New York City (Day 1)

We pulled into Penn station on time, around noon. It was a short walk to our hotel from there: the Madison Hotel, at the corner of 27th. It was a good, clean place, no cockroaches or rats, and not as expensive as you would think for being nearly right at the heart of the centre of the universe ($120 a night!).

We checked in smoothly, and then headed out with the plan to sort of follow Holden Caulfield's day in NYC. It was a pretty rough guess, as we didn't really stay in any bad hotels, or end up in any snobby jazz bars, but we traced an outline. We walked along 34th street, through Macy's (just because it was there) to the New Yorker hotel, which is the closest thing there is to an "Edmont Hotel." It has a 50's-style diner on the first floor, so we had lunch there. I had meatloaf; Miriam had a burger.

After that, we walked up 5th avenue to Rockefeller Centre, but we didn't go up. It wasn't going to be a trip for acending tall buildings. We also had walked past the Empire State building, but we didn't feel like waiting in line to go up. We also couldn't go skating at Rockefeller Centre because, well, it was the middle of August! It would be cool to go back at Christmastime, and see the sidewalk chairity collectors and that stuff, too.

We walked (we almost always walked) up to Central Park, and saw the Carousel up close. I think that the thing everyone says about it is how fast it actually goes! I was impressed! We didn't ride it though. Then we went to the American Museum of Natural History, saw the dinosaurs, and the dioramas. Didn't see any "fuck yous" anywhere. On the way back we did see some ducks in Central Park, as well as a busker/folkie guitarist who had a quite a loyal following it seemed. Over by the fountain there were some guys doing flips and stuff. They built up one really big flip over four audience members. It was cool, but not worth however much money they probably made from it, collecting bills from people in pillowcases.

On the way out of the park, we checked out the Upper East Side appartments that Holden would have lived in (had he been a real person! Ha!). Pretty swank. Nice neighbourhood. Then we took the subway down to Ground Zero, just to see.

There wasn't actually much to see, except that there had been a fire burning all day in an adjascent building, so there were several fire trucks and police lines blocking off several blocks. Unfortunately, because the building was abandoned (as a result of 9/11), there was no water in the building, and two firefighters died.

After wandering through a mostly deserted Wall Street, we went through Battery Park, and waited for the Staten Island Ferry. The idea was to get a view of the skyline, and of the Statue of Liberty. The Ferry is free, so we just took it one way, got off, walked around and took it the other way. Lady Liberty was shorter than I figured, but the skyline was cool. It was just after sunset, so the view was nice.

We walked back up to Soho, and had a late dinner at Lombardi's Pizza, the oldest pizza place in North America. It was pretty good. Then we walked back up Broadway, through Union Square. We had a look at the Flatiron building on the way. We rolled back into the hotel around 1am. Batman Begins was on tv, which I thought was appropriate, since we were in "Gotham." So I watched that, while Miriam fell asleep.

All in all, a good day.