Monday, December 7, 2009

Recon of the New Neighborhood

It was with mixed feelings that we rode the subway and boarded the train for New York City this morning. We had a great week in DC, we loved the location of our apartment - across the street from the subway and a Safeway, 5 minutes from our doorstep to the National Mall, able to see the Washington, Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials from our balcony. We had been enjoying the laid back pace in DC and wondered if we would be able to relax as much in New York with the events we had scheduled, we wondered if the people would be as friendly, we wondered if the apartment would be okay.

Pennsylvania Station was a bit overwhelming after the relatively calm and orderly DC subway system. After a few false starts we found our way to the street and grabbed a cab to the apartment. Cabs are dirt cheap in New York compared to many cities and a credit card swipe right in the passenger compartment makes it easy.

We're very happy with the apartment - right in the middle of the action, you walk out the door and look left and all the lights leading to Times Square are right there.

We are right over the Ed Sullivan Theater - the lighter colored building on the left, 5th floor, the window that is lit up is our apartment. Yes, it is a bit noisy as they work the live audience into a frenzy on the sidewalk below before bringing them in for the Late Show taping.

We grabbed a bite to eat at Cosi before checking out the area around the apartment.

All I brought with me tonight was a point-and-shoot camera tucked in a pocket so there is a good chance I'll be posting similar photos taken with the "big boy" camera on another night. We spent about three hours exploring the neighborhood, Rockefeller Plaza is about two blocks away, Times Square is around two blocks away, and all the street are lined with great little shops that we ducked into if they looked interesting.

We have tickets for Wicked at the Gershwin Theater on Wednesday - the theater is a five minute walk from the apartment.




This was The Pond at Bryant Park - the skating rink was surrounded by all these little unique shops - one shop, for example, carried nothing but metal sculptures of Star Wars characters, from tiny Darth Vaders to full sized R2D2 and 3CPO robots.
Radio City Music Hall is right by Rockefeller Plaza.

This is taken in Rockefeller Plaza - it looks like I forgot to upload a picture of the Christmas Tree, so I'll post that separately.


On the way back to the apartment we stopped at a grocery store and stocked up on essentials for the week. This is the entrance to the apartment - when the cab dropped us off from the bus station, he had to park across the street because of the limos lined up in front delivering guests for the Late Show - crazy, crazy city but a lot of fun so far!

2 comments:

Gigi said...

Love, love, love NYC! You will have a blast! We have never stayed in an apt., though--will have to check that out next time.

Suzassippi said...

Oh, this made me miss NYC! My eyes were glued to the photos and it just made me want to be there right now. Once Gigi and I stayed in a hotel off Times Square that was like a maze of hall ways and tiny little rooms!