Author: lauramchugh

Today was our last full day in New York. We had checked off everything on our list, so all that was left to do was just get out and enjoy the sights.

First thing this morning, while Claire slept in, I went to the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum at 91st and 5th Avenue. This museum is in the former Andrew Carnegie Mansion, so it was a treat just to see inside the building which has rich dark wood paneling and a wide staircase (10′) to the second floor.

The exhibits I wanted to see were Fashioning Felt and Nature Conservancy’s Design for a Living World.

Fashioning Felt was a display of felted wool in a variety of fashion and industrial applications, including this yurt:

A unique dress:

And a grey flannel women’s suit:

The other exhibit, the Design for a Living World, sponsored artists such as Maya Lin (architect/designer of the Vietnam Wall in DC), Isaac Mizrahi (fashion designer) and Christien Meindertsma (textile artist from the Netherlands) were dispatched to work with people in various parts of the world and explore how to use their materials in new designs. Isaac Mizrahi made a dress with pastilles (sequins) made from salmon skin leathers from Surrey British Columbia:
Christien works with a sheep ranchers in Idaho where she created a project to make wool carpet knit from the sheep wool raised on this farm. The carpet tiles, interlocked, are each about 3′ in diameter and were knit on needles three feet long and about six inches in diameter which is hard to see in this photo which looks just like a sweater until you realize this piece is 15 feet wide!

The museum is right along the east entrances to Central Park, at the Engineers Gate:

I saw this gate as I walked across the street to hail a cab. Did you know that there is no one single entrance to the park? During it’s construction in 1862, designers decided to make many entrances to the park based on different professions: artisans, hunters, engineers. Monuments with these names were installed in 1999 (NYTimes).

In the afternoon, we went to Herald Square to Macy’s – all 9 floors – and then sat in the outdoor mall area on Broadway and had NY hot dogs. While sitting there in the somewhat pleasant breeze, we noticed this billboard reading 89F. Tomorrow, we go back home, and it is supposed to be hotter and more humid.

We finished off the day with our last true NY pizza at Patsy’s Pizzeria on 23rd Street (yum!), and realized heading back to our place that I had forgotten the keys. We buzzed a random apartment and luckily were let into the building, but met by a man on the second floor wondering who he’d let in. Yikes. Scary.

Now, off to pack and clean, then some shut eye before heading to the airport tomorrow.

We rode all the way around Manhattan, never quite getting it right to get back to 23rd and 9th. We even tried taking a cross-town bus – nope! Then, we got back on the subway and I mis-read the signs and boom – we were on the Manhattan Bridge on our way to Brooklyn. Beautiful view of the Brooklyn Bridge again in the light this time. Remember, we are in the sauna every time we transfer all this time.

We get off at one station because a weird panhandler is asking for money to get back to Connecticut. He says this is awkward for us, but really embarrassing for him. That’s one take on it.

We got off at Herald Square/34th and were treated to some amazing tap dancing as we crossed platforms to transfer – I’ll post some video on that after Claire sends it to me from her cell phone.

Here’s a shot of our most visited subway station – West 4th – where we transfer from the line that serves our Chelsea neighborhood, to the trains that run up and down the east side of Manhattan:

Claire and an unknown person with the same shoes as her:

My favorite photo of the day. Unknown subway passenger leaving the station:

We walked along 5th Avenue, toward downtown, and enjoyed the periphery of the park, then headed across 96th Avenue to find the subway. Along 96th were three girls waiting outside and playing with their Barbie dolls.

I asked if I could take their photo, and they wanted to know why I wanted one. They weren’t too happy with me, so this photo is cropped to focus on their dolls.

From there we took the subway to Grand Central Station, because I wanted Claire to see this beautiful landmark that reminds me of Gare du Nord in Paris. She agreed.

Always busy:
Claire in front of the schedule board for the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR):
Visitors fail to understand the concept:

Low (and weird) point of the day: taking the sub over to 33rd and 9th to go to B&H Photo, only to find that they 1) close at 2 pm on Fridays (WTF?) and aren’t open at all on Saturdays (WTF squared). Next trip.

I think all those years of watching Friends and Seinfeld, and then Friends and Seinfeld re-runs (clap-clap-clap-clap) wore off on Claire. The activity she chose for today was to get some lunch fixin’s and head to Central Park for a little bit of blanket time.

I could tell it was hot before we even got out, so I was dragging my feet a bit. We started with a stop at a local deli so that we could get some sandwiches and drinks, then went down into the sauna, also known as the New York Subway. To be fair, only the platforms are hot – it feels they are around 10-15F warmer than the outdoor temperature, which was 89F today.

Inside the cars, it is a beautiful cool oasis of liquid loveliness flowing over your face and shoulders and almost feeling like your legs will stick to the seats like your tongue to a pole in the winter. We took the subway uptown to the 106th Avenue stop and got out a few blocks into Harlem. That felt a little unsafe and I think we were walking in the wrong direction, so we hailed a Yellow Cab, but instead a black Olds pulled up. Claire was right that we probably shouldn’t have taken it, but it all turned out okay and he took us right to the park entrance near the Flower Conservatory.

We ate on some benches under a huge wisteria that unfortunately was not in bloom. Down past the benches is a fountain and a big lawn, where a couple were having their wedding photos taken.

Here are some flowers from the park:

Our activities today took us up to Central Park for a picnic, then all over the place on the subway and a bus, and back to our place in Chelsea.