nyc: day two.

 

I forgot to post this shot of our wonderful, skinny hotel, The Jewel. We slept in ’til 8:00 on our first full day in the city, then set out to find breakfast on the walk to Bryant Park.

We stopped in a great little place, Gotan, on 46th Street: David ordered a breakfast biscuit, and I got avocado toast. It makes me laugh that avocado toast is so trendy right now. People in Columbia are talking about it, restaurants are serving it (if you get a chance to stop by the stand at Soda City Market, theirs is delicious). And it was listed on every hip cafe menu in NY.

David and I have jumped right on the bandwagon and eat it at home for breakfast most mornings, but of course avocado toast tastes way better in a restaurant, when someone else makes it for you.

 

Bryant Park.

 

We walked to Bryant Park, and stopped across the street at Blue Bottle coffee. We both ordered a hot drip coffee, but literally everyone in line was ordering a “New Orleans” iced coffee. So I determined to go back and try one later.

We’d packed our Bibles and journals and enjoyed sitting in the cool of the morning for an hour. It’s such a pretty area, a peaceful, green haven in the city.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The New York Public Library.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The NY Public Library borders Bryant Park, and we walked through it while waiting for a museum to open. Both of us wished we had time to just sit in that magisterial hall with a book for a couple of hours.

Doesn’t it look like an inspiring place to study?

I recently finished a historical fiction series about the women and children of Jamestown colony, and the author did some of her research here, in this library. I felt jealous.

 

 

 

 

 

The Morgan Library & Museum.

 

Here’s another highlight of our trip.

Our friend Jessica told us about this hidden gem, and we decided to go based on her recommendation alone … really knowing nothing about it.

Well, lo and behold, this museum was the private library of the financial tycoon, J.P. Morgan (1837-1913), who went by his middle name, Pierpont. He’d purchased this row of brownstones, and added a library to keep his private collection of books, letters, art, and historical artifacts. He left it all to his son, who turned this building into a museum.

 

 

Pierpont Morgan was a huge lover of history. He collected original manuscripts, shelves of Bibles including the Gutenberg edition, artifacts from Babylon, Sumer, and more, and was president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He actually passed away in Italy, during at attempted excavation trek in Africa.

I enjoyed looking him up on Wikipedia when we got home and learned that his home on Madison Avenue was the first private residence to use electric lighting in New York!

There was an entire room of letters and handwriting samples from dozens of famous people. John Adams, Queen Victoria, Albert Einstein, all the way to the Beatles.

We highly recommend this museum for your quick trip to New York. Of course I love the Met and there are other great art museums that I wish I could’ve visited. But we had about two hours to spend, which was plenty.

 

 

 

 

We walked back in the direction of our hotel around lunch-time, stopping for a bite to eat on the go.

I really do not have a good traveler’s stomach, which is sad because I love to travel.

Being on antibiotics for 16 months living in India did not help matters at all. So yes, I navigated all the cheap ethnic we consumed food by taking probiotics and popping Pepto-Bismal like candy. David stopped for a lunch of street mango slices, but I opted for a “superfood smoothie” at Dr. Smood, and my stomach was grateful.

 

 

 

Here’s something funny: David and I raced back to the hotel, changed, got all ready to see Hamilton at 2:00, walked to our theater on Broadway, and when we got there realized we’d shown up a day early!

I almost had a heart attack imagining us showing up a day late instead.

Well, at least we knew exactly where to go on Wednesday.

We walked several blocks back to the hotel to regroup (now you see how we managed to walk 10 miles a day). We were able to call the 911 Museum to change our tickets, and decided to head there via Koreatown.

But first!

A draft latte at La Colombe.

 

 

 

La Colombe is a chain of coffee shops, and a friend introduced David to their draft lattes in Philadelphia. I can’t drink coffee of any kind in the afternoon, so I had just a taste of David’s and it truly was delicious: cold, light, foamy.

My cup of hot tea was also perfection. I find it hard to get through the afternoon without a cuppa, and every coffee shop we found also served tea.

 

Koreatown.

 

 

 

We love Bi Bim Bop, so used reviews to find a great spot before our trip. I’m just now realizing that I’m talking about food and coffee a lot in these posts, but so be it.

That’s how we like to travel: a whole lot of walking and exploring, punctuated by great food and drinks. Very often, apparently.

The food in this little cafe was fresh and delicious.

Next, we took the Subway to the 911 Museum.

 

911 Memorial Museum.

 

This was something several people told us is a must-see in NYC. We were thankful to be given the tip to order tickets online early, because it fills up fast.

Tuesday afternoons is free admission, so we were able to get in before the big crowds. We were also glad not to have to wait in the long line for free admission, but I love that they allow people in who may not otherwise be able to afford it.

David and visited New York with our friend Josh in January, 2002.  We stood at Ground Zero, which was a massive gated-off area of rubble and construction. David went in one of the towers as a child, but I could hardly imagine two gigantic structures filling that space.

 

 

 

We decided to go inside first, then walk around the outside Memorial park.

 

 

Honestly, we didn’t get many pictures inside the museum. It was a somber, emotional experience, as you can imagine. Each of the blue papers hanging on the wall represents a person whose life was lost in the attack.

We saw remnants of the foundation, original fire trucks and police vehicles that reached the site first, and other objects. We saw two short films describing the events of September 11, including one with interviews with George Bush, Rudy Giuliani, and Condoleezza Rice.

The museum was larger than I expected, and the exhibits were so tastefully designed. I was very impressed with the way it told stories and honored the victims and those who gave their lives to help. But those sound bites and news headlines just bring back memories of that terrible day.

The hardest part for me was a darkened room with a large screen in the center of the museum. You sit and see brief bio’s of each of the victims, and hear a recording of a family member or loved one’s voice describing them. I just sat and cried.

The museum is a beautiful tribute both to those who lost their lives, and to the city of New York, which banded together to rebuild after this devastating loss.

The plaza is large, with pools marking each of the towers. We enjoyed walking around, seeing the architecture and art. There was even a little farmer’s market set up at one end.

 

The 911 Memorial Plaza.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Brooklyn Bridge.

 

By this point we realized how close we were to the Brooklyn Bridge, which was on David’s list of things to see on our trip, after reading The Great Bridge, by David McCullough.

We were worn out from walking, but decided to set out across it and find some dinner in Brooklyn.

 

 

 

 

So, who knew that the bridge is actually over a mile long? Not me.

I am not a heights person, and definitely not a bridge person. My hands were clammy the whole way across. You see that white line in the center? I did not swerve to the left or the right of it. I think people found me very annoying.

But I’m glad we did it. The view of the city, and the Statue of Liberty at sunset was stunning.

We hadn’t really planned the next part, and I think we expected to step off the bridge into a lovely Brooklyn neighborhood, but that’s not where you land at all. It’s more of a commercial area. So we looked up food options on Yelp, with David making promises to me that we’d take an Uber back to our hotel.

We ended up finding Dekalb Market nearby, and it was fun! Apparently upscale food courts are the new thing. The food was delicious and at least we saw a slice of Brooklyn.

David promised the subway station was actually “right here,” so we wouldn’t need to take an Uber after all. One thing I’ve learned about New York, is that subway stations are rarely “right here.”

An hour later, we were back at the hotel and crashed. Day Two was complete!