Around The World

We were up at a reasonably respectable time this morning and downstairs by about 9:00 am for a lovely breakfast.

We left the hotel around 10:00 am and hailed a cab to take us to our first stop of the day, B&H Photo. Often likened to a toy store for photographers, B&H Photo is an incredible camera store located on the corner of W 34th Street and 9th Avenue, in the old YMCA building. To just call it a camera store somewhat undersells it. B&H Photo stocks more than 1.5 million items and employs around 1,500 people. Purchases in the store are delivered by a series of conveyor belts to 30 registers near the front door. It is quite a sight. Despite the temptation, we made only a few small purchases.

After spending more than an hour at B&H Photo, we hopped into another taxi and headed to the September 11 Memorial, which was very moving. We started at The Sphere, a 20-ton sculpture by Fritz Koenig that stood between the twin towers from 1971 until the September 11 attacks. Remaining largely intact, this was the only work of art recovered from the site after the towers collapsed.

We then walked across the road to the Memorial Pools.

Next, we headed west and walked along the Hudson River Greenway, the esplanade that tracks along the Hudson River. On the way, we passed a piece of the Berlin Wall (one of five in New York).

Along the walking trail, we had a nice view of the Statue Of Liberty.

It was a cold day and we’d been out for a while, so we decided that our next stop should involve warmth and food.
From the time arrived in new York we had been looking forward to a cream cheese blintz at Sarabeth’s Kitchen. So, we walked about two kilometres to Sarabeth’s Kitchen in Tribeca, only to find blintzes were no longer on the menu!
Nonetheless, while being subjected to re-runs of “Friends” on the television above the bar (perhaps because we were just a few blocks away from the apartment used in the “Friends” television series) we had a nice lunch of pizza and lemon pancakes.

After rugging up to go outside again, we left the restaurant to walk to Chinatown via Little Italy. On the way, we walked along North Moore Street and passed Firehouse, Hook & Ladder Company No. 8, the fire station used as the headquarters in the Ghostbusters movie.

We then walked through a bit of Little Italy and into Chinatown. On the way, we were passed by numerous fire engines (although at times we passed them again as they sat motionless in the New York traffic, with horns and sirens blaring to no avail).

We had planned to walk down Mott Street, the unofficial main street of Chinatown but we soon discovered that Mott Street was the scene of the fire to which the emergency services vehicles had been hurrying.

We left Chinatown and headed past One Police Plaza to the Brooklyn Bridge. The sun was now out and we thought it might be nice to walk across the bridge to Brooklyn.

The walk across the bridge was very pleasant. We had planned to walk around Brooklyn a bit but we were short on time and the traffic on the way back across the bridge looked far from promising. So, we turned around and walked back across the bridge to the Manhattan side, from where we hailed a taxi to take us to the Standard Hotel in the Meatpacker’s district.

We left the Standard Hotel and flagged a taxi to take us back to our hotel so we could get changed and head to dinner. We had a reservation for dinner at Centurion New York, on the 55th floor of One Vanderbilt, the 93-storey skyscraper at the corner of 42nd Street and Vanderbilt Avenue.

Centurion New York is a members-only club that opened only 15 days ago and we were the first from Australia to go there. It comprises multiple restaurants run by a Michelin-starred chef, lounges, bars, and event spaces.
Membership is limited to the right coloured American Express card and members can visit any time they like. But the fine-dining restaurant must be booked in advance and the waiting list is long. However, we were lucky enough to have secured a reservation (thanks Lara!).

Once we passed through the non-trivial security screening in the lobby of One Vanderbilt, we were shown to the elevator, which whisked us up to the 55th floor. We were met by the staff waiting for us and taken on a walk through the club to our table. We settled in with a drink, champagne for Keith and a mocktail for Andrea.

We’ve seen some nice views of New York over the many trips we’ve had there, but it’s fair to say that we’ve not ever had a dinner table view that matched the one we had tonight! Centurion New York occupies the entire 55th floor of One Vanderbilt, so there are incredible views on all sides. But we had the best seat in the house, looking straight out at the Empire State Building.

We had a beautiful dinner, made even more enjoyable by the setting, the staff, and the incredible view.

After a magnificent dinner, we sat and took in the beautiful view of the New York nighttime skyline.

For a little something extra to finish off a wonderful dinner, we headed into Centurion New York’s Chrysler Bar.
While our table at dinner had the view of the Empire State Building, as the name suggests, this bar has the view of the Chrysler Building. And what a view it is!

We finished up at the bar and descended back to street level in the high-speed elevator. We walked out onto Madison Avenue and, given the cold (and Andrea’s high-heel shoes!), we agreed that we wouldn’t be walking too far.
We walked around the corner into E 42nd Street to the entrance to Grand Central Station.

We lingered a while in Grand Central Station, an incredibly beautiful building. We had been here many times before but not this late at night. It was quite serene and calming (which is an unusual thing to say about a train station but that’s the effect that it had on us!).

We exited Grand Central Station and hailed a cab. But rather than go directly back to The Mark, we headed to The Carlyle, just one corner away on 76th and Madison. Our plan was to sit and enjoy one last cocktail for the evening, at Bemelmans Bar. However, there was quite a wait to get in so we had a quick peek at the murals on the wall and headed back out to the street for the one-block walk back to The Mark, where we collapsed into bed after a big day around the city.

Tomorrow we’re flying to Casablanca in the evening but will do some more exploring in NYC during the day.