Wanderer Photography

This is the last part of our New York trip. On a partially cloudy day, we started off from West side of Manhattan on a boat trip to take us around the bay and Manhattan.

It was pretty interesting and the views were of parts of the city where we could not reach (at least easily).

While we have had a view of Lower Manhattan when we went to Liberty Island, we did not have a view of the East Side. Here, the Brooklyn bridge and the One World Trade Center in the background.

After the boat trip, we took a stroll around the city, in particular, near the new One World Trade Center building that was just being finished.

And we walked around the place where the twin WTC towers used to be and enjoyed an icecream in the park just outside, on the shore, facing New Jersey.

Walking a bit more through the city – there was one building that I really wanted to see:

Yes, this is the “Friends” building. This is featured in the TV-show Friends as the place where Monica & the rest of the friends live. It’s not much, but I liked that show quite a lot, so it is a landmark for me.

We walked a bit more through the city and got to Central Station – I was expecting it to be more of a landmark. Instead, it is pretty covered by the tall skyscrapers just outside the building. The paintings of the ceiling show constellations and give a nice pleasant tone to the building. Unfortunately, not so nice were the officers that got their focus on me and suddenly really close to me as I was setting up my camera and tripod. It was all good, “sportsmanlike” conduct.

At some point, we also caught the sunset on the streets of the city. It is really amazing how many advantages a grid system has. Besides the obvious traffic and purely organized nature (and symmetrical and mathematical and deductive – you can find out where you are based on just numbers), if you are facing West, you are going to be treated by some lovely sunsets.

New York is a city of mixed feelings for me. On the one hand, it’s a big city, so there’s always something to do and you can easily “lose yourself” in the city and meet new people. On the other hand, it’s a big city – so it comes with everything that a big city comes with: shady areas and people, self-centered people, disorganization, pollution, crowded places, bad transportation (although better than expected) and many others that are also reasons I don’t like the city where I was born.

This ends my trip around the US from last summer. Now it’s time for more adventures.

Over and out,

/cd

Later on Saturday, the clouds left us be, so we were able to “walk the city” and, at midnight, go to the top of Empire State Building.

First we walked around the city for a bit and ended up around Times Square.

Everyone is going to Times Square. We actually went through Times Square, BUT (and this is a really big but) it was so crowded and loud and noisy (both audio and visual) that let’s say… it  made it’s presence felt on me.

Getting closer, you can already see that the camera can’t cope with the contrast. Hell, even my eyes couldn’t cope with the contrast in Times Square. Anyway… we went on top of the Empire State Building.

And the view was amazing. I have seen pictures, I have heard stories. But the feeling of being above the city, above everything that moves, being afraid to take that extra step… it is pretty breathtaking.

And being able to look everywhere and see the city and minuscule people and cars moving around – pure power and enjoyment.

Like this view of New Jersey in the background (above).

Because you sometimes feel jaded…

And the entrance sign. The Empire State Building is an amazing piece of architecture – being built so tall on a limb of land in the middle of the city, especially with the technology at the beginning of the century. Built like a tank, to last for generations.

/cd

Welcome to part 3.

On Saturday we went around town – we took a bus ride through Bronx, Queens and ended up the day on top of the Rockefeller Center. We also walked quite a bit around Central Park and around other attractions.

Here, Mom is photobombing (lower left corner) a picture just outside the Yankees stadium (it was a game day, so it was quite crowded).

As we went through the day, the clouds followed us up to the top of the Rockefeller center. Here is a view from the top towards Central Park (north).

And a view towards South, with the Empire State Building in the center.

And a closer shot with Empire State Building and a tiny tiny Statue of Liberty in the background, with New Jersey on the far right.

That’s it for now.

/cd

Trying to be agile, to make small incremental updates rather than big blog posts. See – software engineering applied to real life 🙂

Back to the story. After getting some well deserved sleep on Friday, on Saturday we headed out to visit the upper Manhattan and other parts of the town. Apparently, I was not in a very picture-taking mood on that day with the exception of these two churches: Riverside Church and Cathedral church of St. John the Divine. And I know that New York is not best known for these, but I like churches.

And these churches are interesting for me because they look like some of the oldest pieces still standing of the city, while they are still pretty new – late 19th and early 20th century.

And even though the walls are pretty empty on the inside, their greatness and majesty make me appreciate them.

Walking a bit further to the front of the church gives us a better view of the altar.

And even “behind” the altar.

And while I appreciated the main halls a lot, the side rooms were pretty … creepy. I understand that they are exhibition halls, but… does that really belong in a church? And the answer is yes – it does. Since this is America, the land of the free, everyone is free to make a contribution to their religion. And since the coasts are more diversified in terms of religious choices, the churches start running out of money – so, maintaining the church becomes a business that needs to be attended like one – with entrance fees, reprofiling towards gallery exhibitions in some of the rooms etc.

I found that room pretty creepy. It looked like some small-Satan-s marching with a dog in front, willing to stop them. “Art”.

The shadow of the cross is what caught my eye in this picture.

The entrance / exit was very impressive and the whole church had an European flavor to it.

Moving on to the second church… View from the middle towards the altar.

And towards the entrance.

I like the symmetry of the buildings a lot and that is most likely what picks my brain every time.

Over and out for tonight.

/cd