Happy New Year from New York

Happy New Year, again for those of you in NZ. It is freezing (-2 degC) here so we chickened out and returned inside. Times Square is wall to wall people, frozen people who are trying to look happy! There are hundreds of police everywhere, choppers in the air and security on most buildings (we needed proof as guests to get into the hotel). Perhaps we should have gone to Central Park where they have fireworks at midnight followed by a five mile foot race by people dressed up!

As you can see Marie and Toby found some wacky glasses from a street vendor (who are very well organised retailers,  always supplying the most appropriate products for the prevailing conditions - umbrellas when it rained, sunglasses for the sun, wooly hats when it got cold, Apple support products outside the Apple Store and silly gear for New Year parties. Tomorrow morning I suspect they will offer water and Nurofen).

Let's now grab 2015 by the collar and see what we can make of it. Don't wait for it to grab your collar. 

Selfie City

It seems that everywhere you look in NY people are taking 'selfies'. Those of generous spirit, like us, occasionally offer 'would you like us to take your photo?' but you quickly learn that you will become New York's lowest paid photographer unless you ignore them all and leave them to it!!

New Years Eve

Very little appeals to us about joining mile long queues to get into the shut down zone (massive - 42nd to 59th St. and  from 6th to 8th Ave) to then not be allowed out, so people must 'pee where they stand'!

Our hotel is inside the 'zone' so we had to prove this to the police on our way home to be allowed in when we returned from our days activity. 

We contemplated fireworks in Central Park but at -4 degC we are also considering a nice warm bar with dozens of televisions pointed at Times Square. 

Today was a free day so we re-visited some cool places we have seen over the past week. Soho, Greenwich Village, Meatpacking district, Chelsea Market etc

We also enjoyed many of the buskers out taking advantage of the big tourist crowds. They are far more deserving of our coins and small notes than the 'trust me, I am homeless peopl' who shake their cup at you while playing on their new iPhone 6!

We listened to an excellent guitarist (12 string) in the subway this morning (NQR line, so he got $5 - Marie suggested that the NYPD line might drop us directly home if we smile nicely 😃)

Next we enjoyed listening to five retired looking African-American who boarded our train, introduced themselves then sang beautifully, unaccompanied. They received the coins in our pockets.

On a previous train we had seen several boys break dancing and pole dancing in the next carriage. 

Like most big cities the subway is very efficient, easy to use and whilst their are plenty of buskers we haven't seen many nutters (most of them are up on the street!). We saw a cool book of photos of the thousands of different 'people' of NY but it was to heavy to bring back. 

Sophie would have laughed at the volume of people with hair in all colours of the rainbow.

Historically we didn't think America did good coffee but whilst most outlets are rubbish their have been regular spots which clearly make an art of good coffee, so we have supported many of them!

Crazy chance - we bumped into a good Wellington  friend on our way back to the hotel. Small world. 

HAPPY NEW YEAR to you all. We will be there soon. 

Snow!!

Yes, today we had snow. It lasted five whole minutes. It did not, however, land on the ground or show up in photos. Sorry. Frank Sinatra was clearly in 'New York, NY' when he sung that he was 'dreaming of a white Christmas' because they don't seem to happen. 

One of our tour guides told us that Christmas Day 2014 was the second warmest on record! The good news is that other than rare moments of rain after day one we have had lovely clear days for touring around, which we have done mostly by foot. 

Today was our time in Harlem, or Spanish Harlem to be precise, on our Graffitti tour (hip hop tour was cancelled). It was a cool way to look around. We may have to revisit 'black Harlem' if we are to see the Apollo Theatre etc.

We also had enough time visit the Empire State Building, early (8am) because we have learned that this is when the queues are shortest. By midday you need to be a far more patient traveller than me to visit the hot spots. 

Our next three days are mostly free time. We don't plan to join the 1 million person scrum that is Times Square on New Years Eve. We may go to Central Patk as recommended by a chatty local in Harlem. We will see. 

Happy New Year to everyone in NZ. 

Wall Street

Today we did a walking tour of Wall Street, caught the Staten Island ferry (free tourism, which leads to massive crowds), visited the 911 World Trade Centre memorial (special, attractive) and the supporting museum and finished up catching the subway (Metro) home to eat Italian back near our hotel.

The 911 memorial museum is impressive. The memorial fountains outside are very impressive too and the new One World Trade Centre building is up (albeit with teething troubles) and you are left with the feeling that the local attitude is 'knock us down and we get right back up, better than before'.

I imagine that New York makes far more now from tourism around the World Trade Centre than any other business or rent collected on the properties! This was surely an unintended consequence for Al Qaeda.

Wall Street though is rather unimpressive as a pokey small street which I know most financial firms have departed from. The bank I worked for (Credit Suisse) is in mid town with many others, the mighty Goldman Sachs has moved to New Jersey and the computers that we all trade on now are also in New Jersey. Wall Street is now just another American brand, little more. It has an interesting history from George Washington's  early Presidency and early financial trading days but it's only contemporary value is tourism. 

Trinity church is on Broadway at the end of Wall Street. 

Regardless of what Nicholas Cage would have you believe it seems unlikely that the Templars stored their National Treasure under the Trinity Church on Broadway.

According to the gospel of New York

Today we went on the Gospel Tour of Brooklyn and finished up at church, in Brooklyn, listening to the Brooklyn Tabernacle Singers, who were awesome. Imagine a service that is the complete opposite to a Presbyterian 'show'! At some points the audience, with arms in the air, were singing louder than those on stage. Tyler was more interested in finding a Nike store (!@&??!) but this tour was indeed excellent, local, stuff and fun. It was Marie's idea and it was a good one. We walked back to Manhattan over the Nrooklyn bridge then to NOHO for Tyler's Nike shoes (only shop in the world with these ones... Yeah, right). I think the shoes look like they are off s My Little Pony, so Sophie will like them when email her a photo 😀 then it was back on the subway home. Another full and enjoyable day. 

Early is best

We have been up early for the past two days (on the road at 8am) and it is proving to be a wise plan because the street population is low and a lot can be achieved in reasonable comfort. By afternoon it gets busy and by 6pm it is a madhouse of millions!

Today's walking tour included the Chelsea district, the meat packing district (very cool now) and the Hughlibe (very cool use of old elevated rail line).

After the tour we walked up the Highline to 34th St and along the Hudson River Zpatk water front to board the USS INTREPID aircraft carrier which is now a museum. Again, this was also good to visit and for the first time we enjoyed queue jumping because of our NY Passes. Guilty? No. Laughing? Yes. 

We found a great bar for dinner and had planned to join the 'hop on hop off' bus tour of Brooklyn at night, only to find that this doesn't run over Xmas season. Not to worry as we will be in Brooklyn tomorrow for our Gospel tour. We think we will also use our early start strategy for the Empire State and Rockefeller buildings. 

Did I mention?

That Marie is not very keen on Helicopters. Toby scored the front seat!

Busy but productive day

Today we were out of bed and on the road at 7.30am. First we caught the Hop on Hop Off bus on the Downtown loop. We found a shop for Tyler, then Wall Street, which is unimpressive relative to its financial scale, then we walked up to SOHO (past the World Trade Centre memorial) to join our tour of Soho, Little Italy and Chinatown. It was a good introduction but we may head back to spend more time there for shopping and eating. Then we ran to the East river Heliport for a flight around Manhattan- an excellent way to see what's really out there. Next we found a small ice rink so Toby  represented us for a session before we headed 'home' and will now get some dinner from the very popular street vendors. 

Christmas Spectacular

The city is packed today; wall to wall people. We filled some time orienteering and then went to the Christmas Spectacular at the famous Radio City Hall. They know how to put on a show. With all due respect church would attract more people if they told the Christmas (and Santa) story this way! The attached photo might just be a bright splash but so too was the show. 

Christmas Day

We found a restaurant to feed us lunch, from the many open to choose from. They weren't dressed up for Xmas but Marie and Toby were (Mike stole his hat for the non-grinch photo) which drew many smiles through the window that we say in. 

And another tree

Although this tree, and reindeer, sing. Very funny to watch and I have a sinking feeling that the others will insist on bringing them back in our luggage. We are all set up for Xmas 18 hours after you all in NZX. 

And here's our Xmas tree

Without any snow :(

Breakfast

We had breakfast at Ellen's Stardust Diner where the staff is made up of Broadway hopefuls who take turns singing to guests. Then they ask for donations to survive and get more lessons!