I took a weekend trip to New York City with Janet, Melissa, and Courtney to celebrate Christmas and Melissa's upcoming 30th birthday (Jan 26). Technically Baby Girl Taylor went with us. (Melissa is 7 months pregnant with the most traveled baby you've ever seen - she's already been to Las Vegas, Phoenix, Hollywood, and on a Caribbean cruise.) After a harrowing cab ride from LaGuardia to midtown Manhattan, we walked down to Union Square to see their outdoor holiday market. I think half of Manhattan had the same idea, because the market was packed with people - most of them dressed in Santa suits or elf costumes (there must have been a Santa festival going on). Janet kept checking out the prices in the craft booths, because several of them were selling the same crocheted headband she just made for Courtney
We took the Subway to Rockefeller Center and went up to the roof. It was a beautiful night with great views. The bright spot in the middle of the picture is Times Square. I was aiming at the countdown ball for New Year's Eve. It always seems like it would be exciting to spend New Year's Eve in Times Square, but after fighting the crowds this weekend, I think I'll stick to watching the ball drop on TV.
St Patrick's Cathedral was open, so we went inside to see the Nativity scene. I've never seen a dog as one of the animals in the stable (next to Mary behind the creche with his tongue hanging out). St Patrick's is undergoing massive renovations, so it was covered in scaffolding inside and out.
We ended Saturday night at Radio City Music Hall with the Rockette's
Christmas Show. It's amazing how many costume changes they make in a 90-minute show. They did their traditional leg-kicking numbers, but my favorite was when they all dressed up like toy soldiers. Their formations looked really fascinating, especially when looking down from the balcony. In between costume changes, they gave us 3-D glasses, and did a couple animations with Santa on a wild ride on his sleigh (high-tech Christmas).
Sunday morning, we went down to the 9/11 Memorial. The sculpture is very striking and evokes a lot of emotion. It is surrounded by a 4 ft high granite wall with the names of the survivors (almost 3,000) engraved in the top. The water falls off all four sides into a flat-bottomed pool that drains into a deep black hole. There are two of these pools located on the site of the former Twin Towers.
We stopped at the NYC Fire Dept (Melissa's husband, Jamie, is a fire fighter). This is just one section in a really pretty copper mural along the side of the building.
Next we stopped at South Street Seaport. We were going to buy Broadway theater tickets at the half-price booth, but it and many other shops were boarded up due to damage from Hurricane Sandy. It didn't look like there was much structural damage - mostly blown-out windows and water-soaked interiors. Luckily Pier 17 was still open, so we took a break and admired the view of the harbor and the Brooklyn Bridge.
Since the day was young, we headed to Times Square and managed to snag 4 seats for the matinee show for
Elf. I've seen the movie with Will Ferrell several times, but I think this Broadway production was better. All the actors were tremendous - lots and lots of energy. Santa was played by Wayne Knight - best known as Newman in
Seinfeld. His jokes were hysterical, especially because they all related to NYC.
After the show, we took a walk down 5th Avenue to see all the window displays. This one was supposed to represent a snow globe workshop. All of the snow globes were on rotating shelves that periodically turned the snow globes upside down to keep them shaken up. We were planning to end up at Serendipity for a frozen hot chocolate, but I think others had the same idea. When we finally got there, it was a 2-hour wait, so we found a dessert bar and had cheesecake instead.
On Monday morning, Courtney and I got up early and went to the
Today show. We got a great spot right in the middle of the front row, and across from the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree (you can see the cameras in the background). Unfortunately, they weren't really filming the crowd on Monday like they usually do, because they were doing a tribute to the Connecticut teachers and students. But I got this wonderful picture of Courtney holding our sign (one of the brightest ones there) - it was my Dad's birthday on Saturday. Don't even get me started on the trip home. Waiting six hours in the LaGuardia airport supposedly for the fog to clear did not make me a happy camper.
