Top of the Rock

Danny and Joe at the Russian Tea Room just before going to Carnagie Hall to hear Jessye Norman.
This is our last morning in New York, and one of the things I wanted to do was go to the Top of the Rock, so here we are. This is the observation deck of Rockerfellar Center -- 70 floors up from the ground. You can see just a smidge of Central Park at the right of this picture. We could see the whole park (which is really huge) from up there as well as all the rest of Manhattan.



Here's Joe from the other side of the building. The building with the angled top is the CitiCorp Center. Wouldn't want to be on the top of that!
Here's the altar area of some cathedral -- I don't remember which one.




The New York Botanical Gardens. These are just a few of the tulips in bloom.

A view of the conservatory at the NYBG. It's one of the largest in the country -- this is just a glimpse.

New York City in May

New York has been exhausting and cold, but fun so far. "Wicked" on Wednesday night was just an incredible spectacle of sets, songs, and great voices. The story doesn't really follow the book very closely, but that's OK since the book was pretty weird anyway.

This is printed just above the exit doors.

This is Trudy Sherwood, one of the members of our troup, standing inside the rim of a 9' Steinway inside the drying room. It was about 95 degrees in there, and the rims stay there for about 6 months.

This is an illegal picture from inside the factory. We weren't supposed to take any photos in the factory except in specific places (like inside the drying room above), but I did it surreptiously as we walked around. These are lids for 7' Steinways.

Last night was Jessye Norman and Mark Markum at Carnegie Hall.

The tulips are in full bloom in Central Park. Also, cherry trees, dogwoods, pears, and others that I can't identify. Even this great picture that Joe took doesn't show how big the beds are and how many different colors there were.

More later.

Going to Nassau

Well, it's really happening. I'm going to Nassau in just over two weeks, and I'll be there for two weeks.

For those of you who don't already know, I've been engaged to rebuild a Steinway piano for the Bahamas National Children's Chorus to use in their programs.

More later.

Blackberry winter

This is just to prove that it's blackberry Winter around here. This bush is just off of our back deck.

Here are some of the actual blackberries. There aren't enough to even try to eat, but you can see that one of them is ready. I ate twoof them when taking the pictures. Very wild and seedy, but still real blackberries.

We need to get out in the yard today to do some work, and part of it may be pulling up this bush. I'll probably save it, though, until the berries all ripen.

More New York City

Here are some more shots from New York City.

I wasn't sure just what this was supposed to be, but it was certainly interesting. A sort of traveling sculpture of men in the 30's building Rockafeller Center.

The famous Citicorp Building. I didn't manage to get a picture of the top of it, but this is the one with the huge slanted roof that you may have seen before. It's about 60 stories high, and right after they built it, snow would collect on the slanted part and then come sliding off it to crash 60 stories below. I wouldn't want to have been there when it happened!

Here's a link to a good picture of it.
http://www.pjhealy.com/oldweb/nyc/citicorp.htm

One of the many cathedrals in the city. I can't remember which one this is.

A shot from the show "Wicked" about the Wicked Witch of the West. It was quite a spectacle.

I had to go into the F A O Swartz toy store since I sort of stumbled upon it. This is a giant keyboard that kids love to jump around on. The keys light up and produce a tone, so you can actually play a scale.

I guess one of the things that F A O Swartz is known for is stuffed animals.
And more stuffed animals. They had just about every kind of dog in big bins like this, and some cats, too.

Don't you just want to crawl in there with them?

And some really big animals, too. notice the giraffe. This lion and his mate are full size.
The main reason I took this picture was to try to get a shot of the full sized mastodon in the background. It's the brown hump behind the cow and horse. It goes all the way to the floor -- about 14 feet.

A strange sort of bicycle.
One of the buildings I went into down near Wall Street. This is the US Customs House. It's just a museum now, but this muraled ceiling was one of the most fastinating things there and it is beautifully painted.
A gravestone from Trinity Church on Wall Street where the bells are. The earliest one I could find was 1731. I think this one is 1774 or so.

A shot from another show. This is "A Prairie Home Companion". I had a great seat in the balcony. This is Garrison Keillor doing his Lake Woebegone monologue.
The inside of Trinity Church. (Sorry these are sort of out of order. It's hard to keep them straight.)
Another picture from the bell room. You can see the huge clock hand outside the window, and the street in front is Wall Street.

This is from the back side of Trinity Church. They have a pedestrian bridge that connects the church to this building, and the church parish hall and offices are in here. I think the church probably owns the building and leases the space to businesses. They do a lot of that, and they're said to have a billion dollars in the bank.

That's all for now.

New york City

OK. Here's something different.

This is the way I posted photos on my trip to Europe a year ago and everyone interested seemed to be able to get it.

This is Herald Square and one entrance to Macy's. Did you know that he was the one who started pricing things just a few cents under a dollar? ($15.99 instead of $16)

Times Square -- one of the busiest places in the world.

Snow under the overhead train.

A few of the bell ringers at Trinity Church on Wall St. This set of 12 tower bells is the largest in the country, and its $1,000,000,000 cost was given by a single donor.

Notice the window behind them...

This is it from the outside. The bell room is behind the clock face. The actual bells are in the next story up behind the two tall windows.

After they finished ringing I enticed the "bell Captain" to take me up into the actual bells. This is one of them. You can see part of the wheel that's attached to the bell on the right side of the picture. The ropes that they pull go around the wheel, and the whole bell rotates to be rung in a very specific pattern with the other bells.

These are just a few of the steps you have to climb to get up to the ringing room.

This cruel, very steep flight is the last thing before getting to the ringing room. By the time you get there you're really breathing HARD to try to catch some air.

This is one room in Steinway Hall where they sell Steinway pianos. The pictures (which covered EVERY WALL) are all of famous pianists who play Steinway pianos.

A bronze cast of Arthur Rubenstein's hands from a display case in Steinway Hall. Actually kind of creepy.

The Empire State Building.

From the Broadway Show "Curtains" that I saw on Thursday night. I was in the front row. Those of you who've ever watched "Frazier" will rocognize Niles.

Pictures within the Steinway factory itself would have been the most interesting, but they're not allowed.

While there, other than being in class all day, I went to see:

A Prairie Home Companion

Spamalot

Wicked

Curtains

Beauty and the Beast

and did a LOT of walking and subway riding. I didn't make it to the top of any tall buildings which I love to do, but I certainly saw a lot of them. I have pictures of them, but they just don't show up well enough to be worth publishing here.

Here's my parting shot from the airplane as I was leaving NYC. Probably doesn't mean much unless you've been there or looked at it on a map. After I took this I realized that I was still in the time on the flight where electronic devices are not allowed. Nobody fussed at me and we didn't crash!

I didn't get to do several things that were on my list, so I guess I'll have to go back.

I'm home

My flight landed this evening at about 5:45, so I'm home now, have had a great hot shower -- the first good one in 2 weeks -- have petted and loved on my great dog, and am going to bed. My watch is still on Paris time, and right now it's reading 4:30 am, which is exactly what time I got up this morning. I had a few naps on the plane,, but you know those aren't very satisfying.