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New York, Day 2, Part 1

Remember: we’re doing a two-day tour of Manhattan over the course of four days on the blog. The first part of Day One was yesterday, and is found in the previous post. This is, as the title indicates, the first part of Day Two. Day One’s finale is tomorrow, and we’ll wrap up Day Two on Friday. Clear?

Every time we’re in Manhattan we stop to visit St. Patrick’s. Beautiful church. I tried to do a pan-around photo with a free app I downloaded, but I’m still trying to figure it out. I thought I’d nailed it, when looking in the phone, but on the monitor it was full of flaws. So here you go. Also, search around and you’ll find plenty of other mentions of this beautiful church elsewhere on this site.

We also hit The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which we visited only briefly. Just about the time I found the sections I’d like to see it was time to go. Next time, perhaps. Meanwhile, men in armor:

We walked by here at lunch time. I didn’t have the heart to tell all these New Yorkers that chickens don’t really chirp all that much.

Yesterday we checked off an item from Wendy’s list, which was to get a hot dog from a street vendor. Our friend who is from Brooklyn, says street vendors are for tourists. We needed to go here:

And I love everything about the place. I had the depression special, two dogs and a drink for under five bucks. I had the papaya juice, because that’s the name of the place and also because we had a little communication mix up. I was looking for the condiments and he wanted a drink order. But, as a general rule, you can always order the thing similar to the name of a restaurant.

Get the onions on the hot dog. Definitely.

We visited St. Thomas in Manhattan for a service that marks the Eve of the Ascension. St. Thomas is beautiful. And — perhaps an audiophile can discuss this at length — I believe there is such a thing as a perfect acoustic. If St. Thomas doesn’t have it you’d be hard-pressed to find somewhere with a better sound. This is a clip of a small men’s choir singing Bach. There were maybe a dozen men, but they filled their sound filled the entire church.

The picture was taken with the iPhone, the audio was recorded on the sly with a free app called Recorder. This was the first time I’d ever been in a church wearing shorts.

The Yankee got in trouble, though. She got caught trying to record a little of the singing and a priest pointed at her. Very sternly.

The second part of Day One will be here tomorrow. The rest of Day Two, including another museum, a moment of drama and more.

adventures / friends / iPhone / memories / photo / site / Tuesday / video — 1 Comment
31
May 11

New York, Day 1, Part 1

So here’s the plan. We’re spending two days in New York City, so I’m breaking this up for the site. This post is about today, the first day. Tomorrow’s will, obviously, be about tomorrow.

While we’re spending Tuesday and Wednesday in New York City, I’m rationing out the rest of the pictures and details to get the site to the weekend. Everybody got that? Can someone explain it to me?

The sign at the train station. The Yankee’s dad dropped us off. We were running behind, but not so much as other people, apparently.

We made it into the city with no trouble. Got off at Grand Central, showed Wendy around the station, remember, she’s never been to New York. We walk outside and … these are the first four pictures I took of her and sent home to her mother. The top picture is the first thing she saw in Manhattan. Go figure.

If you’re curious, I created that little image with a handy little free app called Diptic. I enjoy it very much.

Anyway, one of the things Wendy had on her list was to see the Statue of Liberty, of course. So we hopped a bus and walked up to the Circle Line to take the tour.

This was my fourth trip in front of the statue, now, and each time I (still) have this little feeling of surprise at the thought of being there. There are a lot of places and things in the world that I admire from afar without having ever seriously considered the opportunity to see, but here’s one, and here we are.

The Yankee takes a picture. I bought those rings from Wendy’s father. Small world, gemologically speaking.

Some nice stranger took this picture for us. We gave them great shots in return. Do you ever wonder if those people wonder about you? How is that guy that took my photo just after the first of the year? But I digress.

From the East River, the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building in one picture. Also, a lot of other buildings thrown in for scale.

Still looks a little odd at the World Trade Center, but there’s a distinct change taking place here. The new construction is slated to be open in time for the 10th anniversary later this year — 10 years, difficult to believe. The first time I took the Circle Line (five years ago!) the guide spoke at great length, and with poignant eloquence, about September 11th and the loss and the first responders and about St. Peter’s, a local church with pews now scarred where those rescuers took breaks from their horrible task. Today the guide talks about what is coming to the site, and what has been gained in that part of the city and that was nice to hear.

She’s breaking the law.

And there was a lot more to the day. You’ll see more pictures of it on Thursday. (Tomorrow will be about tomorrow, naturally.) We caught one of the new trains out and headed back to Connecticut for the evening. The new trains are nice. They’ll feel out-dated before the end of the year, but still better than the brown on brown aesthetic of the old trains.

Here’s a brief interview I conducted with Wendy on the small town girl’s first day in the big city.

adventures / family / friends / iPhone / Monday / photo — Comments Off
30
May 11

Happy Memorial Day

Many of the men and women in my family have bravely fought for this country of ours, but we’ve been lucky enough that they’ve all come home. A few were wounded in action, but in so far as I know, they all made it back home dating back at least to World War II.

I remember once, as a child, when my great-grandmother told me that I had uncles who fought in the Civil War. This was big news, impressed as I was at that age by the Civil War. My mother rightfully pointed out that lots of people had family members in that particular war. But my great-grandmother might have watched the Battle of Bull Run as an onlooker. (To a little kid she was very, very old.)

So, while I can’t say today I’m thinking of friends or family members who’ve paid with their lives, I thought often of my trip to Gettysburg with friends a few years back on a very warm Memorial Day. (Here’s a slideshow I made of the day.) Everyone that is able should make that trip at least once.

Today we caught the train from Boston, which required a cab, Dunkin Donuts and then a quick ride in the quiet car to southwestern Connecticut. At the train station yet another person asked Wendy for help with directions or details. I’m making her a sign that says “I’m new here.”

On the way you see this, in New London:

Sign

This is the Bank Street Roadhouse, according to Flickr, which yields to reviews on Trip Advisor and Yelp that the place is so, so, with average this, average that and attractive bartenders. A picture of the front of the place I found makes it look far more reputable.

The Yankee’s dad picked us up at the train station. We headed home and then out for Pepe’s pizza. Ordinarily I don’t take, let alone publish pictures of food, but Pepe’s is the stuff angels eat:

Pepe

Seven of us were there, we made short work of three pies.

Hope you’ve had a lovely Memorial Day, and I hope you’ll check out my slideshow.

Tomorrow: New York City!

friends / history / iPhone / photo / weekend — Comments Off
29
May 11

Conference Day

Not much here today as we spent most of the day in sessions or business meetings or various other exciting aspects of summer academia. The Yankee had two presentations, the one of which I saw was, naturally, awesome. I had to present in one session. The topic has some interest to it and we received some nice conversation over the work. That study is going places.

So, pretty much the full day was spent in one hotel meeting room or another. Here’s the view from our room:

That is World Trade Center East, with an inlet from the Boston Harbor behind it. You can see a lot of sailboats from there. Sixteen floors, eight elevators and completed in 2000. The architects are a firm that have built hospitals and campus buildings across a great swath of the country. One of their buildings, in fact, is a library at UAB, where The Yankee and I did our master’s degrees. Small world, huh?

We got out of the conference just in time to see the sun go down over the city’s skyline.

We walked from the hotel to the T, and then rode out to the aquarium where we met Wendy — we’d left her all alone and she didn’t get lost all day in her travels — for dinner at Legal’s. We must go here every visit, The Yankee insists. Pretty good stuff. We sat on the patio, listening to the horns of ferries and other ships as they came in for the evening.

Wendy had her first ever taste of New England clam chowder and proclaimed it delicious. Later, two people drove by and asked her for directions. This only happens to Wendy. As soon as she opens her mouth, though, the southern accent pours forth and the lost people realize their error. They’ll be getting no directional help. For the rest of the night we offered fake directions.

“Just go down yonder into the holler. Keep on that road a piece. Turn left by the old Miller barn and drive on that gravel road a spell. You’ll get to it directly.”

This sculpture is near our hotel, and is an unsettling image to walk past, even without context. It is the heads bowed and the horse’s neck stretched in defiance, or mourning, depending on how you feel at the moment. Even more so is the second horse, which is holding a different posture. Just to see the thing takes a little getting used to.

Andrzej Pitynski’s sculpture was on display at the popular Boston Common for years, but people didn’t like looking at it there, apparently. Freedom is fine to celebrate in Boston if it is the American Revolution, but don’t bother us with those Polish partisan fighters who battled the Nazis and the communists during World War II. Is that the problem? I’m clearly not up-to-date on the apparently heated opinions of this sculpture, but these folks are.

Here’s a piece on Pitynski, detailing his work, his inspiration, his family ties to the characters he sculpted and the world during the time of this project. Poland, where this was intended to go, was not that welcoming of such an homage in 1980, so this work somehow found its way to Boston. It got moved around a bit and finally put in storage for a few years. It has been by the World Trade Center since 2006.

Tomorrow: we catch a train for Connecticut.

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28
May 11

Wendy invades Boston

Our friend Wendy has flown up to join us in New England. She’s from small town south Alabama. The largest place she’s ever lived has less than 250,000 people. She drives hours out of her way to avoid Atlanta. She’s never been to a northern city.

That, in fact, was the first time she’d ever seen a subway.

She got in today and we showed her around town. This is my third time in Boston, so I’m practically a member of the Chamber of Commerce. We took her over to Faneuil Hall. She saw the street dancers, who promised to leap over these four volunteers:

They were great. We had burgers for lunch at a place where the premise was that the staff insults you. This must be the place to which career waiters aspire. I don’t get the appeal, but the sandwich was good and our server wasn’t that bad. They made fun of Wendy, though.

We walked around, through some of the ancient churches of Boston I’ve written about here before. We took the DUKW tour. Tried to do this a few years back, but the airline hosed us and the Duck people were unaccommodating. I’m bitter, but The Yankee wanted to take the tour and offered to pay. I can hold a grudge over principle and lack of customer service, but she made me relent.

That’s our ride. Says the site:

Teresa is named after the Liberty Tree, which was the famous elm tree that stood near the Boston Common. The Liberty Tree was one of the places the “Sons of Liberty”, would gather to protest British rule. On Occasion they would hang lanterns on its branches to symbolize unity. The Liberty Tree was so despised by the British loyalists that they cut it down in 1775. That only enraged the colonists even more. To show their support for the revolution, people started hanging flags with a picture of the tree.

It is a reproduction DUKW, though the company does apparently still have a few original World War II amphibious trucks still in their fleet. One of those is below.

Our guide was good. Loves his town, great with the kids and big on trivia. I would have preferred more history — Boston has tons and tons, of course — but it was a beautiful day and a fine time was had by all.

This is in the Charles River Basin:

In the distance you can see the Harvard Bridge. Our guide told us the story of how the MIT kids didn’t like the bridge leading to their campus being named after their cross-town rivals. At one point in the mid-20th century one fraternity made their pledges measure the bridge using their smallest member as the unit of measurement. The bridge, then, is precisely 364.4 Smoots and one ear long.

Our guide told us that a few years back Smoot came back to MIT for a reunion and took a Duck Tour. They asked him why he was laid down head-to-toe spanning the length of the bridge instead of measuring him and using a rope or something like that.

“MIT students, wicked smaht right? Engineers. He said ‘It just didn’t occur to us,'” our guide said.

He also told the story of when the mayor of Boston bailed out the Rolling Stones.

This is supposedly one of the remaining authentic DUKW’s. Soldiers piled into this thing and stormed beaches. She has a significantly more comfortable life these days.

We had dinner in Little Italy at a place called Giacomo’s. The reviews on Urban Spoon aren’t great. Seems people find the service lacking. The lady that waited on our table was entirely forgettable, but the food came quickly and tasted fine. I chalked it up to the difference in Italian and American dining culture.

So we finished dinner, found a gelato, caught the T back to the hotel and started working on tomorrow’s presentations. Tomorrow, also, Wendy will begin her assault on Beantown.