Location: West Norwalk, CT
After several late-night attempts to find a parking spot that would not require us to move the car this morning, we resigned ourselves to the fact that we would need to be up at 8:30 a.m. We managed to drag ourselves out of bed, having gone to sleep at 4 a.m., without a terrible amount of hassle, but neither of us were happy to be awake. There were no spaces available, so I was forced to partake in a ridiculous ritual that some city-dwellers are forced to perform twice a week. I double parked on the left side of the road for about 30 minutes until the street sweeper approached. Many others did the same. The moment the sweeper passed, I had to floor it in a mad rush to get a fresh and clean parking space. Imagine an entire avenue of cars doing this, like parallel parking vehicular dominoes.
Nevertheless, I was able to get a parking space, but had to stay in the car until 10 a.m. just in case a ticketing officer decided to drop by (the parking ban was effective from 8:30 a.m. to 10 a.m.). Luckily, we had packed the car before this process, so once the car was parked, there was little for me to do. This was also good because Julia had to leave at 9 a.m. to meet her mother in Grand Central Station and John had to head to work, so I wouldn’t have been able to get back into the house if I needed to.
I should take this opportunity to thank John for his hospitality while we were in New York. We had a great time while we were there and look forward to seeing him again from time to time when we are in the city.
Since Julia had already gone to Grand Central Station to meet her mom, which would be followed by a rendezvous at the United Nations with their family friend Lola, I decided to check out the parade celebrating the New York Giants Super Bowl victory.
The Subway ride to City Hall was relatively quiet, belying the scene that would unfold. As soon as I exited the subway station, I found myself surrounded by a sea of blue shirts and hats. I had gotten off two blocks west of City Hall, the terminus of the parade, expecting a relatively quiet scene, but ended up in the middle of what can only be described as mayhem. Police officers had barricaded every street in a two block radius of Broadway (the parade route), preventing anyone from entering. Supposedly, there were too many people on Broadway already, but the side streets were empty. It seemed to me that it was more dangerous to have thousands of people scrambling around trying to sneak through a police line than fill a few side streets with fans, but I guess the NYPD didn’t see it that way. I was told to walk eight blocks north to enter Broadway, which I did. When I finally got onto the street, I was 10 blocks north of City Hall, meaning I was 10 blocks north of being able to see the parade. I hurried south, only to run into another barricade, this one blocking off Broadway completely two blocks north of the parade route. It’s worth mentioning that all of this running around was done while weaving between thousands of rowdy Giants fans. An officer told me that in order to access the parade route, I would need to head back west and then another eight blocks south, which was simply not going to happen. By the time I would have arrived, the parade would have been over. Frustrated, I found an elevated position on a piece of construction equipment, from which I could see a large amount of the crowd. At no point was I able to even catch a glimpse of the parade itself, but I did manage to get some shots of the crowd and left the area before the big rush. Despite not being able to see the parade (a problem that would have been completely remedied if i had been able to obtain press credentials yesterday), I still enjoyed the event.
I stopped at the car and brought Data to the Union Square dog run for a little while. He had a great time romping around and harassing the surprisingly large number of medium and large dogs that were there, which was great for him and also assuaged any apprehension I may have had about leaving him in the car for a few hours.
After dropping Data off at the car, I found myself crammed in the subway with hordes of Giants fans headed to Grand Central Station. From the station, I walked east to the United Nations. I stopped to buy lunch at Goodburger, but threw out my food because I learned that I didn’t have time to eat and the burger didn’t look very good anyway. Their chocolate milkshake was very good, however.
Upon entry into the United Nations, I met Julia, her mother and Lola. The three of them had already spent a few hours exploring the building with Lola, who has worked for the U.N. for over 30 years. We spent some time exploring areas generally off-limit to the public, including the General Assembly Hall. Public tours can see the hall from the back, but we were able to walk through the entire room, even standing at the Secretary General’s podium. We also went into a women’s bathroom on one of the upper floors, where we were greeted by an incredible view of Manhattan. After seeing some other parts of the building, both public and private, Lola left and Julia and I walked with her mother back to Grand Central Station, where she caught a 3:48 p.m. train to Darien, CT.
We were unsure how to spend the remainder of our day, so we went to B&H, where I picked up a new eye cup (I have a habit of losing them) and lens hood for my camera. By the time we left the store, we were both drained, so we decided to head out of New York and back to Connecticut. Since we were heading to Julia’s house, I left it up to her to decide what we were going to do for dinner. She wanted to go to Post Corner Pizza, one of her favorite restaurants. Our meal was filling and delicious, just what we needed since neither of us had had much to eat at that point.
We are now back at Julia’s house, where Data has been playing with Lucy and we have been catching up with Julia’s parents and sister. We haven’t decided what we are going to do tomorrow, but it will almost certainly involve bringing Data and Lucy to a nearby dog park.
Here are photos from today. Click “there’s more to this” to see them all or visit my SmugMug.
New York from the United Nations. Click on the above image for a larger version. Continue reading ‘Day 206: Goodbye, New York’
