Early start to beat the crowds up the Empire State Building, and worth
it. Such an amazing, iconic building, excellent to get inside, and the view
from the 86th floor observation deck was, of course, gobsmacking.
An episode of Doctor Who featured the daleks using the construction of
the place in the '30s for their nefarious purposes, so our tour of DW locations
continues...although I doubt any filming was done here for that one.
After the trip up we used our NY Pass to do something we otherwise
wouldn't have - the Skyride. It was yet another immersive movie, flying around and
above NYC, piloted and narrated by Kevin Bacon - cheesy as, but the boys loved
it.
Went to another major icon then – Grand Central Terminal. Again, an
amazing building, beautiful place. We did an audio tour, which was really
interesting and very funny – to be standing in the middle of this hectic place,
listening to our individual devices and gazing around as New York rushed by.
700,000 people every day…
I think Ruth & I agree that our favourite building in NYC is the Chrysler Building, so we took every opportunity to snap it.
Then it was the Bodyworlds exhibition at Discovery Times Square, which was another Pass freebie we might not otherwise have bothered with. But it was fascinating (and a bit gross). The whole plastination thing is amazing, and certainly affords a perspective one couldn’t get any other way, really.
Then it was the Bodyworlds exhibition at Discovery Times Square, which was another Pass freebie we might not otherwise have bothered with. But it was fascinating (and a bit gross). The whole plastination thing is amazing, and certainly affords a perspective one couldn’t get any other way, really.
Next stop - the ‘Intrepid’ aircraft carrier, which is docked in the
Hudson and forms another air and space museum. This one wouldn't have made our
list either but for the free entry with the pass, so we had a quick look at the
Concorde they have...
..then the various fighter jets on the flight deck, before
checking out the Space Shuttle ‘Enterprise’. Really impressive to see up close,
even though this was one of the original test orbiters and never went into
space, and the accompanying exhibition was very good.
We had hoped to do Top of the Rock – the view from the observation deck
of the Rockefeller Center - before checking out the Museum of Modern Art, but we
were pretty knackered by this point. Went to 30 Rock and found that the next
available time for the trip up wasn’t until the evening anyway, so booked in
for tomorrow morning - although the weather forecast is terrible. We’ve been so
lucky thus far, it can’t last…
So rather than go to MoMA, which we wanted to afford proper time to but were
running a bit short of, we took a leisurely stroll through Central Park,
heading up towards a restaurant on Amsterdam Avenue at 81st Street where we
were to meet Tan, Dan, Zach & Nate.
The park was beautiful, of course – and immense. We found the boating
lake with Bow Bridge, and the nearby Bethesda Fountain, which all also featured
in – yep, Doctor Who! They were in a pivotal episode called ‘The Angels Take
Manhattan’, and being able to walk in the actual spots was particularly cool
for the boys, having only been able to see the locations of previous filming
from afar.
Not sure we found the actual rock(s – apparently they filmed at two
spots) that the Doctor, Amy & Rory sat on, but this will do. Bow Bridge in
background.
Also during our walk we saw some of the many turtles in the boating lake,
and what we firmly believed to be a peregrine falcon landed very close to us
before majestically taking off over the lake, so that was pretty special, too.
We popped out of the park by The Beresford (left)…
Then made our way towards Amsterdam. Stopped for a beer before meeting up with the others for a marvellous feast of meatballs. A lovely evening.
No comments:
Post a Comment