We watched Mickey Guyton perform on The Today Show from our hotel room Friday morning, and then walked to Rockefeller Center in time to see them breaking down the stage. I tried to go into the Nintendo store to get something for the boys, but as I tried to enter the store from one side (the same door I entered through when I was here in October), a man rudely stopped me and pointed around the corner. It was just like that scene in A Christmas Story with the Santa line in the mall! I texted Wesley to ask why in the world there was a line stretching all the way down 48th Street to get into the Nintendo Store. He immediately realized Aug 26 is the big release date for something called the OLED Model. I have no idea what that is, but it prevented me from getting the boys a souvenir today at the Nintendo store. We did pick up some donuts from Dough at 10 Rockefeller Center and had breakfast on the plaza.
We went all the way to the top of Rockefeller Center - Top of the Rock! I was the first time for all of us! For some reason I have always thought this iconic NYC photograph was the construction of the Empire State Building. But I found out today it was taken during the construction of Rockefeller Center. Dad bought me a Christmas ornament depicting the famous scene in the gift shop. I love my Christmas ornaments!
View down below of where we were just sitting earlier eating our donuts - we were sitting along the rectangular fountain you can see just above the iron railing, diagonal from St. Patrick's Cathedral.
I heard my name and looked up and Erin was waving at us from the level above:
The one thing the view from the top of Rockefeller Center has over the view from the top of the Empire State Building... is its view of the Empire State Building!
We ate lunch at Bill’s Bar & Burger in Rockefeller
Center. Erin and I spotted it Wednesday night when we were wandering around
Rockefeller looking for a place to eat. It was closed then, and we ended up
back at Junior's in Times Square. But we wanted to come back, so we did. We
should have all shared a meal - the portions were huge!
Greeting Atlas as we exited Rockefeller at 5th Avenue.
The parentals were tired so we left them at the hotel and
took off Sister Squad style. We took the subway to the Brooklyn Bridge and walked across it. It's the one thing I really wanted to do when I came with my friends in October that we couldn't squeeze in. I remember walking across the Brooklyn Bridge with Dad back in 2001, and I mostly remember the striking view of the Twin Towers from the bridge.
It started raining for one hot second while we were standing on the bridge, and I pulled out my umbrella. But it stopped really soon.
From the Brooklyn Bridge we walked back to the area of the World Trade Center. St. Paul's chapel -just steps away from the Twin Towers- is the church that miraculously stood on 9/11, as buildings all around it crumbled. Hundreds took shelter here on 9/11. We were the
only ones inside today, except for the greeter and the organ player, who gave us a private concert:
Trinity Church on Broadway (fun fact, my little Harding keychain wallet holding my license and my credit card got lost at security here. We had to put everything through an x-ray machine, and the worker was grabbing the bins back before we could empty them. We even joked about it with him, and his co-worker poked fun at him as well... We all had a laugh telling him to calm down. But then I got back to the subway later and I didn't have my wallet. The credit card was easy enough to cancel, but I needed ID to fly home the next day. So I immediately got on the phone with Michael to get him to overnight my passport to our hotel. I was proud of myself for not freaking out. I'm hoping the security workers will drop my license in a US mailbox so it makes it back to me eventually).
We found Alexander Hamilton in the cemetery, along with Eliza and Angelica Schuyler, Robert Fulton, and other famous folk:
Charging Bull and Fearless Girl on Wall Street. We walked from Wall Street down to Castle Clinton and Battery Park:
It looks tiny in the picture behind us, but there were amazing sunbeams shining on the
Statue of Liberty! Bosque Fountain and The Immigrants sculpture in Battery Park:
Artist Hebru Brantley’s recently installed 16-foot-tall Flyboy
sculpture The Great Debate.
We took the subway back to midtown, popping out at Grand Central Station:
The lobby of the Chrysler Building had just closed, so we didn't get to go inside. But we got to peek through the windows. Erin and I walked back to the hotel and got all gussied up for dinner and we took a taxi to Tavern on the Green in Central Park.
Aside from seeing Hugh, this is my favorite memory of the trip. We had a perfect table by the wall of glass, and we watched the sun set and all the lights start to twinkle.
Erin's NYC Birthday Extravaganza has been such a treat! After enjoying a long leisurely meal, we went outside and watched couples dancing in the courtyard under the glowing lights.
I'm so glad I purchased my fancy Tavern on the Green Christmas ornament from the gift shop when I was here with my friends last year. They didn't have anything like it in the shop this trip.
We walked from Central Park to The Lincoln Center. They were showing Spielberg's remake of West Side Story on the plaza. Which lends particular weight to the site, since the movie opens with a shot of rubble and a sign that reads, "This
property purchased by the New York Housing Authority for slum
clearance." The Lincoln Center stands today on the site of San Juan Hill, a community comprised mostly of minorities - including one of the largest black communities in New York before World War I. Falling victim to Robert Moses & Title 1, lower-income families were displaced to make room for middle class housing and The Lincoln Center. The post-WWII transformation of San Juan Hill neighborhood is an early example of urban gentrification.
I asked Erin to re-create this photo of Carigan from spring break 2018… C sat down on the steps of the Lincoln Center and refused to take
one more step. We’d been walking all week and girlfriend was DONE. We laugh about this memory all the time. We had to kick Tate out of the stroller and put him on Michael's shoulders so I could stroll Carigan back to the hotel. Erin was equally adorably exhausted, so we sent her and Mom back in a cab while Dad and I opted to walk it back down 5th Avenue to our hotel. Around Columbus Circle, past The Plaza Hotel and St. Patrick's... all the way back to our home sweet Manhattan home at 150 E. 50th Street. I'm so thankful for a daddy who creates such special memories with us!
