New York Day 2

New York – The City Day 2
Saturday 2nd July 2011

The Marriott Marquis hotel is situated between 42nd and 43rd Streets just off Times Square in the middle of Manhattan New York. Times Square is one of the busiest places on the planet with people and vehicles rushing about 24 hours a day. Up in our room on the 22nd floor however all was peace and quiet as we woke up to our second day in the big city. The room was air conditioned like on the ship but the air conditioning was much quieter and with the room being so large you could hardly tell it was functioning. Despite it being the first night in a strange bed we both had a really good sleep and were ready for anything that the city could show us.
Bath travel had organised a free coach tour of the city for the morning so we decided to have our breakfast in the hotel and went down to Starbucks on the 4th floor. I had a coffee and biscuit and tried a piece of Joan’s bagel. When we joined the coach at the front of the hotel we were one of the last to board. Either the rest were early birds or they could not sleep for some reason.
If you imagine Manhattan as the face of a clock and our hotel as the middle the coach went towards nine o’clock then clockwise around the face until returning to our hotel. Our first stop was at Central Park for a look at Strawberry Fields and the John Lennon memorial. In actual fact we parked opposite the apartment block where Lennon was shot beneath the gas lamps then walked into the park and around the landscaped area that is Strawberry Fields. We had an official New York tour guide with us who was very friendly and knowledgeable although the only thing I remember about him was that he was a birdwatcher in his spare time and spent most of it looking at birds in Central Park. Apparently Central Park is a well-known stopping off point for migratory birds and during the winter as many as a hundred different species can be seen at any one visit.
Our next point of call was down Broadway at Trump Tower. This is perhaps one of the finest examples of modern opulence as you would ever see even though we could only visit the ground floor and basement. The toilets in the basement had walls lined with orange marble, mirrors and brass fittings that made it look like an Aladdin’s cave. Next door to Trump Tower is Tiffany’s famous for scenes in the film Breakfast at Tiffany’s. After taking a photo of Joan looking in the window we went inside and had a look at the jewellery. Although members of the public are only allowed on the ground floor, buyers are invited to go up in the security controlled elevator; the items on display are still quite spectacular. We were allowed to take a photo of the yellow diamond that Katherine Hepburn wore in the film.
The coach then took us down through Little Italy and China Town to the southern tip of Manhattan and Ground Zero. On the way we passed by the church which acted as a base for the rescuers and stopped at the newly built Winter gardens to view the construction site. The Winter Gardens is an impressive sight in itself. It is like a large glass enclosed amphitheatre where you enter by the arena and walk up to look through windows at the top of the seating. On the way fully grown palm trees have been planted and the glass entry overlooks the southern shoreline of Manhattan. The view of the building site which is ground zero is not really impressive but it is the memories that it invokes that make it worthwhile. We also had time to walk down to the shore and it was from there that I had my first real sight of the Statue of Liberty although it was some distance away.
Our journey then took us back up the west side of Manhattan to our hotel dropping people off on the way. There was a great deal of traffic at this time for some reason and we were about twenty minutes late arriving back at the hotel
We then went out looking for lunch. During our coach trip someone recommended a place called ‘Edisons’ as a reasonable place to eat which was just round the corner from our hotel so we went there. In an effort to avoid a large meal we decided to have a sweet and something to drink so I had a baked apple and Joan had a Cheesecake. We found the place to be ordinary by New York standards reminiscent of any café in the north east of England. Afterwards we walked up to 51st street and found the Italian restaurant that we had booked for the evening so we would know how to find it later. On our way back to the hotel we called in to a drug store for a couple of books and some biscuits in case we had time in our room.
During our coach trip we had learned that our planned tour for the Sunday had been cancelled due to lack of demand. This threw all our plans into ruin and we had to reorganise our itinerary. We decided to book a meal at the revolving restaurant on top of the hotel as this was due to be part of the original tour and we also booked a round- the- island boat trip for 10am on Sunday morning. Booking anything in New York is a piece of cake particularly in Times Square. There is a dedicated New York tour booking office and there is a theatre booking office built in to the seating ramp in Times Square. Ticket sellers from all the shows walk round the square advertising and selling cheap last minute tickets. It all adds to the atmosphere right up to the theatre opening both in the afternoon and evening.
Our evening meal was one we originally booked on the ship over the Atlantic at an Italian restaurant called ‘Vice Versa’ and we left the hotel in good time to get there by foot. This was really the first time we noticed that the weather was becoming very warm. The temperature never fell below 30degrees centigrade the whole time we were there and the day we left had reached over 43degrees which is over a hundred degrees Fahrenheit. We were therefore glad to get inside the air conditioned restaurant. The restaurant itself had only a narrow façade at the front but opened out inside and had an outside patio at the back which only became used as people came in later in the evening.
I had salad starter and duck pasta for the main meal but we shared a tiramisu for sweet. The food was good and we particularly enjoyed the tiramisu. The whole experience was very enjoyable and Joan was quite surprised to find one of the waiters had a brother living in Sunderland. We walked back to the hotel along a very busy and hot Broadway. It was good to get back into the air conditioned room for a well-earned night’s sleep.