The South Riding RV Travels

734

12th October 2012 - New York City - Times Square

Public buildings are always impressive. I think this is part of the administration of Jersey City. We passed this as we walked the five blocks to the train station.
PATH is the commuter subway in and around Jersey City but also goes across to Manhattan. It isn't part of the New York subway. This train goes under the Hudson and up to 33rd Street next door to Penn Central station.
That puts you right outside Macy's. We did go in but found it just too bewildering.
This is a statue outside Macy's. It is of Minerva with bell ringers and is a memorial to James Gordon Bennett who was the founder of the New York Herald newspaper in 1835.
Broadway is partly pedestrianised and there are very wide sidewalks extending into the road where traffic no longer flows. Here there are small cafes and potted plants.
There are lots of attractions for the thousands of tourists. You can have your photo taken with any number of cartoon characters - for a fee.
Times Square is just a mass of electronic billboards some of which are many floors high.
They cover every building in the quarter mile along Broadway around Times Square.
It is quite impressive even in daylight. The screens are very bright.
Surprisingly there weren't any political ads. Perhaps the billboards are all sold on long term contracts.
Most of these screens are 15 floors high. There are thousands of tourists on the streets.
The visitor centre is in an old theatre and has several costumes from Andrew Lloyd Webber shows on display. This is from Evita..
This costume was worn by Christine from The Phantom of the Opera.
The huge queue of people is for booths where they sell last minute tickets for Broadway shows with a 50% reduction.
In amongst the skyscrapers there are numbers of churches tucked in between buildings many times higher.
We went to the Rockefeller Centre but we didn't go up it. It is only a few blocks from the Empire State Building which we did go up. This is a skating rink which is part of the complex.
There are lots of buildings dating from the 1930s. These have quite artistic exteriors with complex stone facings.
We walked back through Times Square again. The lights get brighter as the shadows of late afternoon start to form.
It is impossible to underestimate the importance of football in America. But most of it is in a different language which we don't understand.
There are folk begging - I guess this guy is at least honest.
Twilight falls as we depart to catch the train back to New Jersey.
Even the buildings which aren't covered in billboards are attractively designed.
This is the Empire State Building which at 1454ft to the top of the aerials used to be the tallest building until the Twin Towers were built. When they were destroyed it was again the tallest but is now surpassed (since 30/4/2012) by the new One World Trade Centre which will be 1776ft. There will be three more in that complex but they will be lower. There are almost 6000 skyscrapers in New York with almost 100 being over 600ft.