7/1/13 - NYC Orientation Tour Day 1

 

Huge day – huge day!

Today was blue skies as far as the eye could see so walked to the Rockefeller Centre to do the ‘Top of the Rock Experience’. As this is a popular place from which to photograph all of Manhattan and beyond, one is only allowed 15 mins at the viewing platforms. So we made the most of our time and snapped away happily before returning to the Rockefeller Centre foyer for the tour of the twenty six buildings that make up this complex.

 

The quality and magnitude of these buildings which includes the ‘Radio City Music Hall’ – home of the famed ‘Rockettes’ is amazing. And to think that it was all built during the Depression by the Rockefellers to ‘keep NY employed’ and the American economy afloat. The fittings and fixtures are still all original – brass and marble in most places and the lighting showcases the great workmanship of this time.

At the end of the tour we noticed that we had booked for the 1.00pm – 1.15pm viewing of the skyline so like all good Australian tourists we went up for a second time for free! By the time we came down the cranes had arrived to take down the Rockefeller Centre Christmas tree that fronts the famous ice skating rink. This tree was specially selected as it was 50 feet tall and 50 years old and was to celebrate the 50^th year that the Rockefellers had put up a tree for the people of NYC. She even survived hurricane Sandy and to many she became the mark of the resilience that New Yorkers have become famous for.

We then caught a bus to Times Square to collect the Grayline bus tour of NYC. We ended up purchasing a two day pass that would enable us to pick up all of the tours on offer in the city – the loops of south and north Manhattan and Brooklyn. As they provide a great orientation for newcomers we were keen to do all three.  

The tour south took in Times Square, Broadway, Macy’s, Madison Square Gardens, the Empire State Building, the flatiron building, Limelight Marketplace, Union Square, Ground Zero, Greenwich Village, Soho, Chinatown, Little Italy, Canal Street, City Hall, Brooklyn Bridge, One World Trade Centre (the official name for the Freedom Tower – good luck getting anyone to call it something else), Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, Battery Park, South Street Seaport (many of the buildings/businesses here are still closed as a result of the damage from Hurricane Sandy), the Lower East Side, East Village, the United Nations building, the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, the Rockefeller Centre, the Radio City Music Hall and Central Park. Needless to say our eyes were sore from taking in all of this or trying to catch the ‘money shot’ before we turned a corner. But at least we could feel our eyes – the rest of us was frozen as the temperature had hit -5 degrees as the sun set at 4.45pm. 

Now after seeing all of this you’d think we would have had enough but no - we then had a dinner at an ol’ English pub before setting off to the theatre to sing our way through the French Revolution with Hugh Jackman and the rest of the cast of Les Miserables.