We hopped on the hop on/hop off bus at the Waldorf Astoria and transferred to the Uptown route at Central Park.
We headed uptown through the trendy Upper West side. We saw the Dakota building on the corner of Central Park West, where John Lennon was shot and killed. In the apartment buildings on this street many celebrities including Will Smith, and Tom Cruise have apartments.
TRAVEL TIP: A bus guide provided us with some useful information: Every 20 blocks equals one mile. Don't eat at Times Square because it is much more expensive. For example a Big Mac is twice the price at this store. The exception is a place locals go called Restaurant Row. New Yorkers will eat there or at a Korean deli for a $3 breakfast.
We continued on to Harlem, where we learnt that many movies and television shows are filmed here due to less traffic. Fans of Sex and the City might recognize (Louise did), this as the street where Carrie’s apartment is located (pictured below).
From Harlem we went up Fifth Avenue (picture below) that has some of the most expensive real estate in the world. Some of these buildings are only occupied by 3 or 4 families, which is not surprising when you consider 59 billionaires live in Manhattan. Dog walkers here can earn $100,000 dollars a year.
TRAVEL TIP: Worst traffic is on Fridays 3pm - 7pm. The weekends are the busiest for museums, Empire State etc.
Every day there are 6-8 million people in Manhattan, although only 2 million people live here. All these people squeeze into an Island only 13 miles long by 2 1/2 miles wide. So the word crowded is an understatement.
We took the downtown tour to Southport on the harbour, where we had lunch at Uno at Pier 17 , which has great views of the city, and is a good place to wait for your cruise to depart. Louise and I recommend the crispy fries and pizzas.
By purchasing the 48 hour Gray line hop on/hop off ticket, we were eligible for a free cruise. We chose the jet boat Shark cruise for a spin on the harbor.
The other cruises putt along, but we literally flew along the water past the city, up the Hudson River, and past Ellis Island. The music was booming, we're getting hit by spray - it was fantastic! Then we stopped in front of the Statue of Liberty (pictured below), and under the Brooklyn Bridge. It was one of the highlights of our trip.
Luckily, we hopped off the boat and were able to get on an express hop on/hop off bus straight to Times Square. It was also lucky we didn’t get hit crossing the road to get on the bus, as cars don’t always stop for pedestrians in New York.
The bus took a different route back, and we got another view of the WTC (World Trade Center) building site (pictured below). The guide told us earlier that 110,000 commercial jobs were lost in the financial area of New York, and some of the business buildings have now been turned into apartments as a result. The guide also told us that his sister-in law rang in sick to her boss in the WTC on 911. The boss died, and so did most of the office. We drove past a fire station on the tour today that had lost the entire shift that was working that day. 341 firefighters were killed that day, but they saved thousands of people. For every New Yorker the absence of the twin towers is a daily reminder of the attack.
You have to hand it to these New Yorkers, they are tough. They have to put up with millions of tourists, horrendous traffic, getting squeezed onto subway trains, freezing winters, scorching summers, and terrorist attacks. But, still they keep going, and seem to take pride in being New Yorkers.
We got off at Times square, where Louise purchased tickets for Tuesday night's off Broadway performance of the comedy 'Boeing, Boeing'. Apparently, Gina Gershon, and Christine Baransky are starring.
A short time later there was another thunderstorm, but we had our plastic ponchos ready, and the umbrella. After a short break at the hotel, we ventured out again for the hop on/hop off night tour. We drove over into Brooklyn, where we got some great views of the city and Brooklyn Bridge. New York City is even better at night, and even the Empire State Building is lit up in different colours for a dramatic effect (pictured below).
Well, we're all bused out now. Hop on/hop off buses are good for couple of days, but they are alot slower than the subway. They are good for orientating yourself to the city, but two days is about our limit, and with New York Traffic its tedious.
Tomorrow we will brave the subways, which is how most New Yorkers move around. Not that they have much choice, because there is no room left to move on the surface, so the only real solution is go underground.
