Celebratin'
Day 2 of the Best of ’09 Challenge. Today’s post and photograph – the Best Restaurant Moment.
We were eating at the Shake Shack in New York City, located just across the street from Central Park. We were all dressed in our best, and on our way to the Lincoln Center to attend my older daughter’s graduation from Brooklyn Law School. She had wanted to stop at one of her favorite places for lunch before the hours-long ceremony. It was a sunny day in early June and summer held forth promises of delight and beauty for the next three months. We were all in high spirits.
After we had our fill of fries, burgers and shakes, we strolled through a crowded Central Park on our walk to the Lincoln Center. The graduation ceremony went on without further ado, J took the Bar Review and studied for most of the summer, then took and passed the Bar in New York and New Jersey. Today she attends the first of her two swearing in ceremonies.
All good stuff, and to think — all that celebrating started with a few golden fries and the best burger in town.
A Green Space in Manhattan
Bryant Park is located on the same block as the New York Public Library in Manhattan. It has a lot of diversity for its size, sporting several cafes and eating spots, a football field-sized lawn where weekly movies are shown during the summer, sculptures of famous New Yorkers, a carousel, and hundreds of chairs, tables, and benches for sitting and relaxing.
reflections of a summer's day
I walked to the New York Public Library, one of 150 buildings on the favorites list of the American Institute of Architects, but it is undergoing extensive renovation and was cloaked in plastic and canvas. Not able to see except for the pair of lion statues at the massive front entrance.
So I wandered around Bryant Park and finally found a rocking chair–yes, a rocker, solid wood, comfy, on a patio in the park–where I spent an hour or two observing all the activity, writing in my journal, and dozing a bit. As I was leaving the park, I photographed this city and cloud reflection on the building on 42nd Street and 6th Avenue — the merging of city and nature.
According to an informational sign in the park on the architecture on the square, this is the Home Box Office Building designed in 1985 by Kohn Pedersen Fox.
Walking the Sidewalks of New York
I had big plans when I decided to go to New York City. See the museums. See a Broadway show. Visit a few restaurants. I did go to a museum, The Guggenheim, to see the Frank Lloyd Wright exhibit commemorating the 50th anniversary of the museum and celebrating the many works of Wright. We squeezed in more restaurant stops than originally planned. We happened to be visiting the city during Restaurant Week, and participating restaurants offered a three course dinner for $35.00, a fraction of the regular price. One night we splurged (calorie-wise) on sushi, cold lobster and chocolate, a second night the menu included tamales wrapped in plantain leaves, tequila-marinated steak and caramel flan. We nixed the theatre. Tickets to a couple of the shows I’d considered – Billy Elliott, Blithe Spirit, or The 39 Steps – were way too expensive to rationalize. So while my husband attended a conference, I spent the better part of each of the five days we were there strolling the streets with my camera.
I photographed a few of the more famous buildings – architectural standards like the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building, newer gems like Time-Warner Center and Hearst Tower, and buildings adjoining Central Park – the Guggenheim, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Dakota Apartments. I walked past a few of the classic hotels, (The Regis, Waldorf-Astoria, The Plaza) and ornate cathedrals (St. Patrick and St. John the Divine) and I even studied the lines of the glass Apple Store on 5th Avenue. Lots of photo opportunities. And as usual, it will take me a while to get everything sorted and a few posted.
But most especially I enjoyed wandering the neighborhoods, seeing older brick apartments, the brownstones, the tiny shops only a doorway or so wide. The above photo is of a brick and stone building on Columbus Avenue that caught my eye. I like how the windows on the different floors all present a different style – flower pots, blinds, shutters. And even the lamp post surrounded by the blown background intrigued me.
Now if only the hours of walking each day had balanced the offerings from the restaurants, all would have been quite splendid, indeed. Wishful thinking on my part, that.
Walking 9th Avenue
Not only walking 9th Avenue, 42nd Street, but also the length of Central Park, up and down Times Square, and past way too many upscale stores on Fifth Avenue where I would be embarrassed to be seen looking at a blouse whose purchase price could clothe a family for a year. Not that I would be encouraged to even take a step into any of these stores.
I am not a big city girl, but I love NYC – in small doses. And a nearly paid-for trip to the Big Apple as the companion of a conference-attendee was too good to pass up. Especially since I was able to squeeze in a visit to eldest child who took two hours from her crazed Bar-studying-marathon to eat dinner with mom. (The highlight of my cross-country trip!)
Not to say New York does not have its fascinations. The architecture is jaw-dropping, the museums are more than mind-boggling, and Central Park is always a welcome respite. And I want to know how many of you know that a cow lives in Central Park. Yes, really! And she even appears to be a big attraction with the pre-school set.
Now I’m on my way to a trip to the Guggenheim where they are honoring one of my favorite guys, Mr. Frank Lloyd Wright. I’m sure there will be more photographs to follow.
in Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Cloisters, located in upper Manhattan, is part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It is devoted to the medieval arts and has nearly five thousand pieces of art dating from the 12th to the 15th centuries.
If you saw the film, ‘Naked City,’ you saw this historic bridge – the Williamsburg Bridge in New York City. Even when the bridge worked overtime as the locale for a movie shoot, it still continued to carry 100,000 cars and 90,000 subway riders across the East River every weekday.
The movie depicted the murder of a pretty, but thieving young model, and then detailed the efforts of the cops to sniff out her killers. Eventually they unraveled the case, culminating with a chase sequence across this bridge from Manhattan’s Lower East Side into Brooklyn.
Photographed from the East River, tour boat circumnavigating Manhattan.
July 5, 2006