Santa is coming to town...

Monday started with a business appointment at NYC & Co, which took longer than we expected. Being in the area, we checked out Midtown afterwards, with Times Square - with all its hustling and buzzing, it's legendary neon signs and screens and all its tourists.





At Rockefeller Center the famous Xmas tree was not yet decorated, but its ice rink in operation. Another rink is in Bryant Park - see pic -, surrounded by one of several Christmas markets in town, and, there is Christmas decoration along 5th Ave.(see pic)and in many other places.

In the early afternoon we attended the „Radio City Christmas Spectacular“ in the Radio City Music Hall (part of Rockefeller Center), which is one of New York's old Christmas legends. The Rockettes, a famous dance group, consists of about 80 dancers in total and is renowned for their „high kicks“ and for their very precise choreographies. More than 30 dancers are on stage at the same time and it's amazing how unisono and accurately they perform their formations, sometimes in heavy costumes. Four to five shows take place every day between 20th November and beginning of January, about 200 shows in total!

During this fascinating, fast and colorful 90 minute-show several scenes take place with very elaborate costumes and set decorations, from „Here Come Santa Claus“, with ice scaters, teddy bears and dozens of Santa Clauses, to „Santa Flies to NYC“ including video projection in 3 D-format, from the Nutcracker Suite to Snowflakes with GPS-controlled snowballs moving on the theater's ceiling. Highlights of the show are (from the very beginning in 1933) the superb „Parade of the Wooden Soldiers“ - with a slow-motion fall scene (see pic) and a nativity scene (crèche) with real camels and sheep.


Radio City Music Hall is a richly decorated and perfectly renovated art-déco theater with a famous hydraulic stage and a Wurlitzer organ. The Christmas show was first shown here in 1933, but the dance group was already founded in 1925 in St. Louis/MO. Wearing our (sort of silly) red Santa's hats during the show, we were in the right Christmas mood when it ended, and, what would have ended a great day better than another wonderful meal? This time it was a Mexican restaurant - Hecho en Dumbo, in the Bowery - where we enjoyed a very generous dinner with our friends Magdalena and Michael, creatively prepared authentic mexican food in a colorful, pleasant atmosphere.

Next day it rained and it was cold and our Turnstile Wall Street food cart tour became a bit of a challenge. In this weather we were the only ones taking part and got plenty to eat at different types of food vendors, little carts, larger carts and food trucks along the streets and on the boardwalks. Ate our way through falafel, pizza, chicken, tacos and halal food, standing in the rain and wind, and learned a lot about different permits and regulations, laws and rules for these food vendors on NYC's streets, which sell much more than just the well-known hotdogs, bagels or pretzels. Later, we passed by at Federal Hall and checked out the new SeaGlass Carousel at The Battery (see pic), the Southern tip of Manhattan, where a lot of construction and landscaping is going on right now.


Wednesday: rain again, but warmer. Planned to get on top of One World Observatory, but postponed it because of "Zero Visibility". Checked out Little Italy (really "little"), Manhattans shrinking Chinatown and a couple other neighborhoods, went to the Essex Street Market (one of many markets in town, but one of the more "down-to-earth", authentic ones) before we met Susan, founder of "Enthusiastic Gourmet Tours" and had lunch with her (mexican, again) to catch up with news in the restaurant business and in the ethnic neighborhoods. After all, this was our day of meeting friends. After some more walking in the rain, we met our Philadelphia friends in Bryant Park before we headed out for the famous hockey derby Rangers : Islanders in the Barclays Center. At the end we had a 14-hour-day until we got back "home" to Harlem.