New York City – Day 7

When I opened the curtains this morning I could only see a few blocks due to thick fog. Last night when I went to sleep rain was forecast for the day today, but by the time I finished breakfast the fog was clearing and there was no longer rain in the forecast. We took our raincoats and umbrellas with us, just in case, and headed to St. John the Divine, the largest Gothic cathedral in the world, north of Central Park near Columbia University.

We needed to put additional funds on our Metro cards before we could use the subway. I learned that the act of putting your credit card into the machine and withdrawing it quickly is called dipping. The machine asked us to enter our ZIP Code to complete the credit card transaction. Inciting, we don’t have a ZIP Code.

Michael and I encountered this difficulty when we were in Chicago. We flew into Chicago and went straight from the airport terminal to the subway to ride downtown to our hotel. However when we tried to purchase farecards and were asked for our ZIP Code we were stymied. We tried putting in the ZIP Code of the hotel we were staying at, but there must be a check of the ZIP Code against the credit card address and the transaction was denied. In the end a kind transit employee allowed us to go through the gate without paying and told us to purchase the cards another time. The next day we tried again at a subway station in downtown Chicago, and were again denie, but fortunately there was an employee there who told us just enter five zeros instead of a ZIP Code, and it will work. It did.

Fortunately, Michael remembered this, and we were each just entered 00000 as the ZIP Code and the transaction was approved.

Many of the stations have three sets of tracks so that express trains can skip stations by running down the middle.

We booked a timed ticket for the Cathedral for 1030 and arrived in time to get a coffee. It’s not uncommon to see doors like this in the sidewalk as you walk through commercial areas. This is the first one that I saw open.

Michael pointed to a very ifamilar looking diner as we cross the street on our way to the cathedral after our coffee, but I couldn’t quite place it. He just told me now that it was the diner used in Seinfeld, and it clicked for me. I’ve taken a screen cap of it from Google to include here. I wish I had realized it this morning and gotten a selfie in front of it.

St. John is the largest cathedral in the world, and one of the five largest church buildings in the world. It is still under construction. Construction began in 1892. It will continue to be constructed over many centuries. Currently though their funding is directed to prioritize serving the community and maintaining the architectural integrity of the cathedral as it is currently constructed.

It doesn’t feel as big as some of the European ones we have been in, however, that might be due to the fact that we were unable to access much of it due to the unfinished nature.

Every April there is a blessing of the bikes at the Cathedral to kick off the riding season. Clearly they haven’t met me as I ride year round. I can tell that many people in New York also cycle year around, especially the food delivery cyclists.

There are a number of cute sculptures by Tom Otterness installed in the unfinished support columns of the cathedral.

There was a very odd fountain in the church gardens called the Peace Fountain. It is meant to represent the conflict between good and evil.

Someone at the Cathedral has a sense of humour and we found these signs on the grounds.

We also spotted this white peacock who apparently resides here.

There was very little traffic on the streets in this area of Manhattan.

We had lunch at a Jewish deli/Vietnamese noodle fusion restaurant called Wu + Nussbaum. The food was good.

On our walk to a bike share station at the north end of Central Park we passed this lovely fire station, the outside of one of the unfinished bits of the cathedral, which didn’t really match the rest of the cathedral, and the back of the cathedral.

The parks runs from 5th to 8th Avenue, and 59th – 110th Street. It is 4km long by 800m wide. We borrowed bikes and rode around 1/4 of the outside of the park before running out of time. It allowed us to peek into the park.

We got to the Guggenheim Museum a little bit faster than walking. It wasn’t a lot faster, though because there was no bike lane here so we rode on the very wide interlock brick sidewalk and had to keep our speed down. We only looked at it from the outside.

We returned the bikes near the MET. Fortunately we hadn’t planned to go in because it was it was very crowded with a long lineup to get in.

We walked through Central Park heading for the Gapstow Bridge – which has very famous views of the New York skyline reflected in a small lake. On the way we passed under another lovely bridge – there are over 30 bridges in Central Park – and an Alice in wonderland statue and some lovely park buildings.

The Gapstow bridge was a bit obscured by vegetation, but the views from the bridge did not disappoint.

We saw many of these rickshaws in the park along with horse drawn carriages.

When Patti and I were in New York City in high school we decided to visit the Russian tea room. We were seated in their opulent dining room and when we told the waitress all we wanted to order was a cup of tea we were told that there was a minimum order for the table and that wouldn’t make it and they sent us upstairs to the cheap seats.

Patti encouraged me to have tea at the Russian tea room while I was here this time. I looked it up on the website and afternoon tea is $80 per person, or $105 if it includes champagne. I decided to just have Michael take a picture of me outside the tea room.

Michael decided a few years ago that he would start wearing business dress on the one or two days a month when he went into work, rather than business casual that had become acceptable over the years. He has acquired a few nice suits, a handsome topcoat, a trench coat, and a number of elegant hats. He looks very handsome dressed for work. As we strolled through Central Park he told me the next thing he was going to need to acquire is a walking stick. Hilariously, as we entered Columbus Circle in search of coffee, we saw a store selling walking sticks. I guess he didn’t see the right one, because he didn’t buy one.

Columbus Circle is a large traffic circle at the Southwest corner of Central Park. Broadway is one of the streets that runs into it. We sat on the corner at Central Park and watched the crowds of people and constant traffic go by.

From there we got the subway back to Times Square. It was quite busy. Then from Times Square we followed the signs for the shuttle to Grand Central. As we walked we realized that we had walked underground in the subway station over to the next stop between Times Square and Grand Central which is Bryant Park. It’s an absolutely enormous underground space.

The day was much warmer than we expected and we carried around our extra clothing all day. I was very happy to get back to the hotel and have a shower before we went out to get dinner. We enjoyed our fish tacos so much last night that we went there again. It was another fine day in New York City. The forecast for tomorrow is also excellent and we plan to head back down to the financial district to see the sites that we missed yesterday.


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