Last day in NYC

Last day in NYC - we packed our luggage in the morning, then went for a neighborhood walk before having a nice, delicious breakfast/brunch with our landlord. What better end of a interesting week in NYC could you wish?

On our walk through Sugarhill/Hamilton Heights, we not only discovered an unusual church, a cemetery with a „Jewish gate“ (photo far below), fantastic architecture (it’s a historic neighborhood!), murals (part of the Audobon mural project) and the Bailey House, built from 1886 to 1888 and designed for circus impresario James A. Bailey of the Barnum & Bailey Circus. 

Bailey House

Cemetery

Community Garden (one of many!)

Congragational Church

Shortly after noon we left our apartment and walked over to the subway station, which is fortunately only 5 min away (if there just wouldn’t be so many flights of stairs,,,) and took the train A to Penn Station. Didn’t take us long. From there, on to EWR, Newarks Liberty Airport by a „real“ train through New Jersey, and with the Airtrain to our Terminal. Luggage drop and security went fast and we had plenty of time at the gate (to work), before we boarded and took off on time, around 5:15 pm local time.

Same as on our last flights to and from the U.S. this B767-300 was completely full, fortunately with a 2-3-2 configuration and us sitting on EcoPlus seats. 7:40 hours flight time. Service was rather negligent - seems like nowadays they clearly favor Business/Premium Plus passengers and forget about their cattle class guests. Food and beverages ,,, as usual,,, unacceptable ,,,

Flight over New Jersey

Plane over Manhattan

Know what I am sincerely wondering about: How can people sleep - packed like sardines - from the very beginning on? Do they take sleeping pills? On the flight back, at least at this time of the year, it’s night outside most of the time, and it’s an overnight flight, but even on the flight over to the U.S., during the day, the plane is darkened all the time and most people sleep. They arrive in the evening, and, probably, continue sleeping? In the old days, we’ve been told not to sleep on the way west, to facilitate time change. Anybody able to explain this phenomenon?

Arrived to MUC in the meantime, couple of minutes earlier as scheduled, and, surprise: even our luggage arrived in the course of 20 minutes (unusual for MUC!). Now waiting for our pick-up, who is stuck in traffic on the autobahn.

Contrasts ,,,

Tuesday morning, we left the house in the morning without even wearing a sweater: sunny and hot. Took the train over the Harlem River to the Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, just a stone's throw away from Harlem. 

Walked over to a new development along the banks of the Harlem River, called Bronx Point, afterwards. One of the new buildings here in the South Bronx is the new home of the Bronx Universal Hip Hop Museum (below), which is supposed to open in 2025. The Bronx is considered the birthplace of Hip Hop in 1973 with DJ Kool Herc. Around the future museum they built a nice park closeby the Harlem River (photo far below).

 

 

Back to Manhattan and up to the northern tip of the island (train trips cost time!), into another "world". The Cloisters (left) - the medieval branch of The Metropolitan Museum - is surrounded by the beautiful Fort Tryon Park and offers excellent views of the East River, New Jersey and Upstate New York from its terraces. Trees looked beautiful, changing colors now. This unique museum specializes in European medieval art and architecture, shown in the architectural settings of French monasteries and abbeys. They were acquired by American sculptor and art dealer George G. Barnard in France before 1913, moved to New York and later bought for the museum by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. 

 

 

The walk to the "historic" Subway station 190th Street through Fort Tryon Park (photo left and above) was beautiful, especially in this weather! Change of scene again then, in  Midtown, around Columbus Circle/5th Ave, one of the main shopping arteries of the city and always busy with traffic. Rockefeller Center and Top of the Rock, Radio City Music Hall, Carnegie Hall, St. Patrick's Cathedral - all is located in this neighborhood, which is always very crowded and packed with tourists.

New attraction on The Top of the Rock: The Beam

In the evening we met friends to check out a new Indian Restaurant in the East Village, ISQH, and, had a wonderful meal on our last evening.

A hotchpotch of neighborhoods and sights

Up to 80 deg F (27 deg C) today - just my kind of weather! We had a couple of neighborhoods and sights on our today's list to check out and started in the vicinity, in Harlem, on 125th Street. Gentrification is still continuing, empty old mom&pop shops, new big brand-stores, still some street vendors (photo below), and, the Apollo got a new "sister", the Victoria Theatre. The new Studio Museum (below) is about to be finished.

Metro North train station in Harlem

Next stop: Upper East Side, that's where the old money is located, and, that's where in the past a big German community settled, Oscar Maria Graf among them. Schaller & Weber (butcher/deli store - photo!) and the Heidelberg Restaurants are relicts of these times. 

Dogwalkers in the UES

It's a good life in the UES!

Roosevelt Island - haven't been there for a long time and it is a real top attraction, very interesting, green and peaceful with great views! Took the "aerial tram" (a "Seilbahn" - see photo) over to this island in the East River, which was during much of the 19th and 20th centuries,  used by hospitals and prisons, and, called "Welfare Island". In 1973 it was renamed after former U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and some residential buildings came up in so-called Northtown. Southtown was developed in the early 21st century, along with the Cornell Tech University's Campus. 

 

Manhattan skyline

Ferry and Long Island City (Queens) skyline

Famous Pepsi Sign in Queens

UN Building (Manhattan)

Skyline Manhattan including Chrysler Building

Besides beautiful views towards Manhattan and Queens (Pepsi sign/Long Island City - above), Cornell Tech nowadays shows one of the probably most interesting architecture complexes in town (right photo). Buildings were planned by famous architects such as Skidmore Owings & Merrill (master plan), Morphosis, Weiss/Manfredi, Snøhetta or Handel Architects. There is a promenade around the island, several interesting garden sections, and, the Four Freedoms Park at the south tip(photo below), which is refering to F.D. Roosevelt's vision for a world founded on four essential human freedoms: freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear).  

 

On our way back, we didn't take the highly frequented aerial tram (instagramers?) but we took the subway from the island to Manhattan. In the Washington Square Park neighborhood (with NYU), we checked out a new Japanese Udon Noodle place, Sanuki Udon. More of a take-away and "elevated fastfood" with noodle soups, rice dishes and tempura. Very delicious food!

High Line next - walked almost the whole trail following a historic freight rail line elevated above the streets on Manhattan's West Side - still one of the best innovations in NYC since its opening in 2009! It ends at Hudson Yards, the "new skyline of NYC" with spectacular architecture, cultural offerings and artwork like the "Sphere". There is this new connector to the new Moynihan Train Hall (train station in the post office, adjacent to Penn Station (Amtrak and Long Island Railroad) and from there we took a train to Columbia University in Uptown.

 

View from the High Line

We would have needed new photos of this prestigious Ivy League University, but, because of protests going on (pro-Palestine), all entrances were closed to the general public. Well, we chose the City College in Harlem as a substitute (left photo) and stopped by at Hamilton Grange, the country home of Alexander Hamilton  and his wife, built in 1802. Hamilton was an American military officer, statesman, and he served as the first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury under George Washington's presidency. 

It has become dark in the meantime and we walked (,,, and walked, and walked,,,) over to a little bottle shop and beer pub in 145th Street to "cool down" (it's been hot all day!). Made the last blocks to our apartment on 149th Street and broke the 20 km (13 mi) today: 21 km!