Back in early February when I learned that the Clan Frankenoid had a fantastic opportunity for a week-long visit New York City, I posted a diary asking for kossack input on what a family should do in the Big City: Rubes Come To New York.
Thanks to your input, we had a wonderful time. We went places I never would have known to look for which were mightily pleasing to Da Boys.
And while we were in the same neighborhood as the YMCA (and what a wonderful old building), we had better digs.
Follow over the fold for my report on What We Did On Spring Break — including meet up pictures.
Instead of the Y, we used my boss's apartment in the Ghostbusters' Building on Central Park West. It was a great location for us — near a subway stop, on the edge of Central Park, with a bus stop right in front of the building.
The building itself is a fantastic piece of Deco architecture, even if the Bossman's apartment was on the funky side. According to the Bossman's wife, the last major renovation was done in the 1970s by the then-owner: a pornographer. This is their second apartment in the building. They had done major renovations to their first apartment, but got an extremely generous offer for it by someone who bought the unit next door, so they sold it and bought a unit downstairs. They haven't renovated the "new" unit, and it has the weirdest bathrooms I ever saw in a private dwelling. Two of the three were only a couple of feet wide; the third had a bathtub, so it was a little wider. The Mister busied himself by finding a tool kit and tightening loose hinges in the kitchen, and unsticking the sticky front door. He declared that he could make a fortune as a handy-man in Manhattan, and it's likely that he could. However, we'd also spend a fortune to live there.
We looked really hard, but we didn't find any of the legendarily rude New Yorkers. The doormen in the building were extremely helpful — as were strangers on the street or subway who were more than happy to point us in the right direction. It was very weird for me — here in Denver, I always know which way is which — the mountains are to the West! I never did get straight on which direction was north while in New York. In any event, perhaps the City needs to hire some actors or something to play Surly New Yorkers — I was looking forward to encountering rude assholes, and couldn't find a single one.
Another thing I didn't see were cats — not a single pootie, feral or domesticated. There were, however, dogs everywhere. We thought it might be amusing to import a few of our Colorado coyotes to Central Park to keep things exciting for all the dogs and their owners — or perhaps a skunk or two. Even more surprising, we didn't see any rats — not even on trash day, which was another weird experience. All those piles and piles of carefully separated recyclables, along with dishwashers, furniture, kitchenware and tons of other perfectly useable goods. I guess they don't hold yard sales in Manhattan.
We were a little early to see Central Park in bloom: a few varieties of daffodils opened while we were there, but that was about the extent of it. Well, there were the shrubs that the Tavern on the Green had tortured into topiaries, and the trees which it had wrapped in thousands of lights — definitely not my style of gardening. I would have liked to have spent more time touring the Park, but didn't have the time. I did, however, insist that we find the Dakota, and even made Da Boys pose for a picture at Strawberry Fields. We did that on Thursday — our next-to-the-last day in New York on the way to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Oh, man, I could have spent the whole week in that museum. Instead, it was (for me), a truncated visit. Let's put it this way: the menfolk were not as fascinated by the collection of musical instruments as I was, and I eventually succumbed to the complaints of tired feet and accompanying glum faces. Sigh... if I ever visit New York again, I think I'll just leave the males at home.
The majority of the trip was spent doing things that were of interest to Da Boys. The first day was the American Museum of Natural History. The second day was a trip to Union Square to find a few of those places all ya'll suggested: Forbidden Planet, Strand Books, and Max Brenner's. I think Elder Son would have liked to go to Max Brenner's every day — but he only had one shot at it. On Monday we went down to Rockefeller Center to find the Nintendo World Store, poked around a little, and then went to see a movie on Monday night (The Watchmen in IMAX).
Tuesday we followed another kossack tip and went to the TKTS booth at the South Street Seaport and got tickets to the Wednesday matinee of _Guys and Dolls_. We also wandered around a bit and looked at the old buildings, then did a round trip on the Staten Island Ferry to see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island (another place I'd love to take a closer look at — but not this time). On the way back to the apartment we did a detour to visit Katz's Deli. And yes, it is possible for a teenage boy to eat an entire Katz's pastrami sandwich all by himself. I would have loved to have gotten a Katz's t-shirt for myself, but Younger Son was wearing down, and it was important to get him back to the apartment to decompress so he didn't lose it (as a side note, we got through the entire week without an autism-generated meltdown; I was so proud of him!).
Wednesday was Times Square and Guys and Dolls — and that evening I took off to spend a few hours on a meet up with some New York Kossacks. I didn't get as many pictures as I would have liked — and some of those I did take didn't turn out. The good news is that I'm only missing one name of the few people I did get pictures of. This is Blue Jersey Mom — a garden-blogging regular whom I was most anxious to meet.
Next we have Christin — unfortunately she didn't bring any of her bunnies with her. That might have made up for my much-missed pooties.
On the right is javelina — however, I missed the name of the kossack on the right. Can anyone help me?
And last is the woman who, along with plf515 (of whom I did not get a decent picture) managed to herd the kossacks together to meet with me: sidnora. Thank you all for arranging it. Also in attendance were jimdotz and his wife; the lovely lurker Laura; and... and... damn, I knew I should have taken notes!
As noted above, Thursday was spent walking across Central Park and visiting the Metropolitan Museum. On Friday Da Boys had to decide on what last thing they wanted to do and their choice was: China Town and Little Italy. And it was here that Elder Son was unable to find a comparison to Denver. He had declared that Time Square was just Denver's 16th Street Mall on crack — but the hustlers and pitchmen we encountered were like nothing he'd ever seen.
All through the trip the Mister was fascinated by the public transportation system — it was, in truth, a busman's holiday for him. The Mister is a mechanic for Denver's light rail, and he chatted up every Metro employee he encountered (and made me try and take pictures of the inside of the subway cars... it did not work well as it's impossible to hold a camera steady while one is being shaken by a moving subway car).
Saturday morning we were up bright and early to finish setting the Bossman's apartment to rights, then were off over the 59th Street Bridge (the last thing I just had to see, bless Paul Simon's heart) to La Guardia. We must have had really good plane karma: both coming and going, our planes were on time and there were no long lines for security.
We had a great time in the Big Apple — great enough that I might, someday, be convinced to travel there again. And I really hate to travel. Thanks to all of you who helped make our trip so enjoyable.