M and S's Excellent Adventure, Day 3

Sunday was a day of leisurely strolling through museums. Monday was a day of walking miles. There are a lot of things in New York that you just have to see. There isn't anything to do, exactly; it's just a sight, and you want to take pictures and tell people you've seen it. Seeing those things was the agenda for Monday.

We started out the day with a little bit of work though. The ABA TechShow (or LegalTech, as it's officially known) was being held at our hotel beginning on Monday. Since we were there, and it was convenient, we stopped in for a bit to learn about some practice management software. It was enormous. ENORMOUS! I got lost just trying to find the booth I was looking for, then I had to go back out to the registration tables to find S, who arrived a little later (she had gone on an NBC Studio tour), and she got lost following me back to the booth where we were learning about the products! Anyway, we did our learning (and I'm excited about this new program we're going to get!); I really think it will help me stay organized at work.

Then the fun began. We hopped a cab all the way down to Battery Park, as far south as you can go in Manhattan before you drive into the water. From there, you can look out towards the water and see the Statue of Liberty. The Ellis Island Immigration Museum is actually pretty neat, but the ferry ride out and back takes up a good chunk of the day. We had a lot of walking ahead of us, so we pressed on.

We started up Broadway of course had to pass by the Bull (who knew, he's actually called Charging Bull and has his own Wikipedia site). How can you miss it?

S was getting hungry so we stopped in a cafeteria-style eatery, probably frequented by people who work in the financial district) for lunch. I wasn't too hungry, given that I had been out so late the night before, but I did get a soda and chuckle at the pay-by-the-minute Internet-connected computers over in the corner of the cafeteria. There were three of them.

We continued our march north after S finished her (very greasy) pizza, to the intersection with Wall Street. To the west is the lovely Trinity Church, and to the east is the most famous street where money is made (and lost) in the country, maybe in the world. In addition to playing host to the NYSE, Wall Street is also home to Federal Hall, the site of George Washington's presidential inauguration.

We had both already seen Ground Zero, which for all its memorial value is now just a huge construction site. So, since it was later in the day than we would have liked, we skipped that and just kept on trucking up Broadway towards City Hall Park. And right near the park, I saw this:
Can someone explain this to me? Why are we naming a plaza after people with AIDS? Is that really necessary? I realize this is very politically incorrect of me to say, but frankly, I don't care. We're supposed to name streets and buildings and plazas and parks after people who did something great, or at least something good, or maybe even halfway decent. Not who went out and got AIDS. Okay, I'm done. For now.

We were headed towards the New York Criminal Courts Building - S wanted to see how much more impressive their courthouse was than ours; turns out, not much - but along the way we passed by the city office building at 1 Center Street, which is lovely, if somewhat self-consciously so:

Having had quite enough of the official stuff, we headed back west for a stroll through Tribeca and Soho. We stopped for a hot chocolate to warm up, and then continued north up West Broadway into Greenwich Village's Washington Square Park. For some reason, the park was closed and we couldn't walk through it, but we walked around the outside, sharing the sidewalk with many an NYU student. Turns out it was an appropriate stop; having just a few hours before seen the place where GW was inaugurated, we were now seeing the centennial celebration of that same event.

We got around to the north side of the park and then continued up 5th Avenue, with a brief detour over to Madison Square Park to see the Metropolitan Life Insurance building (where S works in the North Building), and not to be confused with the MetLife building, to see some more landmarks:

The Flatiron

Isn't this one pretty obvious?

Ditto
I'm not much into department stores, but S wanted to see the world's largest store. We even went inside, but were immediately overwhelmed, so proceeded to turn around and walk right back out again.

The New York Public Library,
of which there are actually many branches (believe it or not!), but this one (5th and 42nd) is the one everyone knows and loves, including Carrie Bradshaw!

The Chrysler Building - my favorite!

Grand Central Station

This very building, actually called Grand Central Terminal (but "station" just rolls off the tongue so much more easily) was the subject of the Penn Central v. NYC case, for those who have an interest in eminent domain law. They even talk about the case on Grand Central's own website. How can you destroy a building this cool?

We walked through the Grand Central Market, which I love, and came out on Lex. We headed north to 50th, ambled through the New York Palace hotel, and then continued up Madison to 53rd, then back over to our hotel. 6.7467 miles, according to the Gmap Pedometer.

But it was not quite time to relax. Since we booked our rooms at the last minute and the TechShow was happening at the Hilton, the rooms were all booked up beginning on Monday night. We had left our bags with the doorman when we departed that morning, and now it was time to pick them up. Our timing was terrible though, because the TechShow was just getting out for the day, so there was a line of lawyers probably 200 long waiting for cabs. Since we had been walking all day, I figured (much to Sally's chagrin), what's a few more blocks before we can get a cab? So we kept on walking, and the first cab that pulled over was a pedicab! I had never been in a pedicab before, at least not in New York. It was somewhat reminiscent of the auto rickshaws in India, although - believe it or not - far less terrifying. Our bike rider was a very nice guy from Turkmenistan, who's been living in New York for six years, and helped us out by pointing out some good places to go near our new hotel, which was The Lucerne, at 79th and Amsterdam on the upper west side. It was a long ride for him, but he was very nice about it, and it was probably cheaper than a cab anyway, and definitely more interesting.

Our new hotel

We were about finished with walking, but still hadn't had dinner. So we braved the sidewalks again and found a place called the Amsterdam Ale House not far from our hotel. Dinner was pretty good, but we were beat, so we headed back for some TV and reading. What I discovered while trying to do my homework was that our flight home for the following day had already been canceled; they were predicting a monster snowstorm in St. Louis. We had been re-booked on a later flight, which was only the beginning....