Final NYC Post. C.J. & Mary-Part #5. Oct. 2011.

We saw two shows. This picture is from "Book of Mormon" which is a pretty hot and popular show on Broadway. My first real Broadway show! We always do off (or off-off) Broadway because of the prices. C.J. really wanted to see this. Jamey had a connection and C.J.'s husband Kevin surprised us with 4th row center tickets. It's about a mismatched pair of Mormon elders that end up in Uganda. Great bawdy humor with excellent singing and dancing.

Then we went and saw "Arias With A Twist"....that was my choice. It's sorta impossible to describe but I'll try: the only actor is drag queen Joey Arias who sings and the moving sets are incredible with master puppetry by Basil Twist. It was the night before their closing after a 2 year run. Lots more bawdy fun.

We took a quick turn thru Chelsea Market before our big lunch at Spice Market. I could've stayed there all day.  It used to be the The National Biscuit Factory (where the Oreo cookie was invented) and is 22 buildings over 2 square blocks.

The industrial-ness of Chelsea Market is very cool. They had a BIG bakery, clothes stores, fantastic florists, restaurant equipment, and all kinds of specialty food stores and restaurants. Upstairs there are offices and TV production facilities...Food Network is one of them....................................................................................................I could blog forever about NYC because after all...It's NEWYORKCITY! I didn't really take so very many pictures considering all we saw and did. I was too busy just taking it all in ya know? It's fun to watch people walking their dogs...New Yorkers love their dogs. We saw every kind of dog you can think of...and there was only 1 ugly one. It was also kinda neat to find yourself on different streets that specialized in a certain product...one we were on had only stores of fabrics....and another block that was nothing but lighting and lamp stores. Of course everything in the windows was BEAUTIFUL!! C.J. and I wish NYC had more bathrooms. Thanks for checking my vacation blog. We sure had the best time ever. Thanks to Jamey!!!! Also thanks to Diego, David, Kevin, Chrissie, Michelle, Tracey and Seth.

C.J. & Mary Do New York. Part 4. Oct. 2011

New York City has fun art, serious art and everything in between. There is a group of ladies who crochet coverings for all kinds of stuff...like this shopping cart. I've also seen pictures of covered lamp posts, fire hydrants, statues...Jamey said they even did "the cube"! (Which is a huge famous street sculpture in the village.) I think there's a group of folks who do this in San Francisco too. Some local govts. call it "graffitti"...oh COME ON....don't be such a Republican!

We quickly went thru 2 galleries as we were on a time schedule on Saturday. This is the art of Nick Cave. This stick guy looks kinda like Big Foot, No?

I liked Nick Cave's art alot! Is it whacky? Sure. Does everybody "get it"? No. But it sure made EVERYBODY smile. I'm jealous and want to make one of these figures.

More art.

This was a big tapestry type thing on the wall that had ALOT of beads etc. on it.

C.J. disappearing into the art of Richard Serra.

Some art is to look at and some art is to walk into. I find it all very beautiful...this stuff was rather calming.

Jamey drove us about 30 minutes out of the city to this wonderful park called WAVE HILL. This is the estate house. We couldn't see it because there was a big wooden fence around it. (I stole this pic off the internet.) It'll reopen in 2 years after renovations. It was built in 1843! Ya'll should Google Wave Hill to read all about it.

Wave hill is absolutely lovely. It is on 28 acres right on the Hudson River so it has great views.

Every where you look is a photo op. The park has performances, workshops, art exhibits, weddings etc.

The park is broken up into different kinds of gardens. You can see the Hudson in the background.

This is near the entrance and has all kinds of hot house plants inside. The plants inside and out change throughout the year. I bet in Springtime Wave Hill is quite spectacular. We loved it.

I like everything about this picture: the plants, the stonework and the little wooden bench way back in there.

A wall of succulents inside the glass hot house.

A pretty arbor that looks out on the river. We didn't have as much time as we would've liked as they were closing soon. We made them kick us out. There were families walking the wooded trails, kids playing on the lawns and some folks just sit and relax in the lawn chairs.

Doesn't think look ODD????? Reminds me of the movie "Little Shop Horrors". I think it's beautiful! You can see a smaller, younger green one just like it in the upper right...it's kinda hidin' back there.

We decided that THIS is what the bud in the previous picture looks like when it blooms. It's odd too...but beautiful.

This is yet another oddity. It's a big, heavy gourd...and that's all I can tell ya about it...even though a nice lady overheard us exclaiming over it and she stopped and told us all about it.

C.J. and Mary Do New York. Part 3. Oct. 2011.

C.J. and I had both been to Grand Central Station before but it's SO big and has alot of history and there's so much to see. I could spend hours there. This is a really cool European style market in GCS that has the best looking food...good thing we weren't hungry. They have separate "stores" with flowers, cheese, chocolates, bakeries, fresh fish, ready made entrees etc. etc. ETC!! The cut flowers for sale in New York City are just gorgeous and they have big pots of pretty plants on all the streets. People were hurrying to buy food and catch their trains.

I took very few of the photos on this blog. The internet ones are so much better. This is Grand Central's main entrance.

Aren't these lights beautiful? When they were restored they were so dirty they thought they were brass and were amazed to find they are gold. As we walked around I read historical trivia to C.J. from an internet print out about the stuff we were looking at. The story of the building's history & restoration etc. is amazing.

It's hard to find a good picture of the ceiling. It has the zodiac and stars and all kinds of beautiful stuff painted on it. It also has fiber optic lights to light up the 2500 stars up there.

This is not a very good photo that I took of this "tree" hanging from the ceiling right inside one of the side entrances that leads to the market..it was covered with crystals. It doesn't look sparkly here...but it WAS sparkly. GCS also has other stores and restaurants.

The famous clock in the center of the grand lobby in Grand Central Station...you see it in movies and stuff. It's a famous meeting place. You tell your friends "Meet me at the clock".

This is right beside our hotel and the view across the river is Queens, NY. We kept trying to get a good shot of this neon Pepsi sign but just couldn't zoom in well enough. There's a Pepsi bottle just to the right that you can't see very well.

The gang having silly fun. Left to right: C.J., Jamey, Patrick, David and Tracy. We had just had some very good Italian food. David works at a really top notch, famous and up and coming hair salon in the village and Jamey got David to cut my hair. The salon had a cute French Bulldog named Sophia and we drank Mimosas while I had my hair done. Tracy works at an art gallery and I had just met Patrick so don't know what he does...but they ALL make me laugh alot. All of Jamey's pals seemed so happy to meet us. I'm sorry we didn't get out to Brooklyn to meet some of her other friends.

This is the restaurant...Spice Market...where Jamey's boyfriend Diego works and we had the most wonderful meal for my birthday lunch there. It's very Indian/Morocco/Marrakesh like. Loved the food, loved the decor and the employees were extra nice to us.

We spent THREE hours at Spice Market and shared 4 appetizers, 4 entrees and they brought the nicest array of 4 desserts with "Happy Birthday" written on the plate in chocolate. Google it and check out their website and menu. This is downstairs. The building is an old slaughter house in the Meat Packing District. They have lovely private rooms down there for VIP celebrities and such.

Diego bought us all lunch and he's a very sweet and kind and sneaky guy! The food was SO good. We sat in this area.

C.J. on "the couch"...looking cute...like she always does. I sure love that clock! We made a quick stop at Andrew Moore Studios to meet Jamey's boss and to see where she works. Very cool space and Andrew is very nice. Jamey drove us some places in "Little Red"...the car we gave her a few years ago. She drives like a real New Yorker...as she should...with lots of confidence and her hand on the horn...and she can parallel park like nobody's business.

C.J. and Mary Do New York Part 2. Oct. 2011

Welcome to High Line Park. This is a rather new place. It is a 1.45 mile section of a former elevated freight railroad spur. It has been redesigned and planted as an aerial greenway and very cool. Well, THIS is a blurry picture...sorry.

Taken from the walkway. We saw quite a few smokestack's in the city. I love the way they look.

I liked this face that somebody painted on their building. The park has apartments, offices etc. on both sides.

There are spots where you can see the old train rails. Hey, to whom do those cute legs belong? Jamey!

At first this looked like a sculpture. It's birdhouses and the metal trays hold bird food...so it's both...sculpture AND birdhouse.

High Line is on the lower west side of Manhattan and they plan to extend it. You could tell what part was the newest as the plantings were smaller and just getting started. I'm sure in summer and spring there are more flowers etc. As you can see we had beautiful weather.

This a spot on the greenway where there was bleacher-like seating and the street view was glassed in. It was sorta like viewing a T.V. and I guess it looked like we were on T.V. to the people down below looking up at us.

We came to spot where the trains would pull in and out for loading and unloading or servicing or something like that. There were 4 or 5 windows like this. I love how they re-did the windows with colored glass.

The sign says it's 10th. Av. and W. 15th. St. At one point in our walk you could see the Statue of Liberty. This is a view of the river and I think that across the water is Jersey.

This park is so clever and well thought out. Here are sunning loungers and they are on wheels which are on the railroad tracks so you can wheel your chair to and fro into or out of the sun. We liked High Line so much.

We went to St. Patrick's Cathedral across from Rockefeller Center. It's a Roman Catholic church done in neo gothic style.

C.J. and Mary Do New York Part 1. Oct. 2011

These are the beautiful flowers that Jamey brought to our hotel room. She and C.J. had been waiting on me for a long time as my flight out of Atlanta was delayed for FOUR hours and then in New York I had to wait an hour in line for a cab. C.J. had flown in from Dallas. I finally arrived just after midnight. Jamey had our hotel room all fixed up with many kinds of cheese and crackers, fruit, magazines with a list of the doings in town and subway tickets for us.  FYI- Some of these blog pictures I took and some I got off the internet. You don't want to keep stopping for pictures...it interrupts the flow of foot traffic.

Jamey and I in the hotel lobby. This place was very art deco and the couch was a prime photo op place. Everybody was getting their picture taken there.

C.J. wearing "Marie"...she found this mink hat at a little apartment sale along one of the sidewalks. She got it for $15.! Then a little old lady hung out the window upstairs and said it was her hat. The lady's name was Marie..... C.J. said "Hi, I am C.J. and I love your hat and will enjoy it and take care of it." Thus that hat is called "Marie".

Our hotel...Beekman Tower. This was the first time I had stayed uptown...it's mid town actually. We were on the 11th. floor with not a great view. One side of this place has excellent views of the East River. I usually stay downtown closer to Jamey's neighborhood. The United Nation buildings are right nearby Beekman Tower. There were alot of diplomat apartment buildings in the surrounding blocks. The hotel sits right on the East River.

Our room had a kitchenette which was so nice to have. The maid cleaned up our fruit and cheese dishes and coffee cups every day. I could've stayed here for a month.

Here you can read all about the hotel.

The front of Beekman Tower. All the staff were very efficient and kind.

C.J. on the couch. Notice the clock above her head. I realized that I have a thing for clocks. We saw so many beautiful old clocks inside and outside wherever we went.

We went to Chrissie's apartment for a roof top brunch one day. She lives in a snazzy place downtown. Jamey and Chrissie went to college together so they have been friends a long time. She travels the world with her job having to do with trends in fashion. The pool is heated and there is a big bar-b-q area up there.

A view from Chrissie's roof. There are 360 degree views. You can walk all the way around the building. From one of the sides you can see the Empire State Building.

We thought it amazing that these big trees are growing on a roof. There are many beautiful gardens on folk's roof tops.

Left to right- C.J., Jamey, Chrissie and Justine (in the blue coat). Justine is Chrissie's sister and was visiting from San Francisco. It was a windy day up there.

I loved the vine on this building. It was turning red for the fall season.

Left to right- C.J. Seth, me, Michelle and Jamey. Seth went to school with Jamey and is also one of her oldest pals. He is tired...he was there from Washington D.C. where he lives with his parents while he works on his thesis. Michelle is a hairdresser. This picture was taken on the 26th. floor of our hotel where the views are spectacular from the bar/restaurant there. It looks especially lovely at night with all the city lights.

The architecture of New York City is absolutely amazing. Every where you look there is carvings of marble and granite and stone decorations above doorways and around windows. I tried not to gawk too much and keep my gaping mouth closed. I was so busy looking at everything and watching where I was walking that I didn't stop much to take pictures. I love history and the gothic style.