Day 4 NYC--Tenament Museum

Today we went to the Tenament Museum. This is where most of the immigrants first lived. Many of the apartments have been renovated back to what they would have looked like in the day the immigrants were living there. You could choose a tour to take and it was a guided tour. Unfortunately no pictures were allowed inside the museum. It is amazing the squallor that these people lived in, with trash, dead animals, and waste dumped in the streets.

The apartments were minute. They were build long and skinny...with a window in the parlor, then a door to the kitchen which led to the door to the bedroom. The bedroom barely had room for a double bed and hardly any room to move around in there. There were sometimes 10 people living in one apartment. There were 12 of use in their little kitchen and there was absolutely no room to move. Later on in the years of tenament living, there were windows placed inside the house between the parlor and kitchen to let the light into the kitchen and this is the way it was when we were in the apartment. Even with this window and a VERY small lamp in the outside hallway, it was dark dark dark in the kitchen.
I really loved learning about this part of our history. This is a part of NYC I will visit again, and take a different tour. The tour we took was the Irish tour.

Then we headed down the street to Little Italy, but on the way we came across a Fire Station. It was a beautiful building and painted and decorated beautifully. There were 6 or 7 plaques posted outside of firemen lost, and five of them were September 11 losses. As I was taking pictures of these plaques, Ladder 55 came down the street back from their dispatch. 9/11 still leaves me feeling a little mad, but when I see firemen, anywhere really, but especially here in New York City, a feeling of awe and wonder comes over me. These are the men that went up into the towers as thousands upon thousands of people were coming down. It leaves me speechless and pretty close to tears. I wonder if I could have done the same thing if it had been me expected to go up to do my job?

As the engine came down the street, they stopped and let out several firemen. These men made sure it was safe for the fire truck to back into the station. If I had been my brother Josh, I would have gone up and shook this man's hand and said thank you. I wish I had done it.

It's amazing how many people you see taking pictures of the fire trucks here. There were at least two others taking pictures of this truck as it came back to the station. There was one time as we were standing in line downtown that several fire trucks went by. A man behind us, a man from another country based on their speech, kept running out to the street to take pictures as the trucks drove by. I didn't do that, and I even thought to myself, my goodness, what a tourist! But when we witnessed this truck, I couldn't do anything EXCEPT take the pictures and wish I was brave enough to thank them for their bravery
So anyway, we ended up finally in Little Italy. We at at La Mela, which was mediocre food. Neither of us cared for it.

After we got back to our hotel that day we were hot and tired and thought a drink would be nice. Most of NYC is a little more than here in Junction, sometimes just a few dollars, sometimes more than that. BUT this was nuts...we sat down at the Blue Bar, our hotel bar, and the waiter told me that the Blueberry lemonade was good. We thought, oooh, that sounds refreshing. After it was delivered and I was drinking it, Jery looked in the menu...that drink was $18 flippin' dollars! Okay, so Jery and I tend to spend too much money when we take trips, but I can guarantee you that I would have NOT ordered that drink if I had paid any attention to how much! Insane! This was the most expensive thing we got in NYC I think, for what we got!!!

That night we went to see Hairspray, The Musical. It was soooo totally awesome! I loved EVERY second of it. Being the doofus that I am, I even teared up at the end. It just amazes me that people can get up there and act and sing and do such an amazing job. I just know they are feeling so good at the end when it all goes off without a hitch...I just couldn't do anything but clap and cry!!! I didn't tell Jery I cried, not that he would have done anything except understand. But crying in Hairspray....come on now!!!

We had to leave the next morning. We were ready to be home. It was a fabulous trip. We missed our kids terribly, but really enjoyed our time together too.

Day 3 NYC--Yankee Game

And here is the reason we came to NYC this time. Jery wanted to see Yankee stadium before it's torn down. The game was good, although because of a Camcorder mix-up he didn't get to see the Memorial Garden like he wanted. It had the statues and memoriabia of Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, and whoever else played for the Yankees. It really is amazing they're tearing it down, because there really is a lot of history. When you think of great baseball players, you'll probably think of at least one of the ones that played here! My personal favorite is Roger Maris...did you see *61? Great show. This is a photo taken quickly as we were delivered to the front of the stadium by a taxi driver. $25 for this trip. Jery had brought the camcorder with him, and GUESS WHAT? You can't take it in. BUT they had a place across the street to check things that weren't allowed in. I don't know what we were thinking, you can't take video cameras in to any professional game. We knew that. Just weren't thinking. So we checked the camera.

Here we are, in the stadium. We couldn't get into the Memorial Garden because it WAS JAM PACKED in the hallways leading to the garden, and you couldn't get in! When you are inside the halls of the stadium, you can see why it's going to be torn down. Well, maybe not, they should use it for small time games or something. BUT it was so claustrophobic. And hot. Jery was about to pass out down there. So we came out to sit in our seats and wait for the game.

Yep, $8.50 for a bottle of beer. Of course, since it cost that, we thought, nah, we don't want one at that price! HA! We bought several!!!! insane, I know!

Some famous players, I think one is Alex Rodriquez.

These guys were doing the rake the yard thing and when the YMCA came on, they all stopped at a certain point and did the dance. it was cute.
So now the game is over. We thought we'd go ahead and just get a taxi back to the hotel and not fight the crowds. But they were charging double our original price. $50 to get home. No way (we'd only spend that on beer!) :) So we got our camcorder out of checking, and decided to catch the subway. The subway system is pretty amazing. After the first time riding it, it's easy!
As we waited, I took pictures and Jery sat on the bench. When the subway came in, we got on. When we got to our stop, we realized we didn't have the camcorder. We think Jery left it sitting on the bench. The saddest part was that we hadn't copied off all of the video from our last trip with the kids to Atlanta and Minneapolis. So we were pretty bummed. If we'd just paid the $50 for a taxi, we would still have our $450 camcorder!!!!!
Although we were both pretty bummed, I was happy it wasn't me that lost it. That is just the kind of thing that I do these days, lose things and forget things. Jery is human afterall!

NYC Day 3

Day three took us uptown...Central park, Harlem, etc.
I don't know what this building is...just more fancy *ss apartments for the rich and famous...
Central Park though was amazing. I loved it. All these cool places to take pictures! But this first picture is taken as we drove by the park cuz now we're in Harlem!
This guy brought up COLD water for $1.00 in downtown Harlem.
The Apollo theater where many black entertainers performed.

Now we're really in Central park. This was the walk up to the castle. The castle was originally designed to be worn down and decayed looking. It was in the plan of the two people who planned the park. So I guess they left off the doors and windows. They've since been put on probably because during the 70s and 80s the place became a place to hang out and sell drugs.
This is the Turtle Pond that you see from the castle balcony. Not sure why it's so slimy and green. Kinda gross though!
The castle as it look before restoration.
The castle today...
The view from the castle balcony.

Okay, don't know who this was, but they sure were filming him...so I decided I should have picture. Maybe he's famous and I don't know it??? I'm guessing that it has something to do with pants, because they kept filming him from his face down his left leg to his foot.
Me posing in front of a walkway in the park. Don't I look like a doofus. I rarely have my picture taken and I never know how to stand. And then it takes Jery soooooo long to actually snap the picture that I become more and more uncomfortable looking. But I wanted to have some pictoral documentation that I was actually IN New York with Jery so I asked him periodically to take my picture: doofus looking or not. Plus, it's painfully obvious that I need to lose a few pounds!
I love these pictures of us in the Rambles...little pathways through the park. You'd never know you're in the middle of a HUGE city here...except that you can still hear some car noises!
Jery resting his leg.
Another cool little spot.

Jery and a big rock...Jery is in green! Hee hee!
The boat house is where we finally ended up. We were hungry and hot and thought we'd grab a bit in the restaurant...
this is the view I got when I walked in to inquire about eating. Of course, we didn't have a reservation and so they were booked until midafternoon.
So we sat in the little bar outside and had a drink, and looked at the place. The next time we go, we plan to spend at least a day at the park. We'll be taking our kids the next time and it'll be perfect. And then we'll eat here! We'll have reservations!!
Okay, after walking so much through the park and being hot and tired, and with Jery's leg hurting, we paid some kid to pedal us the rest of the way to our next bus tour bus stop.

Come back later for more... :)