It is Saturday and we peaked early last night and as every night in our cool flat, we slept well. We will beat the crowds to the Empire State Building. We walked to Times Square, just ten minutes or less, and caught a train on the Not Quite Right line, that is we took an N or Q or R train to the station nearest the Empire State. Being such an old building, I never thought of it as being especially tall, in spite of seeing photos of it. It is very tall. Melbourne's tallest building is Eureka Tower at 297 metres with 91 storeys . Empire State is 443 metres with 102 storeys (and higher ceilings, no doubt).
We left the subway at Herald Square and even just after 9am it was busy and there were queues, very fast moving queues. As I mentioned once before, America deals with large crowds very well. Around and around and up we went in the queue system and finally we were on the observation deck.
More art deco than you can absorb.
This is the reward and it was breathtaking.
This gives you an idea of the layout of Manhattan. We are roughly midtown and this is looking south to Lower Manhattan and Downtown. The very tall building there is the new One World Trade Centre, built to replace the World Trade Centre. To your right is Hudson River with its far bank being the state of New Jersey. To the left is East River with its far bank being the New York borough of Brooklyn.
There she is, and I so wanted to see the flat iron building with my own eyes. I saw a nice photo of it the other day with trams passing it by, clearly several decades ago.
See the towers of similar buildings near to the East River? We were told they are City of New York public housing and there are 110 of these towers.
The Chrysler building in my opinion is more attractive, but you won't see the attractive exterior from the building itself. We had been issued with headphones with boxes, and you had to press buttons to get a commentary on what you are seeing. How much better were the boxes for Melbourne's David Bowie exhibition that did it all automatically.
It's impossible to count the number of art deco buildings. They are just everywhere.
Now I am looking Uptown, towards Harlem on the far side of Central Park. Beyond Harlem is the borough of The Bronx. I have been checking about Manhattan being called an island and there does seem to be some disagreement. Yes, it is surrounded by water, but the northern end is only a quite normal river, the Harlem River. Central Park is massive and if it did not exist, it would have to be made, I think.
Meanwhile back on the ground....
R generally did not drag me into shops during our travels, but Macy's was irresistible. I bought a shirt, discounted by 65% and then at the counter the pleasant woman who served me offered me a coupon that gave me a further 20% off. R did not miss out either.
One guide somewhere misinformed us that R H Macy and his wife drowned in the sinking of the Titanic. Not so. Macy had sold the business Isidor Straus, who along with his wife, did die when the Titantic sank.
Back to Times Square. These people dressed up as characters were everywhere, posing with tourists for photos and tips. They can be a little on the aggressive side. They caught me for a photo shoot. I only tipped them $2. Hey man, there five of us, as we walked on.
The timeball post to drop to mark New Year's Eve.
I can't recall why I took this photo.
More amusement at the Revlon screen. #loveison.
Finally defeated by a New York meal I could not finish at Scallywags, an Irish pub on 9th Avenue. There was some potato left.
I think we then walked back up 9th Avenue for a drink in the gay bar we had visited earlier and then back to the flat.