Two Islands Today

We left Manhattan today to venture to a decommissioned subway station in Brooklyn to visit the New York Transit Museum.

It was fascinating; we spent more than two hours there learning about the construction of the subway and its evolution over the years. I enjoyed seeing all of the old subway cars and the advertising (commercial, public service, and internal) that they carried.

I also liked the exhibit about subway fares over the years, including the invention and discontinuance of the token and MetroCard (well, the MetroCard is still valid for a few more months).

We had lunch at a Just Salad near Brooklyn Borough Hall (formerly City Hall until the consolidation of New York City in 1898); Just Salad was just ok, but Borough Hall was worth seeing.

Our next stop was back in Manhattan – a visit to Pete’s Tavern which is one of the oldest taverns in New York. We each had a pint of Pete’s 1864 Ale (quite good) and spent a little time enjoying the atmosphere.

We left Pete’s and walked back to Union Square, then into Greenwich Village.

We were going to go to Washington Square Park but the winds were crazy, so we found a subway stop and returned to our hotel, which is hosting a group of Italian marathon runners here for Sunday’s race. The staff looked a little harried by their arrival.

On our way to dinner, we stopped at the New York Public Library to see the “100 Years of the New Yorker” exhibit. A few small samples:

From the New Yorker’s Fact Checking Department
Further corrections
McSorley’s Old Ale House, 1937 (from the New Yorker’s story about the oldest Irish saloon in New York)

They threw us out of the library at closing time and we walked along 41st Street (Library Way); the sidewalks there have many interesting plaques.

I wonder what’s special about The Chemists Club Hotel? We didn’t stop to find out.

And then it was back to the hotel to pack for our flight home tomorrow.

A rainy day in Manhattan

The weather forecast for today called for about 1.5 inches of rain, so we decided to plan on visiting museums instead of wandering the island as usual. It was raining lightly when we left the hotel for our first (and, as it turned out, only) museum, the Frick Collection, so instead of walking the 30 blocks to the Frick, we only walked as far as Grand Central so we could pick up the 6 train to 68th Street.

The Frick honored our San Jose Museum of Art membership, which let us skip the long ticket line; soon enough, we were in the only part of the museum that they let you photograph, the Garden Court.

There are no labels on the art in the Frick – you have to use the Bloomberg Connects app if you want to know anything about the artwork. It was a little awkward, but it worked.

And the place was crowded – there was a line for the gift shop! The Frick had been closed for several years for renovation, and New Yorkers (and visitors) are flocking to it every day; it was even more attractive on a rainy day.

We would have eaten in the museum cafe, but the reviews I read on Yelp say that it has three major problems:

  • It’s overpriced
  • The portions are tiny
  • You can’t get in without a reservation, and the reservations were all gone for the day

Instead, we stayed until we’d been in every room in the Frick and seen as much as we wanted. I even managed to sneak in a photo!

Thomas Cromwell (Hans Holbein the Younger, 1532-33)

It had rained a lot while we were in the museum, but it wasn’t too bad when we started walking towards the subway. By the time we reached Lexington, it was raining hard again, so we ducked into Vive la Crêpe and had a late lunch, watching the rain get harder and harder until there was a break – we dashed to the subway and got back to our hotel, slightly damp but none the worse for wear.

We didn’t go out again until dinner time. Dinner was a slice and a salad at Roma Pizza, followed by a walk to Times Square and ice cream from Van Leeuwen in Grand Central.

The clouds were still very low over the tall buildings, making Manhattan even more magical than usual.

We returned to the hotel, dry and happy, despite the 1.75 inches of rain that Apple says we got today.