Hello, Thursday, I’d like you to recall Tuesday. We’re going to add a few more pictures from Tuesday in this space today, and then some more, tomorrow, to round out Wednesday.
This idea didn’t make any more sense when I initially thought of it, either.
We are very high up on the Empire State Building, here:
We met an Auburn man there, too. We had four War Eagle Moments in Manhattan over the last two days, in fact. All four of those stories have been added to that photo blog.
It doesn’t look that high in the picture, but of course this was as high a place as you could stand in the man-made world. And, of course, that’s higher than you should ever hold your phone through the railing for a picture of a shadow.
I have taken this picture before, but the one below is better. I love this stuff:
Like this. That’s great faux-deco.
And the NBC microphone, at Rockefeller Center, took that picture five years ago, too.
St. Patrick’s Cathedral, from high atop Rockefeller Center:
We were able to walk behind the pulpit in St. Pat’s for the first time ever. They had a copy of Pieta there, and the others visiting revered it with a reverence that could only be considered reverence.
I have seen Pieta, at Rome. (The original was by Michelangelo, and it was the only piece he ever signed.) St. Pat’s Pieta is a fine sculpture, but on a scale of one-to-10 Pietas, this is four Pietas at best. According to Wikipedia, the authority of everything Michelangelo, the St. Pat’s version isn’t even an “authorized replica.” This version was built in 1906 by William Ordway Partridge, an American who studied in Florence, Rome and Paris (where he was born).
We learned about this building while on the Circle Line tour on Tuesday:
It was the first skyscraper on the island. Actually, our guide said, they originally called it a cloudscraper, all three stories of it, but they renamed it so people wouldn’t think poorly of the weather. Marketing has deep roots. Behind it, I believe, is the New York Bank Department.
OK, this one needs a bit of background. Our friend Kelly takes pictures of her feet to prove she’s been places. (Ask her why.) Every so often, then, we take pictures of places our feet have been. Here The Yankee shows Kelly the Statue of Liberty. I suppose my picture of her taking a picture is the “making of” photograph. Wendy also took a picture of The Yankee taking a picture of her foot. I took a picture of Wendy taking a picture, which means I also shot the “making of the documentary.”
This was all on the Staten Island Ferry, which we rode over from Manhattan and back for an extra, late evening view of the statue. We rode to Staten Island on the Molinari, who was a congressman and borough president. We rode back on the John F. Kennedy. We passed the S.I. Newhouse, which was named after the historic publisher. I worked for one of his companies for more than four years and walked past some of his offices in Times Square on Tuesday. No getting away from the man. He died in 1979, his son runs the family empire today, at the age of 83. He’s worth billions.
How quiet do you think it is out there?
More from our two days in New York tomorrow.
