We started our day getting on the X1 bus to Central Park. Our bus driver Frank was hilarious. He talked about the “little Geniuses” that are preparing for jail instead of of college and called a group of iffy people on the sidewalk “Mutts.” He joked with us the whole way about our trip costing us $100 and that he was drinking or drunk driving. We had a great 1.5 hour bus.
We had reserved a horse and carriage to take us through the park. You hear all this terrible stuff about central park on TV. Don’t buy into it. We saw police and park rangers all over the place. We felt very safe there. When our carriage arrive we were blessed with another funny guy “Joe” as our driver. He actually was the owner of the company and was the typical italian schmoozer, but lots of fun. He told us Pope jokes and stories about a Danish man. He was quite the entertainer.He really know his park history. our ride was 55 minutes and it could have easily been twice as long. The park was beautiful, extremely well kept and we never saw a homeless or questionable person. We saw families and young people all over the place. If you go to Central Park consider a ride with “NY Carriage Rides” they are the best!
From Central Park we walked to Time square, Rockefeller Center, Radio Music Hall, Rockefeller Center etc. Lots to see in just a few blocks. Our highlight of all of NYC was St. Patrick’s’ Cathedral. It was magnificent. It is the largest Cathedral in the United States. The corner stone was laid in 1858 and finished 21 years later in 1879. It looked like it was built yesterday. So much of it was carved stone no wonder it is still as magnificent today as it was back in the 1800s. It seat 2400 people, it takes up a whole city block and it’s spires rise 330 feet, 7855 pipes for the organ. It has 21 altars and 19 bells each named after a different saint. 28100 stained glass panels there are between 15 and 18 masses said everyday in the Cathedral. Over a million candles are lit every year in the church. They asked for a $2 donation for candles. That $2,000,000 in income for tiny little candles that I am sure only cost 10 cents each. It must take an incredible amount of money to keep up this church. We were all in awe and couldn’t help but fall to our knees and pray.
Just because we could, Maria and I walked into Tiffany’s and were treated very respectfully. We all went into Sak’s fifth avenue expecting a cold response because we are not their type of people. We were shocked to have been pawed ad by the clerks, like they were desperate for business. Lady let me try this cream on you, you will love this perfume etc. It was way worse than any of the panhandlers or the bus salespeople on the streets. So when I win the lottery big time I may shop at Tiffany’s but will never set foot in Saks. I guess I don’t have to worry about that.
We stumbled across the NYFD education center. They have on average 150 kids go through their program everyday. They teach them fire safety and have a fake burning house. They can change to color of smoke for the kids. There was also a firetruck for them to crawl on and lot of fire gear on the wall. They also have patches from other fire depts all over the walls. Had we known we would have brought a GRFD patch. I am sure there is already one up there. We looked but could find them amongst the 1000s or more patches all over the walls and halls etc. We talked to a retired firefighter who was at 911. He said the men who were at the tragedy are really having some health issue. All the kids who lost a parent have had their college education paid for. He said they are almost all through school. They take care of their own. We would have liked to talked to him more but he was volunteering and had other people to talk to you.
When we were done uptown we took a subway to downtown. It was Scott and My first subway ride. It was slick. We were there so fast.
We found the Wall Street Bull. We learned by eaves dropping in on a tour that the guy designed and built the bull with this own money and dropped it off at the NY Stock Exchange. It wasn’t appreciated and was moved around the corner. It is now one of the most visited sites in NYC and the guy never got a dime after spending $350,000 of his own money to make it. There is a rumor that if you rub the bull’s balls it will bring you good financial luck. So of course Maria and I had to give it a whirl. So many people have done this that they are shiny and perfectly smooth. Who thinks of this stuff and who follows through…..well we did. Why not. Maybe I can shop at Tiffany’s someday.
We then walked to the 911 Memorial. It is so moving. Everyone seemed somber and respectful. What a horrible tragedy, but NY sure did a nice job with the Memorial.
We were originally going to try to get 50% off broadway play tickets, but the wait was going to take hours and we had a lot of NYC to see yet. Because we weren’t doing a play we decided to walk to both China Town and Little Italy. We had dinner on the street at an authentic Italian restaurant. Happy hours seemed to last all night for us. They kept saying this will still be on our happy hour half off prices. Once again, we never felt in danger and thoroughly enjoyed every step of the 10 miles we walked that day. We hopped a bus back to the boat. The NYC public transportations is amazing and not terribly complicated.
We amazed ourselves with how many things we saw in one day by foot and one subway ride. We walked 10 miles according to Maria’s fitbit. We slept very good that night and were satisfied with what we got to see.
Thanks for reading,
Karen and Scott
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