The streets of Manhattan

Bugger.

Well, somehow I appear to have just lost a whole bunch of writing I just did for this thing, so the following is a spark notes version of my last couple of days in New York City.

On Tuesday, I walked downtown, and did my architecture-geek thing, peering up at all the famous (and just plain impressive) buildings at the bottom end of Manhattan Island.

Plus, the view from down there, of New Jersey, Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty are mighty impressive.

Next, I headed back uptown to Roosevelt Island, in the middle of the East River. The two notable attributes of Roosevelt Island: #1 - The Aerial Tramway which serves the island.

#2 - the views. Which are incredible - from Roosevelt Island, the Upper East Side of Manhattan looks like a man-made mountain of concrete and glass and steel. Just stunning.

A return to the bigger island by subway took me to the Rockerfeller Centre, which is perfect at this time of year for a festive fix - ice skating, bright lights, a giant christmas tree and thousands of people all in the one place.

Additionally, I'd like to throw out that the main building (used to be called the RCA building, now it's the GE building) of the Rockerfeller Centre (which stretches over several blocks of Midtown Manhattan) is quite possibly my favourite skyscraper full stop. Which (for me at least), is a big call :P. But I really love it - it's tall, and long, and oriented such that, from the North or South, it takes up a whole block, whereas from the East or West it's so narrow you hrdly see it at all - it's like a sleek, beautiful, art-deco, 270-odd metre tall stone cliff face - like something that would be eroded out of a mountain, rather than being built. Just wonderful.

Anyway, after all that excitement, today(Christmas Eve) was a somewhat more subdued day. I went out to the Museum of Modern Art in the morning, and boy, was it ever busy! I got there 20-odd minutes before it opened, but the line for tickets already stretched out the door. There must've been 1000 plus people in the museum at any one time - place was packed. They've got a great collection, though. I'm no art-expert, but it's great to see some of the uber-famous pieces, like Van Gogh's Starry Night, and Warhol's Soup Can paintings. 

This afternoon, I took a wander through the Greenwich Village neighbourhood, which is charming, but terribly confusing - because it predates the regular street grid (parallel numbered streets running East-West, parallel numbered avenues running North-South) you find further up the island, you get wierd things happening - I gave up trying to navigate when 4th street intersected with 10th street -_-.

So, those were my eventful couple of days - I'm still having a blast over here, and learning more abou the city every day. Tomorrow's Christmas Day, and my plans include a sleep-in (so much walking the last couple of days!), a movie in the evening, then a nice meal.

A merry Christmas to y'all, hope it's a good one!

'til next time.

Jono