From 35th street to Avenue Q New York, NY

New York, NY

We’ve been here a week already. A week! Already! Another year or two and I’m sure we’d have pretty much all of Manhattan covered 🙂 First important thing of the day was to catch up with Mum on Skype – alas it was all a bit one-sided, the microphone wasn’t working at her end. But we got by with me doing the talking and Mum and Dad doing the nodding. Was great to see them, if not hear them.

The first destination for the day was Grand Central Station, for a proper look around this time. An amazing place for people-watching, and with 117 platforms (update: actually a lot less, but highest platform number was 117), probably a great place to get lost, though we found our way around ok. Especially when it came to finding the Apple Store. Surprising, I know …

Leaving Grand Central, we wandered to Bryant Park for lunch. Walking around this ‘small’ park, it dawned on me that this small park is about the same size of one half of Hyde Park in Sydney. When it comes to New York, I guess size is relative. Had a lovely lunch at a cafe in the park – and so nice to see public spaces being used so well by so many. There were tables set up for chess, table tennis (!), a carousel for the kids, even an outdoor reading library with shelves of books and newspapers set up. And chairs everywhere. So, not a bit like Hyde Park, then. We could do so much more if we had the will and the resources.

Next stop was Ripley’s Believe it or Not in Times Square – hey, we’re tourists, we have an obligation to visit the tourist traps! It was pretty squarely aimed at children, but as far as freak shows go it still had its fair share of interesting moments. The highlight for me was the work of the artist who was able to clearly sculpt all four members of the Obama family, clearly recognisable… Within the eye of a needle. Amazing work.

Today’s show was a matinee – we wandered off to 50th street at 3pm to see Avenue Q. I’ve seen two regional productions of it before, so it was interesting to see how they compared to a ‘proper’ broadway version. The biggest difference was in the set – it was really cleverly done. It’s clear what a broadway-sized budget gets you, and what a regional amateur production doesn’t. The surprising thing though was that the whole show was done with just 7 cast members, many of whom took multiple roles during the show. It didn’t detract from it at all, it was still a great show and really well done – but the performances today showed just how strong the casts of the two regional productions were too. Way to go, Rockdale and Tamworth!

After that it was a leisurely stroll back to the hotel – all the while experiencing that strangely wonderful New York soundtrack: traffic, tooting horns, police sirens, and rumbling subway trains. It’s a funny thing how in many places you can clearly hear the subway trains passing underneath you – something I’ve never noticed in Sydney (except when seated in The Theatre Royal). We walked past a barbershop, still open at 5:30pm on a Sunday – I love this city. And now I love it with a very, very short haircut. Yes it even finished with the steaming hot towel like you see on so many Warner Brothers cartoons – though with much less disastrous results may I add.

Dinner was at the retro-happy-days-styled Tick Tock Diner (or if you’re a local that’d be ‘Tick Tawk Dinah’), where we had the good fortune to tackle meals with embarrassingly large portion sizes, and also to have a brief chat with an older couple seated nearby. And that was about it for the day, except to watch the final episode of Survivor on the telly.

Tomorrow’s exciting mission, should we choose to accept it… Actually there’s no choice, it’s time to tackle the really-quite-large pile of washing that has accumulated over the last seven days. And, of course, we have another show to go to. Bring it on, Broadway, bring it on!