Park Avenue at 40th Street rises up to the second level of Grand Central Station. It then curves around to the east and then emerges at 46th Street, through the Helmsley building, coming down a ramp within the building. Southbound the road curves around the west side of the buildings. It’s a scene familiar to me from many movies, and one I had planned to walk up to and photograph when I arrived.

On the first morning I was here I walked over to scout the ramp on the way to Bryant Park, and realized that access was prohibited to pedestrians. Traffic also seemed heavy and there was a no space to walk beside the cars. When I went back to the hotel for my forgotten hearing aids, I spoke to the doorman about how to get up to the second level, and was told that the Hyatt entrance was permanently closed, and that there wasn’t another way for pedestrians to get up there. So I abandoned the idea, but kept thinking about it all week.

Last night I realized that there wasn’t a sign prohibiting bicycles, which are vehicles. So this morning I decided to take another look at it. The bike share station near the base of the ramp. I found these interesting brass inserts in the sidewalk on my way there.

When I got there I found that the traffic wasn’t too heavy, so I rode my bike up.

The ramps weren’t too steep so even on the three speed heavy Citi Bike it didn’t take a lot of effort. I was able to get some great views, and close-ups of the statue of Cornelius Vanderbilt – the man who built Grand Central Station the last reminding building of his buildings.

I took a picture of myself outside the closed entrance to the Hyatt. The road runs down the side of Grand Central Station, the side of the MetLife building, and then through the Helmsley building.

Once back down at ground level I did a U-turn and rode back through on the other side.

I messaged Michael that I was looking at the building that he’s been working in this week thinking maybe he could come and look out the window, but he didn’t get my message right away, and couldn’t have come to that window anyway as it is where the executives have their offices.

Once back at ground level I rode in the bus lane up 42nd St. I’ve observed that cyclists use the bus lanes when there are no bike lanes. I’m not sure whether this is legal or not, but decided to ride as the natives do.

My next stop was the New York public library. I had intended to visit the branch in Bryant Park. The nearest bike stand was kitty corner and as I parked the bike I realized that there was another branch right in front of me.

I went in to have a look around the main floor and as I was leaving I saw this cutaway of the library. It showed a rooftop terrace. I asked the security guard if it was open and was directed to the elevator which took me to the seventh floor.

It was an amazing space with views over the public library and Bryant Park.

When I finished there I walked across the street to the Bryant Park branch.

The architecture is the Beaux Arts style and the building opened in 1911.

It had a gift shop where I found a Ruth Bader Ginsberg book bag and swag section.

The interior is absolutely lovely.

There is a small section of Bryant Park at the front of the library with tables and chairs. The building on the left with the green roof is where I had just been out on the rooftop terrace.

From there I headed to Central Park to ride the full loop which is almost 10 km long. On the way I passed radio city music Hall.

I rode around Columbus Circle a couple times to take pictures and at first didn’t realize that the bike lane was on the inside, but traffic was light enough that there was no problem crossing to the inside to ride a full circle and then back to the outside to enter Central Park.

The warmth of the last week has caused the cherry blossoms to pop.

There were many people out enjoying the lovely spring weather.

I was concern trolled, by a woman about my age, riding her own bike in Central Park. She told me to be careful taking pictures while I was riding and then asked me where my helmet was. I told her not to worry, I had my mirror and was aware of what was going on around me, and that my helmet was back in Canada. It was a silly question. Helmets are neither required by law for adults here, nor generally worn, especially on the Citibikes. I do generally wear a helmet at home on my drop bar bikes, but it just didn’t feel necessary on the slower heavier Citibikes with their upright geometry. The cars are also generally moving quite slowly here compared to Brampton and even when there isn’t a bike lane, one can use the bus lane, or often just the curb lane, because the roads have so many lanes here there doesn’t seem to be a lot of contention between bikes and cars.

When I finished the loop I docked the bike and grabbed some lunch to eat in the centre of Columbus Circle which had lots of curved stone bench seating.

When I finished eating I had 45 minutes left before the check in time for my flight tomorrow, so I borrowed the bike again and rode down Central Park West past incredibly beautiful apartment buildings including the Dakota where John Lennon lived and was murdered out front.

I docked the bike and went back to Columbus Circle to check in for my flight and then got a coffee at a cart to drink in the circle.

I decided to ride back to the hotel straight down Broadway through Times Square.

When I got back to the dock near our hotel I messaged Michael to find out when he would be done work, but he didn’t see my message for a few minutes, and it was only 3 o’clock and so beautiful out that I decided to ride to Stuyvesant town. It is much more attractive at ground level than it appears in the aerial image in the linked article.

It is a large post World War II private residential development on the east side of Manhattan. It consists of 110 red brick apartment buildings and contains 11,250 apartments. It was very well-kept with the internal pathways for walking and biking only. There are underground garages for cars accessible from the main roads.

These apartments are aimed at middle class families. A two bedroom apartment rents for about $3200. About 500 apartments are set aside for low income families and cost about 1200 a month to rent.

On my way back I saw this cute public art in front of a Children’s Hospital.

These residential buildings are connected by a bridge halfway up.

I rode along 1st Avenue until I got 42nd Street, passing the UN which I visited on my second day here.

42nd Street doesn’t have a bike lane, but does have bus lanes and I rode up in the bus line just before 4pm. It amazes me how empty the streets are here at most times of day.

We went out to a place called Urbanspace to pick up dinner. It was an upscale food fair. There were picnic tables on the street outside, and the temperature was so pleasant, that we decided to eat there rather than take the food back to the room.

This was my view as we finished dinner.

We discovered what at least some of the honking around here is. Taxis pull up in front of this very large hotel and stop to let out their passengers, often in the bus lane when the curb lane is full, and the buses honk their horns angrily. I guess the same thing happens in front of Grand Central Station, and it’s probably repeated many times throughout the day. This is where we are staying.

Normally when I’m visiting a city I like to go out at twilight to take pictures, but I haven’t done that yet here this trip. Most evenings we’ve been out to pick up food before twilight, and by the time we finished eating it in the room it was full dark. So tonight it was twilight as we were finishing and we walked around a little bit to take a few pictures.

The centre building is the Chrysler Building which our room window faces.

This is the Helmsley building. The two open arches on the second floor open to the roadway I was riding on my bike this morning.

These are other views of the Chrysler building.

This is Grand Central Station and Park Avenue rising over Pershing Square and 42nd Street.

What a perfect way to end an amazing week in New York City.

There is a constant cacophony of car horns around Grand Central Station and our hotel. However, this morning it had fallen silent. We opened the curtains to a bright sunny day and an empty 42nd St. We could see traffic cones and runners on the street. I wondered if it was an Open Streets or ciclovia day. I googled street closures and the date, and found an NYPD website with a huge list of streets closed for the return of the New York half marathon after two years of it being cancelled for the pandemic. 25,000 people were expected to run.

We went downstairs to head to Bryant Park for breakfast. We walked along 42nd St. watching the runners and it dawned on us that we were not going to be able to get across the street to Bryant Park. When we got close we asked a police officer who sent us through the subway station at 6th Avenue. There were no signs in the subway station, nor anyone to open the gate so as a crowd of people gathered, one person jumped over the turnstile and opened the gate from the inside to allow everyone to walk through. Probably no one in the crowd was planning on getting on the train. We all just wanted to get to the other side of the street. When we went back in employees were allowing people through the gate. After wandering around aimlessly for a while we found our way up to the park side.

We had breakfast at Pain Quotidian . It was delicious. The skating rink and Winter Village are almost completely dismantled now.

After finishing we headed back down into the subway to get back to the other side of 42nd St. There were signs to Times Square so we just walked all the way to there underground. This is called the 42nd St. connector. The two subway stations are connected by walkways as well as by train.

We saw these beautiful mosaics as we walked through the tunnel between the two stations. The artist is Nick Cave and the piece is called Each One, Every One, Equal All.

We emerged at Times Square to see even more runners going through the area which normally has rather restricted motor vehicle access with the plazas and bike lanes carved out of old road space, but had no vehicle access at all today.

When we finished looking at Times Square we went down into the subway to head to the world trade center. There were a lot of runners already finished waiting for the train. The first prize was $20,000.

The World Trade Center subway station is a modern clean one compared to some of the others in the system.

We visited 9/11 Memorial Park which has two huge fountains where the two towers used to stand.

The names of the victims are inscribed around the edges.

The streets around the park are closed off to motor vehicle traffic and some of them are heavily fortified as if another attack, from the ground, is expected.

The Koenig Sphere, a 25 foot bronze sculpture stood in the area before 9/11, and was recovered from the rubble at Ground Zero, and installed at the World Trade Center in Liberty Park in 2017 in memory of those who died on 9/11. The damage that the sculpture incurred was left when it was reinstalled.

There is also a 9/11 Memorial Museum on the site.

After that we visited the Oculus Transportation Hub. It is home to 12 subway lines, the World Trade Center PATH station, and dozens of retailers. It has access points across the entire 16 acre World Trade Center campus.

It was designed by Santiago Calatrava who designed the Peace Bridge in Calgary, the Galleria at Brookfield Place, and the Mimico Creek pedestrian bridge in Toronto.

The shape of the structure from the outside is meant to symbolize a hand releasing a dove. It’s orientation aligns with the sun’s angles on each September 11 from 8:46 AM, when the first plane struck, until 10:28 AM, when the second tower collapsed. Its central skylight fits this alignment and washes the oculus floor with a beam of light.

A mural has been painted on the metal structure that houses the Oculus’s cooling and operating equipment.

As we continued exploring the area and looking for lunch we passed St. Paul’s Chapel which was built in 1790, and undamaged when the twin towers fell, even though it is right across the street from where they were.

We found lunch at the Shake Shack in the Fulton Center. It has numerous subway lines running through it and a voluminous open area in the center. The wait to order and pick up the food was long, but once we finally got to City Hall Park to eat, we very much enjoyed our burgers and fries.

From there we decided to walk to Washington Square Park. On the walk we passed through TriBeCa (triangle below canal), which seemed to have a lot of people engaging in the sale of counterfeit purses, belts, watches, and sunglasses.

It was quite obvious as we got north of Canal and entered Soho (South of Houston), which seem to be a very popular shopping destination.

The line to get into Prada stretched around two sides of the building!

We spotted another weed truck just as we passed from Soho to Greenwich Village. New York University and Washington Park are in Greenwich Village.

We found coffee and sat in Washington Square Park to enjoy it. It was astonishingly busy with the smell of marijuana wafting in the air as we sat and walked around.

I’ve noticed that even the street musicians here have gone high tech for their donations. They’ll have a QR code that takes you straight to their Venmo account to make a small payment to them, or like this guy, he has it written on a sign.

From there we walked to Union Square Park, which is where we started walking yesterday. At that point we got on the subway and headed back to the hotel.

After a rest and figuring out where to pick up dinner we headed out to Pokiworks for another delicious meal.

I can’t believe I’ve been here eight days and have only one more day to explore. I think I’ll do that on the bike tomorrow. I’ll also have to get a Covid test, which hopefully will be negative, and assuming that it is, check in tomorrow afternoon to fly home on Tuesday

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.

I had hoped that the weather forecast would prove to be wrong, but when I opened the curtains this morning I couldn’t see the river. It was overcast and the street was wet. I couldn’t tell from the 31st floor whether or not it was raining.

I spent some time trying to motivate myself to go out, and deciding what to do. I looked at a number of museums, but also looked at the list of things that I wanted to do outdoors, and even though I’m here a generous eight days, I realized that half of them are already in the past.

In the end I decided to go to DUMBO – Downtown Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass, in Brooklyn across the East River. I decided to take the subway to avoid cycling in the rain, and to have a new experience. I dressed in layers with my yellow rain slicker on top, and my items that I wanted to take with me in my backpack, wrapped in plastic bags in case I got rained on.

I am able to get to the subway from the hotel without going outside. I stopped at a fare machine and was able to determine that the second card Cindy gave me also had funds on it and was able to have them transferred to a card with a new future expiry date.

Google told me to take a train, leave the train and station and walk a block to get to another subway line which doesn’t connect inside, and then transfer to the line that goes across the river to DUMBO.

My plan was to cross the river on the subway using the Manhattan Bridge for the views as represented on this map with the green arrow. But I made a mistake when I transferred and ended up following the red arrow to Williamsburg. The subway also crosses the river on the bridge going on this route so it took me a while to realize I was in the wrong place. Then it took a while to figure out what to do about it. I ended up going back to the station marked DeLancey street and following the blue arrow over to the island which was through a tunnel.

Consequently, a trip which should have been about 30 minutes by subway and would have taken about an hour on bike took an hour and a half. However, I got there in the end, and it’s all part of the adventure. I’ll do better tomorrow when I have Michael along and we use the subway again. I did end up seeing this interesting station which I would not have seen had I not taken the wrong train.

I find it much easier to navigate on the surface. Even when you don’t know the area you can use cues such as where the sun and shadows are and whether or not you can see the water. And in a place like Manhattan, where the streets are numbered, it’s very easy to quickly figure out when you’re going in the wrong direction.

As I emerged from the subway I saw a red flag on a lamp post saying DUMBO and shortly there after the distinctive industrial buildings and glimpses of the bridges and knew I was in the right place.

I’m going to blame the whole situation on the fact that I forgot to get a coffee this morning. I left the room with my mask on and headed straight down to the subway expecting to get a coffee 30 minutes later. Little did I know it would be more than 90 by the time I had one in hand.

DUMBO is a very noisy place with the subway regularly coming over the Manhattan Bridge. There’s also a lot of construction going on in the area.

Many of you will probably recognize this scene which is a very popular one on social media. I asked somebody to take my picture because a selfie just wasn’t working. Michael always thinks when I do this that the person is going to run away with my phone, but I chose someone that looked less fit than I am, and they didn’t try to run, anyway.

The waterfront is beautiful with views of the Manhattan Bridge, Manhattan, and the Brooklyn Bridge.

There are many beautiful and nicely restored industrial buildings.

There is an old carrousel that’s had a glass box built around it to protect it. It is still operable. It’s called Jane’s carousel and was built in 1922.

Empire Stores has been built inside an old industrial building. It’s partly open all the way up to the top with great views of the river and the bridges.

Just as I was finishing up looking at the carrousel it started to rain and was getting quite heavy so, as it was also time for lunch, I headed into Empire Stores to find something to eat.

Unfortunately there wasn’t any outdoor covered area to eat so I did eat indoors, but it wasn’t overly crowded, and I didn’t dawdle. My black Angus cheesesteak was absolutely delicious.

New York’s transportation system offers so many choices. I could have taken the subway back, gone to a bike share to get a bike to ride back, taken a ferry back, or my choice, walk back across the Brooklyn Bridge.

I always seem to spend an enormous amount of time finding food when I travel. It’s compounded when Michael and I are both trying to find food at once because we have different ideas of what we want to eat. I thought this QR code was a good idea. Just hold up your camera to it and will open up a webpage with the local restaurants.

It was a bit convoluted to get there, and quite sketchy in places due to construction, and lacking in signage.

Once I got to the stairs to get onto the bridge it was a 2 km walk to get to the City Hall area on Manhattan. But it was worth it with incredible views. Apparently the bridge can get so busy on nice days that one can only shuffle across, but it was comfortably empty in the misty weather today.

You could see the people in the apartments and their stuff as you walked past this building. It has incredible views, but with the potential lack of privacy on the one side, and the noise from the subway train on the Manhattan bridge on the other, I don’t think I would like to live there.

I’m not sure that it would have been much faster to drive as the cars were often at a standstill underneath the pedestrian area.

There were places that were so broad it felt more like a large pier than a bridge walkway.

There are some beautiful buildings around City Hall including the Woolworth building which was the tallest building in the world from 1913 to 1930. It is still one of the hundred tallest buildings in the US.

After walking around City Hall Park I grabbed a coffee and cookie to have in the park, and then got on the subway to go back uptown.

A lot of the subway stations, including the one under City Hall, are quite rundown.

This was a very useful board on one of the subways and was constantly updated so that the next stop was on the left-hand side and you could see how many stops there were until the one you were travelling to.

I had to transfer at Times Square to the Grand Central shuttle which was a very modern subway car that had no seating.

Michael and I met back at the hotel and then went to Café Hestia to get takeout, again. Our choices weren’t as good tonight, as they were last night, so we will try somewhere different tomorrow.

Despite the mistakes made this morning it was still another wonderful day visiting places familiar to me from social media. It was so wonderful to be able to experience them in person.