New York, the Rest of the Weekend

Get ready. Here comes a bonanza of New York pics. Basically, everything that doesn’t involve Ground Zero.

We stayed at the Omni on 5th Avenue. We started our Saturday with a nice walk down 5th.

We came across St Patrick’s Cathedral. It is entirely under renovations. Inside and out.

We did not go to Radio City this time, but I always feel the need to acknowledge it.

I’m sure there is a logical reason for big tanks of Nitrogen to be out on the street. I’m sure of it.

A bunch of the stores on 5th had Christmas window displays. I want to say that this is Sacks, but I’m not sure. I’m not even sure I spelled Sacks correctly.

We visited the Rockefeller Center tree on Sunday, but not on Saturday. This was taken as we passed by, from across the street.

Down the street from the Empire State Building. We didn’t go there either. It’s not the tallest building in the city anymore.

5th Ave, babie.

Modern Art, or geometry homework? You be the judge.

The obligatory subway adventure. Get ready for blurry train pics.

Told you.

My love. My wife. She who had the ridiculously irresponsible idea to visit the city. Good thinking, love!

We happened upon a movie shoot. Or at least some trucks and a caterer.

I took many, many pictures of random buildings.

I love finding the normal looking buildings hidden behind the gigantic sky scrapers. Look at this little two story runt.

A razor, a shaving brush, and a stand to hang them off of… $300. I love New York. (no, we didn’t buy it. My beard (or the ugly crap that passes for it) ain’t worth that much)

On this corner is located a place that needs to be saved for future reference. Last time we were in New York we stayed across the street from a restaurant that had a Sunday brunch. On Sunday we went there without realizing that their Sunday brunch was $100 a plate. Oh my stars it was worth it though. The bacon… oh the bacon.

The Christmas lights looked more impressive at night, but what are you going to do, right?

Concrete next to glass and steel. Old next to new.

After lunch we went back to the hotel for a while. When we went out again it was dark out.

That cop came up on us while we were crossing the street. We were in the way so a bus couldn’t pull through the red light to let the cop by. Sorry about that, officer.

This is on Park Avenue. Jen thought it was the Helmsley Building.

The Christmas lights really are much better at night.

Because we booked the hotel at the absolute last second, we were able to snag a massive discount on a fantastic room on the top floor of the Omni hotel. Granted, it wasn’t the suite on the top floor of the Omni hotel. This plaque is on the wall outside of said suite.

On Sunday morning we went for another walk. This time we wanted to go to the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree.

There were three Christmas light cats. At least we only saw three. The third one is coming later on.

Back at the tree.

This trip was our Christmas present to each other. Merry Christmas, Jen. I love you so much!

We didn’t go up to The Rock’s observation floor. It was freezing out on the ground. It would have been much worse a billion feet in the air.

And we finish with the third Christmas light cat. I hope you enjoyed my pointless pics from our Christmasy weekend get away to New York.

Winter Commutes

We got some snow in the Boston area yesterday. Just a dusting really. Not enough to mobilize the snow removal forces for most cites and towns. That means yesterday’s snow turned into this morning’s ice. The drive in was a touch on the slow side (44 miles in 86 minutes) but it could have been worse.

The evening commute, however, is going to be worse. We have more snow in the forecast. It’s another dusting, but it’s coming this afternoon. Just in time for the evening commute.

I want to warn Eastern Massachusetts that they had best stay the hell out of my way. My step daughter has a school event tonight and I am going to get there on time and I don’t care how bloody the path behind me gets in the process.

Pull over, I’ve got a Christmas show to see!

World Trade Center

The one site in New York that Jen and I both wanted to see this weekend was the World Trade Center site. My first thought was to see the new building. Jen’s first thought was the memorial. I didn’t think we’d be able to get tickets to get into the memorial but it was easy and they were free. Prepare to be bombarded with pictures from the site of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The new building is officially known as 1 World Trade Center, but unofficially known as the Freedom Tower. It is now the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere. Counting the height of the antenna on top, it is 1,776 feet tall. It’s not quite finished, but it is freakin’ gigantic.

I thought the construction elevator was cool for some reason. At this point I had my zoom lens on and I couldn’t get the entire building into one shot. I’ll fix that later.

You can see the one little section that still doesn’t have the glass outer wall.

1 World Trade Center won’t be the last building built. This is a construction site next door. I have no idea what this is.

The pictures so far were all taken in front of St Paul’s chapel. I’ll let the building describe the importance of the building.

During the chaos that was 9/11/01, we all heard about the church that stood right next to the twin towers and how it magically survived the collapses. This is that church.

Forgive me for getting a little off topic, but I love old cemeteries, and I love old cemeteries inside of modern cities, and I especially love seeing places in New York where the pre-skyscraper age sits next to the modern super skyscrapers. This is pretty much the perfect spot.

My favorite skyscrapers are glass skyscrapers, because you can get pics like this.

After we picked up our memorial tickets I was able to switch to the wider lens. Now you’ll get a little better idea of the size of the Freedom Tower. It’s a huge sucker.

I promise the street lights were not meant to be part of the shot. They just slipped passed my eyes.

I was a little disappointed that the line into the 9/11 memorial had to include a sign that said no guns or knives or weapons. That was one of those losing-faith-in-humanity moments.

The memorials speak for themselves. This was the site of the South tower.

This is the one tree that stood in the World Trade Center grounds on 9/11/01 that survived. It’s been moved a couple of times since then, but now it’s back where it belongs.

I told Jen that I hope someday this site becomes just another park where people go with their families. Humanity has a long, long way to go before we get there though.

The next few are from the North Tower memorial.

With the exception of all of the pictures that have my wife in them, this is my favorite of the weekend.

This is back at the South Tower again.

I am very thankful that we had the opportunity to see the 9/11 memorial, as well as the new building. They are both absolutely worth a visit.

Deer in the Snow

We woke up to a little snow this morning. When I looked out the window there were three deer. In the snow. Just hanging out and being cool. I went for my camera, but it was on the other side of the house. Crap. I got it and went back to the bedroom. The deer were still there. The wrong lens was on. Crap. I swapped lenses. The deer were still there. I had to open the window. Last time they heard it and were spooked. Crap. I opened the window. The deer were still there.

At this point I put the camera away, went back out to the dining room table, and punched into work. About 20 minutes later it dawned on me that I wasn’t wearing my glasses. I went back to the bedroom to get them. I looked out the window and immediately saw two of the deer standing pretty close to where they are in these pics. I didn’t see the third one right away, but suddenly she came out of nowhere, running at a fast (but probably not pedal to the metal) clip past the other two and out of sight. That was cool.

New Window, Same Cat

We had to move Patches’ scratching post when we put up the Christmas tree. She still has a window to stare out of though.

Backlog

I’ve got all these pictures from our weekend in New York to sort through and post. I was thinking I’d get something out tonight, maybe.

Then I look out the bed room window into the lightly falling snow and see three deer just hanging out in the trees. Now I have two photo posts to make!

My cup runneth over, or something.