SummitPost.org

From FAO Schwartz, you'll be at the SE corner of Central Park. There's a loop road that runs inside the park for ~6 miles, find this road (on foot, much better than carriage or pedicabs) and start exploring. There are numerous places to take a side path and turn back around, the whole 6 mile loop is a bit much unless you're running/biking.

We're supposed to get a couple inches of snow in the next few days, should make the park that much nicer if it sticks around through the weekend.

The High Line Park (elevated railroad tracks that have been converted into a small park) is also very nice (10th Ave and W 20th St).

Hey Lolli, be sure to check out the Museum of Natural History & its relatively new planetarium...I liked it a lot - though I might be biased as my wife was the structural engineer desinging the "aquarium"

For a sampling of the less-than-obvious things:

Make sure you sample coffee & hot dogs from a cart vendor on a street corner...might not be the most hygienic move but it's part of the NYC experience.

For best views of the Manhattan skyline at night head over to West New York in New Jersey across the Hudson (Path train or Ferry).

Columbia University campus is a nice park-like setting to check out if you're uptown (116th & Bway) but do not venture uptown (north) of 125th st. or you're likely to get mugged. Next door (110th & Amsterdam) is a cool cathedral (St. John the Baptist think??) that used to offer these interesting tours including going up catwalks etc...

Here you'll be almost at the north end of central park which of course should be hit up.

It's been years since we lived there but if something hits me, I'll post up more. Enjoy!

I hate to bring it, but NYC after holidays is a big gray dirty blah - the tree is gone all the shop displays are gone, the holiday expectations not met and everyone is bitching about the cold and can't wait to get the hella out of here for their Feb-March breaks.

However, we still have all the venerable institutions of art around to kill time There is a huge Kandinsky exhibit at Guggenheim ending next week - definitely check it out. There is also a big Georgia O'Keeffe splash at Whitney Museum of American Art. I would definitely spend at least a day in Brooklyn. And if your daughter is into shopping check out the Abercrombie & Fitch flagship store on fifth avenue and 56th Street - treat it like an amusement park though - dark interior, loud music and models from their catalog - it's retail therapy in its utmost absurdity, I find it amusing.

Lolli wrote:Brooklyn? Do you have something special to recommend, some area to visit?

Brooklyn?? Where did that come from?

Two places of note immediately come to mind. 1. Incredibly, it has a world class art museum at Grand Army Plaza. 2. The Promenade. I've seen both the views from West New York and the Heights Promenade and the Promenade has a close immediacy which makes it far superior.

Climbing? Let's all climb the New New York Times Building!!! I haven't been arrested all week!

Yeah, by splash I meant a big feature exhibition.

If you are into architecture, AIA guide to New York City is a really good unorthodox guide to NYC. You may not have enough time to justify the purchase though but if you do - you can pick up a copy at any bookstore or at the MoMA bookstore.

Brooklyn, my favorite part is Fort Greene - it will appeal to your architect side. Brooklyn Museum of Art boasts one of the largest art collections. You could also take an L train to the first stop from Manhattan and scroll down Bedford Ave to check out some shops and stare at the hipsters. PS1 in Queens is also a must see, IMO.

Lolli wrote:;-)
I haven't forgotten
do you think they can make them without tomatoes?

yes, white pizza with shrooms and ricotta

Near my house, and not that far from your hotel, is this



If it isn't really cold, there'll be people playing Beatles songs.

Nearby, is this:

If you go home late on the subway, you got this:

Hey Lolli, I wondered where you had got to!

A very belated Happy New Year to you, I messed up with my new sim card when I was in Snowdonia, (I had to get one that had reception where I stayed), so couldn't send greetings at the right time.

I guess that is a "civilian" holiday you are on with no climbing. But maybe you can go and climb all the stairs of the Empire State Building. Lucky I am not there as well, as if I was seen doing the same thing people would think King Kong had come back!

Enjoy yourselves. Have a decent burger for me will you!

Bryan

Bryan Benn wrote:maybe you can go and climb all the stairs of the Empire State Building.

When I "lived" in a hotel in New Jersey (for work) for 3 months in 2000, I made some phone calls to the Empire State Building and I think also the World Trade Center, asking about running (after about the 12th floor, walking with heavy breathing) the stairs to the top. There was no doubt as to whether or not I could do it; anyone who has hiked outside of Florida and the U.S. Midwest has done 1000 feet of elevation gain. It wanted only to see how fast I could do it, and I also thought it would be cool to do, considering the significance of any of those three buildings.

But I was denied. They won't let you go up the stairs. At least, they didn't around March of 2000.

Maybe I should have just gone there and done it without asking, since it turns out I didn't like the answer I got when I asked them.

My Running Club does it. You have to apply. Hurry, it's soon.

http://www.nyrr.org/races/2010/r0202x00.asp

Edited: It's closed now for 2010. Apply for next year.

John Duffield wrote:My Running Club does it. You have to apply. Hurry, it's soon.

http://www.nyrr.org/races/2010/r0202x00.asp

Edited: It's closed now for 2010. Apply for next year.

Cool race. It sounds really exclusive, though. When I inquired in March 2000, I just wanted to get some exercise in an interesting way.

Generally considered to be 102 stories high, the Empire State Building has 85 floors of commercial space, one flight to the Observation Deck, and a mooring mast structure that adds another 16 stories. In the Empire State Building Run-Up, participants climb 86 flights (1,576 steps) to finish on the Observation Deck.

Hey, that's not a climb of 86 flights, unless the ground floor is floor zero! Going from the 1st floor to the 86th floor is going up 85 flights.

Course Records
Paul Crake: 9:33 (2003)
Andrea Mayr: 11:23 (2006)

Awesome times. In Saint Clair Shores, Michigan, I went up 25 floors in somewhere around 2:30+, carrying pizzas. We had a 26-story apartment building in our pizza-delivery area, and I would never take the elevator. Taking the stairs in that 26-story apartment building was the only way to do any elevation gain in that part of the country!