New York Day 4 part 3
Our final afternoon in Manhattan, and the boys were desperate to go shopping. I felt like we’d already spent plenty of time shopping, i.e. more than none. We’d traipsed around Macy’s for what felt like about a week. It had some ancient looking wooden escalators, which briefly stirred my interest marginally above absolute zero, but apart from that was exactly the tedious, soulless experience I had expected (I can’t remember which day we did that, for some reason I didn’t take any photos). I’d sat impatiently waiting outside numerous shops full of over-priced sweat-shop-stitched branded sporting goods, now, inexplicably, apparently considered the height of fashion. I wasn’t keen for more of that, and, understandably, the boys weren’t keen on being shackled by my dolorous dead-weight company, or suffering the broad-sides of my rebarbative comments about their potential purchases.
So we parted company. They set-off to worship in the temples of consumer culture, whilst TBH and I wandered up 5th Avenue – past exactly the sort of stores the boys were seeking – to have a gander at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. It was just around the corner from our hotel, and I’d been hoping to visit since we’d arrived. For some reason, TBH had convinced herself that it wasn’t a church, perhaps because a church looked so out of place, surrounded by much taller buildings, on the busy, commercial cradle of 5th.
Whatever, it was well worth a look and I’m glad we’d found time. There were lots of other places we didn’t manage to fit in. The city’s art galleries would have been top of my list. TBH was particularly keen to go to the Guggenheim, and had wanted to go to the memorial at Ground Zero. I’m sure there’s a massive list of other things we ought to have done. But we’d packed a lot in, and we decided that, now that time was running out, what we really wanted to do was just have a wander around.
From St. Patrick’s we strolled to St. Bart’s on Park Avenue.
Unfortunately, it’s only open to the public at certain times of day, and we’d missed the window. It’s a shame because the building had lots of interesting detail…
Talking, of which, not for the first time, or the last time, I missed my camera, which I hadn’t brought because of the space it would have taken up in my luggage. Probably a poor decision. Lots of New York buildings seem to have some fabulous architectural features on their roofs – cupolas, domes, spires, gargoyles etc – which were often reasonably visible with the naked eye, but horribly distant from the wide-angle view of my phone’s camera.
We were heading for Grand Central Station – the striking Helmsley building, which straddles Park Avenue, was an unexpected bonus.
Grand Central Station features in so many films that it seems familiar even to a first time visitor.
The huge domed ceiling is painted with images of stars and the constellations (my photo didn’t come out very well) which, to me at least, served to emphasis the station’s resemblance to a vast secular temple.
We exited the station onto Lexington Avenue, right opposite…
…the Chrysler Building. The only problem with the view from directly beneath it is that you can’t see the iconic roof, if roof is the right term.
TBH wasn’t content with the view from outside and decided that we should have a look inside. The concierges/security guys were polite but firm, telling us that we should leave, but TBH managed to prolong her visit by finding questions to ask them and engaging them in conversation.
We jumped onto the Metro, heading downtown as far as Union Square, with the intention of walking up Broadway back towards out hotel.
Having met up with the boys again, we went back to the Tick-Tock Diner, since we’d all enjoyed it on our first visit. I was very unadventurous and had the Cobb Salad again.
And that draws to a close the Manhattan chapter of our New York State trip. I’d enjoyed Manhattan, but our next destination was very much more my kind of place.
Beating The Bounds 