afternoon despite the fact that it’s still winter. I had breakfast in the room, but today Michael took the day off work, so I got to play tour guide with my newfound New York knowledge.

We took the subway to The 34th St. – Hudson Yards subway station. It was just one train and only three stops. We had to go deep down into the Grand Central subway station. The Hudson Yards station is one of New York’s newer stations. It was the 469th station built, and the first new one in over 25 years, when it opened in 2015. It features the system’s longest escalator and first inclined elevator. It took eight years and $2.42 billion to build. This beautiful mosaic covered the ceiling over the escalator.

Just outside the station we found The Big Apple.

We visited The Vessel and then started exploring the High Line.

I was happy to be there again, as I enjoyed it so much the first time, and I saw things that I had missed.

One of the things I had missed was The Edge Observation Deck at Hudson‘s Yards. Michael pointed out the triangular part of the building sticking out as we looked back at Hudson’s Yards. It was hard to make it out so I pulled out the point-and-shoot with the long telephoto and was able to zoom in and see the people on the deck. We had lots to do so didn’t visit, but when I got back to the hotel I looked it up and the cheapest admission is $34US.

I couldn’t resist taking a few more pictures of the High Line’as we strolled along.

And I was able to pose with this creature and get Michael to take my picture. I sat with another creature by this artist and included it in my blog a couple days ago.

I saw this bike storage locker in the Meatpacking District on our way to Chelsea market for lunch and bathrooms.

My lunch was delicious once again. New York brisket. I’ve heard of it many times including on the show The Marvellous Mrs Maisel, I don’t think I’ve ever had it before.

As we were eating lunch we saw this odd car go by. I took a picture and when we got back to the hotel I looked up “Jaguar with Spinny things” and discovered that it’s a Waymo self driving car. The black thing on the top plus four additional ones at each corner of the car were spinning and are apparently LIDAR.

After lunch we walked around The Meatpacking District and then headed for Little Island Park.

It was a beautiful afternoon and still early when we finished there, so we used bike share to borrow two bikes and ride to the financial district on the Hudson River Greenway. Michael found the bike quite comfortable and the ride not overly taxing. We went about 5 km. The cycling facility is impressive. Separated from both cars and pedestrians it was very comfortable to use. It runs the entire length of the island and is the same path that I was riding on when I went to the Cloisters a few days ago. It is part of New York’s at Empire Trail.

The first docking station we arrived at was full so we carried on to find a second which turned out to be directly in front of the National Museum of the American Indian which Michael visited 47 years ago when he came to New York City with his parents.

On our way to have a look around Battery Park we saw this old entrance to Bowling Green subway station.

Battery Park seemed to be a very large park, and my feet were getting quite tired, so then we went in search of a coffee.

Once again we use Google live view to navigate us to our chosen coffee shop and I noticed this fun reflection when we paused to check the directions.

After coffee we took the subway to Union Square. It has a very large subway station with many lines intersecting. There are 36 lines in total.

Union Square is a large park which was very busy with a market today, many people just enjoying the weather, and a large playground.

There are so many different kinds of food you can buy from trucks here on Manhattan. And a few days ago we saw a truck that sold marijuan. Today we saw the Mitzvah Tank. I thought it was funny that he puts on it that he’s available 24/6.

We had initially planned to get back on the subway, but the weather was so nice, and there’s so much to see which can’t be seen in the subway, so we decided to continue walking.

We passed the Harry Potter store which had a line around two sides of the building to get in just before the Flatiron building, which unfortunately is under scaffolding.

The New York Edition, a building with massive clock faces and a gold dome began life as the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company’s headquarters, but is now a luxury boutique hotel. It was built in 1909.

We sat for a while in Madison Square Park. It was another very busy park. Manhattan Island has the highest population density on the planet. Very few people have their own outdoor spaces, but with all the incredible outdoor spaces in the city, I don’t think one would miss having a backyard too much.

This is one of the plazas that was created from road space a few years ago, even though Madison Square Park is right across the road. Both spaces were very well used.

We caught glimpses of the Empire State building after leaving Madison Square Park.

As we were getting close to our hotel I saw this reflection.

We noticed this restaurant Summer Salt.

Shortly before we got back to our hotel. We checked the menu when we got back and it looked good, so after resting for a while, we went back out and got excellent fish tacos and guacamole and chips for dinner.

It was another great day in New York City and was really nice having company today.