Friday, October 19, 2018

Walking in New York.


One of the things about New York that I missed the most while I was down South was walking.  And I did a lot of it since I've returned to the city.
I took my camera with me on a couple of walks that I did over the past few days.
Pardon the schmutz on the lens in some of the pictures.  That's all on the inner lenses and has to be cleaned at the shop; another trade off for a cheap functioning digital camera that I've had now for almost 10 years.  It also doesn't do very well in the dark.  Despite that, I got a few good night time shots below.

All these are my photos and are freely available.



Walking Home at Night Across the Williamsburg Bridge 
October 13, 2018.


The Delancey Street entrance to the pedestrian and bike path across the bridge.


Downtown Brooklyn from the bridge.


Looking north from the bridge to the Queensborough Bridge.








The Empire State Building and Midtown from the bridge.




A light on the bridge amid the cables and girders.




The Manhattan tower of the Williamsburg Bridge.



The moon over Brooklyn.




A view back across the bridge from the Brooklyn side.




The Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges.



The Financial District in Manhattan; the bright area on the left is traffic on the FDR Drive.




The World Trade Center



A building on the Brooklyn side of the bridge.  I'm not sure what it is or was.




The J train rushes past to Brooklyn.



After the train passes, a beautiful view of Midtown Manhattan.



The old Williamsburg Savings Bank from 1876, now a posh nightclub.



A locust tree at night on Driggs street in Brooklyn



Morning glories blooming at night.



Anubis in a junk store window.



The BQE, almost home.



Walking Through Downtown with 
Andreas and Andrea Hellgermann.



Ms. Liberty and Staten Island



The new World Trade Center from the Manhattan ventilation tower of the Holland Tunnel. 


Weiben Wang, Andrea and Andreas Hellgermann visiting from Münster in Germany.  I tour-guided both of their sons in previous years, and now I get to give the parents a tour.  We are standing on a walkway going out to the Manhattan side ventilation tower of the Holland Tunnel.



Contemplating Michael Arad's memorial on the site of the South Tower of the old WTC.



The great glass and steel obelisk of the new 1 World Trade Center.



The west entrance to the new Calatrava designed train station; more a very high end shopping mall than a functioning train hub for the subways and PATH trains.



It may be a $4 billion boondoggle, but it is spectacular.  This was my first visit inside the thing.



















The Hellgermanns contemplate the grandeur.



A downright Baroque staircase on the east end.



Weiben, Andreas, and Andrea standing on polished marble floors.







A familiar building seen through the skylight.






Coming out the east end.






Weiben calls it a giant dinosaur skeleton.



The east entrance to Saint Paul's Chapel



Inside the chapel.   All the old September 11th stuff is gone.  The place is clean and polished.  The old Easter egg colors are now gone as are the old pews including the traditional President's pew.







The oldest surviving painting of the Great Seal of the United States, hanging about where the Presidential pew once stood.



Pulpit and altar



The organ



The very Protestant altar.



A memorial to the Chapel's most famous regular parishoner.



The tomb of General Richard Montgomery who tried and failed to take Quebec during the Revolutionary War on the east portico of the Chapel behind the altar.



The Municipal Building and the top of the Federal Courthouse from Park Row.



The Fuller Building, the last of the newspaper palaces that once lined Park Row.



The Woolworth Building.



The Brooklyn Bridge crowded with tourists from end to end on a Sunday evening.







The old Brooklyn docks at sunset from the bridge.



The Financial District.







Midtown



Looking back up the East River to the Manhattan Bridge with a huge new building locally known as "The Cheese Grater."






And Finally, the View Back Toward Manhattan from the 
Burnside Avenue Station on the Subway 
Where I Get Off to Go to Work.  
October 19, 2018




Manhattan looks more and more like the back of a porcupine these days with all the slender new buildings going up.  The big one on the left is 432 Park Avenue locally known as "The Cigarette."
It is the tallest residential building in the world and officially the second tallest building in town.  Unofficially, it's the tallest.  It sits on higher ground than the WTC, and if you get rid of the broadcasting mast on 1 WTC, then this would definitely be the tallest building in the city.  You can see 1 WTC just to the right of the Empire State Building and behind Rockefeller Center.  To the right of that are the 4 new slender towers going up along 57th Street.  The biggest one to the right is the new Nordstrom Tower which may top out 432 Park Avenue when it is finished.  I have a lot to say about these buildings, but I'll save it for a future post.



The Woodlawn bound 4 train coming into the station.



EXTRA:


Visiting Rockefeller Center with Jan Hellgermann Last Year.


And here he is, on Top of the Rock in 2017.



 Looking north and east to 432 Park Avenue, "The Cigarette."



 Probably the best view of the Empire State Building.



 The Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island



 The Williamsburg Bridge and Brooklyn with the Atlantic beyond.






 Brooklyn out toward Prospect Park, Coney Island, and the Atlantic with Sandy Hook, NJ in the far distance on the right.


 Midtown below 30 Rock.



 A splendid view of Manhattan downtown.



 The very top of Rockefeller Center







 Raymond Hood's masterpiece, and centerpiece of Rockefeller Center, 30 Rock.







 Jan contemplates Jose Maria Sert's murals on the walls and ceiling of the entrance lobby to 30 Rock. 
Diego Rivera's lost mural was on this wall.




 Paintings on the ceiling by Jose Maria Sert.












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