Halloween in the Big Apple

Rachel had a one day conference at the SUNY (State University of New York) Graduate Center in Manhattan on Halloween, so I hopped on a train that afternoon and headed down to New York to explore a bit before meeting up with Rachel and her friends for dinner and then catching a train back home.

Grand Central Station upon my arrival.

I had several hours to kill in New York, so I decided to start out by wandering up to Central Park. Walking in NYC is an interesting experience--you don't really set your own pace, you just get carried along with the crowd. And traffic lights are more of a suggestion to the pedestrians; there were numerous occasions when the only reason the traffic got to go when they had a green light was because the lead car started driving through the throng of pedestrians still crossing the street in front of them. I've gotten a little used to not necessarily paying any attention to traffic lights when walking in New Haven, but New Yorkers appear to take that concept to the extreme. Arriving in Central Park gave me a brief respite from being carried along by that flow.

Central Park is not mostly open grassy areas, despite what you might have seen on TV. It's filled with outcrops of these long-ago glacially smoothed rocks. Time and erosion have eliminated the "smooth" factor from afar, but when seen up close, the indicators of glacial action are all there.

The picture's a little blurry, but Central Park's pond is famous, so I couldn't leave this out.

The waterfall is pretty and in focus, so I had to include it.

Just over a rise from the waterfall, there were people ice skating. This rink is artificial, but apparently people have been ice skating on this end of the pond during the winter months for over 100 years. (It was not cold when I was there, just so you know. I think the temperature was in the upper 50's, but the sun made it feel warmer.)

From atop another outcropping of rock, you can almost tell that the ice rink is, in fact, triangular. The picture of people skating was taken from behind and to the left of the yellow tree on the other side of the rink in this picture.

Proof that it was autumn. These two trees were the most colorful I saw.

Leaving Central Park, I headed south towards Times Square. I ate a small lunch in at a place called "Brooklyn Diner". It was neither Brooklyn nor a Diner in the classic sense. It was much more upscale than your typical diner, despite the fact that the building was designed to look like the classic diner. I didn't realize this until I got inside and by then I was starving, so I had a salad and managed to get out of there only spending about $15.

Shortly after lunch, I passed the Ed Sullivan Theater. There's some TV show that's filmed there, but I couln't remember what it was. I think it's on late at night, though. ;-)

Arriving in Times Square, I had to take a picture of the Coke sign.

Facing the other direction (away from the Coke sign) in Times Square.

After marveling at Times Square for a while (the traffic, the signs, the way the pedestrians were even more bold there than elsewhere in the city), I decided it was time for me to make a pilgrimage that any self-respecting hockey fan would in that situation. I had to walk down to Madison Square Garden.

A block or so from Madison Square Garden, I looked to my left and there was this interesting-looking building. Seems like there should be a giant ape or something hanging from it, though.

I finally made it to Madison Square Garden. The is actually the back entrance, but the front entrance is through the high-rise building you can see a little of a the top left corner of this picture, so it looks a lot less like a sports arena from there. The blue sign on the building is advertising New York Rangers tickets.

Having seen the Empire State Building (sans ape), I had to head over that direction to check it out. I didn't have time to wait in line to buy tickets to the observation deck (and I wouldn't dare have gone up there without Rachel, anyway), but I did go inside for a bit.

This is the floor as you are on your way to get in line to buy tickets for the observation deck.

The SUNY Graduate Center is kitty-corner across the street from the Empire State Building and it was getting close to time for Rachel to be done, so I headed over there. I didn't think to take pictures as we boarded a crowded subway car (I couldn't get more than a foot inside the door) and headed down to a spot that one of Rachel's friends knew about. We ate dinner there, then Rachel and I were tired, so we took the subway back up to Grand Central Station to head home. (We also stopped off in Times Square so Rachel could experience it, but we were tired and didn't take any pictures.)

Grand Central Station again; later at night and less crowded.

One amusing thing occurred while we were waiting for our train home. It was very warm in the station, so we stepped outside to cool off a bit. While we were standing there (and I was thinking to myself how the train station was barely recognizable as such from that angle), a man walked up to us and asked if we knew where the train station was. We told him, "That's it, right there." He said "Oh," stood there for a moment looking, then walked away--not towards the station. Minutes later, we boarded a train and headed home.