Superstork 2017

Back East - New York City

We had this trip planned for quite a while for Lorri's big birthday celebration, not knowing that we would also be seeing our newly born great-granddaughter! We started in New York City. Lorri had never been there and my last visit was about 40 years ago. Then it was on to Philadelphia, my boyhood hometown, for cheesesteaks. Next up was some quality family time in Baltimore and Williamsburg.

This page is all NYC photos. Click the links above to skip to those pages.

Slightly disoriented upon emerging from the subway, we quickly found our hotel, the Times Square Hilton

This is the view looking down on 41st St from our room.

The room was surprisingly spacious and nice

Looking out our hotel room window

First order of business: food and drink!

Bangers, Mash and Guinness at Tír Na Nóg

Exploring Times Square

Lots of people and lots of lights

We were looking for Top of the Rock

But we ended up going to the bar at the Rainbow Room

This is the view from the 65th floor observation deck. It almost looks like we're looking down on the Empire State Building.

It's just the photo. We were looking up

We had our $20 glass of non-descript wine and moved on. 

Back through Times Square

Good night, Thursday Night.

On Friday we took the E Train to the end of the line at the World Trade Center stop

We had a reservation to visit the 9/11 Memorial Museum

It's an interesting piece of architecture with the majority of it underground

Did I mention we got a lot of rain that day?

The outdoor monument

Here we are

A photo of a photo from before the attack

Parts of the foundation

Another photo of a photo. It's hard to imagine these buildings collapsing.

I wonder who Virgil was referring to.

To the right is part of the original slurry wall which kept ground water (and the Hudson River) out of the building foundations. These did not fail when the buildings collapsed or major flooding would have been added to the catastrophe.

After the Museum we made our way through a major rainstorm to The Dead Rabbit Grocery and Grog.

We got soaked in the rain and spent a pleasant couple of hours drying up here. We also had an excellent chicken-filled pot pie....and maybe some Guinness.

There are bars and tables on three levels in an old quaint building.

Hey, if it was good enough for Papa, it's good enough for us!

Just next door to The Dead Rabbit is Fraunces, which has been around even longer!

Yes, George Washington drank here. Also, after the Revolutionary War, it housed the Departments of Treasury, War and Foreign Affairs. Perhaps we would be better off today if we could relocate a few Departments of our Federal Bureaucracy to local bars.

Strolling through the Financial District...

Speaking of GW!

Lots of history around here.

Wall Street?

Trinity Church

OK, here we are at "Suspenders", a bar owned by Billy Ahearn, an infamous uncle of Debbie's cousins.

A former NYC fireman, he and a couple buddies opened Suspenders (firemen wear suspenders) a few years back.

We found Billy and he treated us like long-lost friends after he figured out how we knew about him and his bar.

We were joined here by Debbie, who hitched a ride up from Baltimore with friends, and Jake, who took the subway in from his apartment in Brooklyn. I can't remember our friend's name but we had a blast talking with him and his buddy, Mitchell who has no first name.

So this is after about 8 rounds of drinks.

But then Billy had to sit us down and tell us all about Trinity Church and this view of it. Believe it or not, Trinity Church was the tallest building in the U.S. until 1869.

The building between this window and the Church had been there for over a hundred years. It was recently demolished to make way for a new high-rise, so this view, not seen for a hundred years, will be short-lived. 

Here we are in Grand Central!

What do you think this is? Grand Central Station? Yes.

So, I opened my first Bar and Restaurant right here in Manhattan.

Saturday. The weather cleared a little so I took more photos from our room. This is looking west toward the Hudson River.

The old-looking building in the foreground has a big sign "Yahoo!" on the top. It seemed sort of incongruous. I would think Yahoo! would be in a gleaming sky-scraper.

Lorri, Debbie and I had a very nice brunch here in Hell's Kitchen.

Afterward, we walked north along the river, heading eventually toward Central Park.

Here are Deb and Lorri walking.

Not quite sure what the significance of this is but we couldn't resist checking it out.

Biggest wine bottle I ever saw!

It looked to be all stainless steel

You could live in a wine bottle!

Or maybe float away in it, like a message in a bottle. Maybe that's the message.

Looking south along the river path.

We made it to Central Park and the Tavern on the Green, where we were to meet Jake.

...and there he is! We had a refreshment here and then went walking.

We found Strawberry Fields. It took forever. Not really.

Everyone was taking photos and selfies here. There is one of us on somebody else's phone.

The pond and the bridge

A green and watery oasis in the middle of a concrete jungle is what it is.

Hey, that guy wouldn't move!

Here we are at Belvedere Tower erected in 1869 as a lookout. It now houses...see below.

Belvedere Tower is not so towery.

So here we are waiting for the train to take us back to Times Square.

What is so funny?

Click here to see a video of the subway arriving

This is at the bar at a restaurant called "Marseille" at Ninth and 44th. We had a great time and great food there and had fun with Jimmy the bartender.

Sunday

We took the subway to the first stop in Brooklyn

We found our way to the surface and headed toward the Brooklyn Bridge.

Our plan was to walk back into Manhattan and up to Soho.

It was cold, windy, and damp, but we made the most of it.

Lorri was excited to see the Statue of Liberty, up close and personal.

Well, I guess it wasn't that close or that personal, but she saw it, right?

Looking at Lower Manhattan

There's the Lady of Liberty!

Popularized the phrase "Go West, young man!" I took his advice a few years ago, when I was young(er).

Breakfast!

That's one tall building!

Deb had to get back to Baltimore and Jake had to get back to Brooklyn, so Lorri and I were again on our own.

We were going to go for a walk on the High Line, a converted elevated train route, but we decided it was too cold, wet and windy, so we went back to our hotel room to re-group.

Jake pointed out earlier that we could see the Times Square New Years Eve ball from our hotel window. That's it.

This is from 41st St. looking up at our hotel. Our room was sort of right in the upper middle of this photo.

We liked Marseille so much that we went back for drinks Sunday evening.

Here is the birthday girl the day before her birthday.

Here is a selfie with me wearing my new cap from Soho.

That's Jimmy the bartender. He remembered our names and drinks.

Somehow it slipped out that it was Lorri's b-day and they brought this excellent crème brulée!

This is where we had a NY Pizza - John's near Times Square. It was pretty bad.

But we had fun.

Now it was our turn to take the Megabus! We took the subway to Hampton Yard and hopped on.

It was a nice ride and the price can't be beat. We're on our way, leaving NYC!

This is us on the Megabus on the way to Philadelphia. It wasn't very crowded, as you can see.