Grant applied for and was accepted into the RYLA (Rotary Youth Leadership Awards) Leadership Conference at Fitchburg State, which was a weekend full of presentations, activities, and workshops on Leadership Fundamentals, Ethics, Communication Skills, Problem Solving, Conflict Management and Global Citizenship - whew, that's a lot for one weekend!
This is literally the only picture I have, and it wasn't even of him at the conference. This is his picture from the last day of 10th grade, which was a few days prior. The drop off at the conference was so fast, and unexpected. We thought we would help him set up his room, but the RYLA team met us at the front door and said, "We'll take him from here, have a great weekend!"
So, what do the empty nesters do when he leaves the nest for a few days? We go to New York City, of course!
We got a nice "place" at the Hyatt in Chelsea! It was a long drive, so we were happy to check in and decompress after the craziness that was the Saw Mill River Parkway!
And then we headed out for a weekend full of adventures! Our first stop was the Theodore Roosevelt birth place but we stopped to see the (under construction) Flatiron Building along the way. They're apparently converting it to condos!
The first of many selfies that we took this weekend.
Theodore Roosevelt's real birth place was here, where he was born in 1858, but that building was torn down and rebuilt as a two story commercial building in 1916. TR died three years later, so the site was purchased by some "prominent citizens" in order to reconstruct his childhood home. It reopened in 1923, and was donated to the NPS in 1963. Don't forget to get your NPS book so you can get a stamp!
Once you go inside, there's a two room display of the timeline of Teddy Roosevelt's life, along with a few mementos. You can also take a tour of the house, but we did not have time since we arrived between tours. No worries if you can't - there's still plenty to see! This small museum alone is worth the visit.
You can even get a glimpse of his iconic Rough Riders Uniform that Roosevelt wore during the Spanish American War. Interestingly, it was made by Brooks Brothers!
One of my favorite things to see was the last pen used by President Roosevelt during his final term at the White House. It is a wooden ink pen with teeth marks at the end!
On the way to our next stop, we swung by The Bitter End, where we had our first date! Ahhh good memories!
It was a bit warm out, and we were a little thirsty so we stopped into the Red Lion, a place we had frequented back in the early 2000s. I took this picture JUST as France scored a goal against Norway in the World Cup!
Ahhhh. Some things will never change!
Ok, that's better! Cheers!
After a cold beverage on a hot day, we walked to Washington Square Park where we saw the Arch. This Arch (thank you, we don't need any more) was built in the late 1880s to commemorate the 100th anniversary of George Washington's inauguration.
Todd had never seen Hangman's Elm, which even though the rumor that it was a tree used to hang people is a myth, it's still THE oldest tree in all of Manhattan.
A nice, air conditioned taxi cab took us to the Hudson River where we first checked out Pier 54, or the Cunard White Star Line pier. The pier doesn't exist anymore but the frame of the entrance remains. This is where the Carpathia docked and dropped off the more than 700 remaining surviving passengers from the Titanic. It's also where the Lusitania sailed off from before it sunk after being hit by a German U-Boat just three years later.
We had wanted to visit Little Island Vista Point because seriously, isn't this place so cool? It's a little oasis on an island (on a pier) in the Hudson River!
This pier came about after what was here before was damaged in Hurricane Sandy. The landscaping is so beautiful here!
Todd, me, Freedom Tower and if you squint... the Statue of Liberty!
This island is a super cool park in the middle of the crazy city.
They even have an amphitheater where you can watch concerts.
I think this plant is called the Kniphofia "Rocket's Red Glare" Red Hot Poker which is really appropriate as we are a week away from the 250th birthday of America.
You get a really good view here of the former pier pilings from Pier 54, which was the Cunard Line pier more than 100 years ago. They have these piling remnants on the other side too, but you can only see them if the tide is low.
As we made our way over to the High Line to walk back to our hotel, I couldn't help but think... Tony Stark, is that you?
The High Line is a really cool trail that sits above the street - literally - for about a mile and a half. It was a former elevated railroad track that they made into a quiet and very botanical walking trail. At one point, it crosses over 10th Avenue, and you can just hang out and watch the cars go by!
I love a good piece of street art, but even better when it involves Mother Theresa and Gandhi.
But this was my favorite piece of art in the entire city. Give Us Mom!!! is by Croatian artist Nora Turato (who lives in Amsterdam). Gotta love the Comic Sans font! But yeah, no... she's right!
Todd took this picture along the High Line with the Empire State Building in the background and declared that it was his art! To be honest, I didn't love these sculptures. You can google Patricia Ayres High Line sculptures to find out more, but I feel like there's too much going on here. Something about bodies, military equipment, dressmakers, ciphers, saints, prisoners and clothing sizes. I dunno, it seems like it's trying too hard. This ain't a kitchen sink meal!
After a quick break at the hotel (and a drink at the bar!), we went down to the Village to our old stomping ground - the Comedy Cellar and the Fat Black Pussycat!
Todd and I spent quite a few evenings enjoying comedy shows at the Comedy Cellar! We didn't get tickets to the actual Comedy Cellar show on this particular evening, but that was ok, because the CC comedians also did a dueling show at the Fat Black Pussycat. You could not bring your cameras in - they had to be put in a bag that you could not open during the show. So we don't have any pictures! It was a good show, Ontonio Kareem was the funniest comedian we saw!
We went to the "early" show but that was during dinner time, so when we got out of the 90 minute comedy show, it was time for some dinner. Of course we went to John's!
At almost 10pm, this is what the line looks like!
At about 10:30pm, this is what our pizza looked like!
Many years ago, when Natalie was just a toddler, we took her - along with my parents and brother - to John's and we sat on the right side of this picture. And here we are again, almost 18 years later!
After dinner, we got a drink at the Blind Tiger across the street. We felt so old when we whipped out our IDs and the guy was like, "It's ok, you're good." OUCH!
We didn't wake up too early Saturday morning, because that's not really who we are. But when we did, we made our way down to Bryant Park so I could see famous Bryant Park public restrooms. I love those automatically changing plastic seat covers!
According to Wikipedia, this bathroom (complete with a very feisty attendant who yelled at me to keep my still-closed-and-dry umbrella in the umbrella holder!) costs $271,000 a year to operate - including more than $14,000 a year for those fresh flowers you see! But it really IS nice!
It started raining just as we approached the New York Public Library, which was all ready for the Pride Parade that was happening the following day (we had to go pick up Grant so we missed it).
Todd's hilarious shirt was purchased courtesy of his own forgetting to bring along an extra outfit for the last day. Funny story later about this in part 2!
The Schwarzman building is really beautiful, but it is a research library, so you cannot check out books here. But they do often have cool special exhibits that you can visit. If you're not doing actual research though, you cannot get to certain parts of the library, such as the Rose Main Reading Room. Astor Hall is where you enter though, and it's made of pretty Vermont marble.
The current exhibit was one of the BEST I have ever seen - it was the Polonsky Exhibition of the New York Public Library's Treasures!!! They have an original copy of the Bill of Rights!
One of the underlying themes in this exhibit was "The Road to Revolution" - appropriate for the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. There was a letter here from Alexander Hamilton to John Jay dated November 26, 1775, urging moderation and believing that "unrestrained revolutionary impulses could lead to violence and anarchy." Hmmm. Food for thought.
There was also a first edition of Thomas Payne's Common Sense!
Absolutely my favorite treasure that the New York Public Library holds are the original Winnie the Pooh stuffed animals. On his first birthday, the real Christopher Robin Milne received a teddy bear, purchased at Harrod's in London in 1921. Eeyore, Piglet, Kanga, Roo and Tigger eventually joined Pooh bear - although the original Roo was apparently lost in an apple orchard?! It was Christopher Robin's father A.A. Milne who wrote all of the classic children's books about the stuffed animal friends.
Another amazing treasure is an original Gutenberg Bible! This bible from 1455 is part of the rare book collection at the NY Public Library. There were originally 180 copies made, of which only about 45 still remain. It was the first book to be made in mass production as it used a printing press. When this copy originally arrived in NYC in 1847, James Lenox (the library's co-founder) "instructed the Customs House officers to remove their hats upon seeing it."
OMG IT'S A FLOOD MAP!!!! What?! This is actually a map of the history and meandering of the Mississippi River, done by Harold Fisk of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers back in 1944, although the info in the map goes back to the mid 1700s.
This is a paper knife owned by Charles Dickens that had the paw of his deceased cat Bob put on the end of it. They said that it was probably not a pen that Dickens really used, but likely more of a decorative tribute to the memory of Bob the cat.
Todd said that he really wanted to read an actual book in the New York Public Library - but where does one do that, given that it's only a research library? Well good news, they have a little quiet room where you can do some actual reading! For the record, he chose Shakespeare for his quiet reading time, lol.
I picked up a book about Germany by an author named Bailey (!) but the picture didn't look as cool when I realized there was a swastika on the cover. Grrrr. No thanks. Instead, I found a good book about Venice, where we will be going later this summer (again!)
The ceiling in the western bay of the McGraw Rotunda is just SO beautiful.
McGraw Rotunda has the Salomon Room on one side of it and the Bill Blass Public Catalog room on the other side - and you need to go through this public catalog room to get to the Main Reading Room. But they said you can't go in there unless you are actually working on research.
And now you just get a cool picture of me in the McGraw Rotunda. One day, Todd and I both will learn how to take a picture without having our finger in the photo!
The Salomon Room has a bunch of old oil paintings on the wall and a HUGE skylight. It was delightfully air conditioned on a very warm and muggy day.
When I was coming down the stairs, exiting the NY Public Library, it hit me that they filmed a scene from the 1982 movie Annie here - which was by far, my absolute FAVORITE movie as a young child. This is where the newly-escaped orphans, who are trying to warn Mr. Warbucks that Shirley and Ralph Mudge are NOT Annie's true birth parents, spot Annie and her kidnappers in the back of a car on 5th Avenue! I don't know if this is Leo Lenox or Leo Astor (named after the founders) but there are two of these big marble lions out front.
I snapped this picture of 5th Avenue as we crossed the street, on our way to our next stop.
Who doesn't love Grand Central Station with the Empire State Building in the background!?
Lemme just have my BTS moment, ok?
Ok, thanks.
We made our way downtown for a quick drink at the White Horse Tavern. This tavern was originally founded as the Wooden Horse Tavern in 1641 - although because that was the name of a torture device (lol), they changed the name a few years later.
Yes. Yes of course.
This isn't the original building, but it IS from the mid 1800s. Over the years, it's been home to a variety of merchants, but when prohibition ended, it became a tavern again in 1933.
Thanks for the memories, White Horse Tavern!
Stay tuned for part 2 of our NYC adventures!
