We set our alarms for 7 a.m. Mom got up a little earlier, took a shower and got ready for the day. I laid in bed for a few more minutes before I decided to get ready for the day. When she was done, I headed in there and finished getting ready. We had nothing planned for the morning, so Mom booked us a tour at the Empire State Building for 9 a.m. We figured we should at least go into one of the many popular buildings since we're not able to go into the Twin Towers like I wanted to if I ever made it to NYC one day.
We ate our bagels and bananas, packed up our day packs and headed out. We walked the few blocks down from our hotel to the Empire State Building, which is the ninth tallest building in the United States and on 350 Fifth Avenue, so it was a short walk for us. As we got closer to it, it took up the entire block and was an absolutely massive building. We were in awe. I never thought I would be going up in the Empire State Building.
We stood in the "paid ticket" line and met the door lady named Denise. She chatted with us and a lady and her son, who were from Denver, Colorado, for a while.
We talked about how long Denise has been working for the Empire State Building, how much she made back then and where she was during 9/11. She said she started working there back in 1998, her mom and sister also worked at the building, she made $2 an hour back then, it's way more now, and she said she was getting ready for work when the planes hit the WTC's. She said the Empire State Building wasn't open for tourists quite yet (she was thankful for that), but for the rest of the day they were on lockdown for the fear that another plane would be rammed into it as well. She added that day was utter chaos, and they were uptown from the towers. She couldn't imagine how insane it was downtown near the towers. We all shared our stories from that day as more people joined us in our line. It was getting close to 9 a.m.
Once we reached our tour time, we followed them in, went through an airport-like security, our picture was taken for our souvenir to get after the tour and then we were taken up to the "museum" area to look at the history of the ESB. The elevators go pretty fast. We were up to the 50th floor in seconds. We walked around for a little while taking in all of the history, seeing pictures, reading about famous movies filmed in or on top of this building, took a few photos and then continued up another elevator to the 86th floor. You could go up to the 102nd floor if you paid extra for that view but we didn't.
Once on the 86th floor, we saw a 360-degree view of the city and beyond. I told Mom, I've been up to many different towers, buildings and structures in multiple cities and countries but still have never been up to the Space Needle--and I live there! We went outside and took in the views as well. I did the Empire Strikes Back (GC4D7F) virtual cache as we enjoyed our surroundings. I was still disappointed that I didn't get to come to NYC before the towers came down. It just wrecked the city skyline. It is no longer iconic. A huge piece of the city died that day. The One World Trade Center is dumb and sticks out like a sore thumb.
We got our fill and started our way down. Before we left, we were able to purchase our souvenir pictures and of course, I purchased ours and then we went down to the gift shop. I picked up my standard magnet and postcards, among a few other things and bought myself a drink. Mom got her shirt for her quilt, we used the bathroom and continued on our adventure.
We walked over to Macy's but it wasn't open yet, so we didn't get to go inside to play with the giant piano, so we bypassed it, saw Madison Square Gardens, Penn Station and walked up to The High Line, an old raised railroad that they turn into a walking trail. We stopped by The Vessel and went inside to admire the architecture and then noticed another building nearby, The Shed, which reminded me of the chubby caterpillar from A Bug's Life (1998). We then started our mile and a half-ish long walk along The High Line.
The High Line is an elevated old railroad bed that was turned into a walking trail. It starts in the Hudson Yards area, through Chelsea and ends at the Meat Packing District. It opened in June 2009. There were so many people on it we had to scoot through people every once and a while. I saw there was an Adventure Lab so we did that as we walked and took pictures. It was a really nice trail and I bet it's even nicer when there are less people on it. We walked through the Chelsea area and noticed an outdoor market in the covered area. People were selling their knick knacks. We walked through and looked at some of the stuff. We didn't buy anything because we really weren't interested in it.
We reached the end and were plopped down in the Meat Packing District. Mom took a bunch of photos while I looked at the map to see where we wanted to go to next. Our next adventure was Greenwich Village. We walked the several blocks south, hung a left to the east and followed Christopher to the corner of Bedford and Grove. This virtual cache, The One Where We Went to The Friend's Apartment (GC891ZJ), was basically a selfie with the apartment building in the background. I've always wondered where this was in NYC since I am an avid watcher of Friends. We continued our way onto Bleecker and MacDougal Streets.
This area is known for unique food and was researched by Mom. She had written down five or six places she wanted to try and go to. We found out two of them were either closed for renovation or closed on that particular day. We found Joe's Pizza on Carmine and ended up going down the wrong end of Carmine and had to turn around. I asked Mom if this is what we wanted for lunch and she said, sure, it was about lunch time. We walked down the correct end of Carmine and went into Joe's. Mom ordered two slices of NY pizza while I grabbed some napkins. We saw the park, Father Demo Square, across the street and it had benches. We ate our foldable pizza in the park while we people watched. I ended up getting pizza grease on my shorts because the pizza was so greasy and gooey. It was delicious though.
After our pizza, we walked across the street to Molly's Cupcakes. Both Mom and I remember watching them compete in Cupcake Wars. We looked at their menu that was posted in the window before we went in. I am a huge fan of Oreos, so I wanted the Oreo cupcake and Mom decided on the peach cobbler one. We went in and ordered. I wanted to sit on the swing chairs. Our cupcakes came with small plates and a fork. They were pretty good. I can see why they won Cupcake Wars back in 2009. We used the restroom before we went because the opportunity was there.
I asked Mom if she wanted to go to any of the other place she had written down and decided not to because she didn't want to overeat. I didn't either. I told her if she wanted something else, we could take it to go. She said nah. We moved on to the next thing on Mom's list, Washington Square Park.
We walked the few short blocks to Washington Square Park, near NYU, so Mom could fulfil a bucket list item, getting a picture taken with someone playing chess. Washington Square Park is known for its chess players and this park has also been featured in several movies and television shows over the years. It has a fountain, a few statues and the very famous structure, the Washington Square Arch. We stood there in the southwest entrance deciding which chess player we were going to ask. We saw a guy sitting at the chess board waiting for someone to play with, so we decided on him. Mom sheepishly walked over and asked him. She explained her intension and that she would play him for his time. He agreed but he said that he will do ya one better. He said, I will teach you how to play chess. Turns out, we chose a gentleman who is actually a chess coach and plays often in this park. Everyone in this neighborhood knows everyone. We all introduced ourselves and his name was Marcel, aka Marty. We hung out with him for about 30-40 minutes while he taught us the basics on chess. We learned what each piece did, how they moved and the strategy behind it. He even had Mom play a pretend game or two. I got several photos and a video.
Afterwards, Mom gave him $20 for the experience and we exchanged Facebook and Instagram handles. He got a picture of us for his chess group on Facebook. We thanked him several times and went on our way. If we remember anything from our trip, this was the most significant. It was fun to connect with a New Yorker in his element.
We walked the rest of the park and there were tons of college kids everywhere. There were even some kids who were getting ready to graduate. We saw a girl who must have gotten her PT coat recently because she was taking graduation pictures around the park. We spent time near the fountain, did the virtual cache, Washington Square Park (GC37FC), which took us to the statue to answer questions, admired the iconic arch and on the way out we found a traditional cache called, Sweet & Simple (GC9MNVN). It was an easy find but super hard to put back with all the muggles walking around. I just pretended I was on the phone when I put it back. No one seemed to notice.
We decided to get back onto Broadway and head north to the Flat Iron Building. Along the way I saw a Goodwill so we went inside. It was so tiny and massively picked through. I was hoping to find a cool NY firefighter shirt. I did find one but it was the wrong size. It would have been cool to have a 9/11 inspired shirt. We continued on.
We walked the six or so blocks up to the Flat Iron area and Mom saw the God forsaken Harry Potter Store. She made me go in with her and browse. It was packed with tons of people. We finally go a hold of Erika to find out if she wanted a couple things from there. We found some stuff for her and Zach including a couple T-shirts, chocolate frogs and butter beer. I got a couple things for my co-worker Debbie because she is into Harry Potter. We paid and got the heck out of there.
We were mostly up in this area to see the Flat Iron Building and to go into Memories of NY, an affordable souvenir shop. I found just about everything I came for. I got some magnets, postcards, a couple keychains, some iconic photos around NYC including the Twin Towers (which are really hard to find), Brooklyn Bridge and the Empire State Building, I got a T-shirt and some stickers. I really tried to find some Friend's stuff for Amy, but it was really hard to find. Probably, because it's 20 years removed from television at this point, or everyone bought it all up. The old man who owned the store threw in a couple free items and I thanked him. Mom also found some stuff for the people she wanted to bring back souvenirs for. We looked at the time and needed to start making our way to the piers for our City Lights Tour.
We found the closest yellow line subway entrance at 23rd Street and waited for the N train. This is where we made our first mistake. We should have walked a few more blocks west to get on the orange F line instead, but we didn't.
I thought the pier we needed was closer to Battery Park. It wasn't and we got off further south than we were supposed to. We got off at the Whitehall stop, where you would get onto the Staten Island Ferry, looked around and realized I had made a big mistake. There was no other way to get to where we needed to be except for walking. We needed to be at Pier 36 before 6:00 p.m. and it was already 5:15. We were not happy that we had to walk almost two miles to where we needed to go. Our feet were already exhausted from walking around all day. It was an agonizing walk down the East River Bikeway.
About halfway there, my feet felt like they were on fire, and I could definitely feel those blisters forming! Mom was not happy, but we monster trucked it the whole two miles and got to the correct pier within minutes of our scheduled leave time. I wasn't sure if Mom intended on booking this tour so early in the evening or she thought it might get dark so we could see the lights at night, but it never got dark enough. Maybe about a month and a half ago it would have been.
Our tickets were scanned from the email on my phone, we boarded and found a table to sit at while we got ready to go. Meanwhile, I wrote down some notes in my little notebook about our trip thus far. If this was the only "uh oh" on this trip, I'd be fine with that. They started up the engines and we started our trip up down the East River and into the Upper New York Bay. We listened to the lady on the loudspeaker talk about the landmarks along the way such as the Manhattan Bridge, the Brooklyn Bridge, the tunnel breather, Governor's Island, Ellis Island, the fort at Battery Park, the Statue of Liberty and the city skyline. I learned a lot while we were out on the water. As we got closer to the Statue of Liberty, both Mom and I went out to the deck to take in the views. It was a little chilly but nothing we couldn't handle. We spent the better half of our hour out there taking in the views and the experience of being in New York City.
We took several great pictures of the Statue of Liberty and the skyline of Manhattan. I was still missing that iconic skyline with the Twin Towers. Oh, how I wished I could have seen that in person. We headed back to the pier after our hour was up. I thought the boat ride was pretty cool even though Mom probably intended it to be a "night" city lights tour. This is where we made our second mistake, there were no subway stations near us but after looking back at what we did instead, we should have taken the F orange line to our next place we wanted to go, but we didn't.
We found ourselves in Chinatown and Little Italy as we wandered the streets trying to find our dinner location, McSorely's. Once we found our way out of Chinatown, we got onto Bowery and walked north towards the Ukrainian Village part of town, west of the East Village.
It was several blocks, and our feet were definitely feeling it, but we trudged on. I was looking forward to sitting for a bit once we got to the pub. We walked a few more blocks and I was so excited we were almost there. We made a right turn and there it was, McSorley's Irish Pub, established in 1854.
We went inside and was greeted instantly but a waiter in his late 20's. He was from Flushing, over in Queens by where the Met's play baseball and the US Open is held in Flushing Meadows. We told him we were from Washington State and live south of Seattle. He asked if we were enjoying our trip to NYC and we said, we sure were! He was happy to hear that. He asked us if we wanted light or dark. I said light for both of us. They didn't ask for our ID and it is mandatory you drink at least two beers while you were here. Luckily, the mugs were small. Somehow, I got Mom to drink hers because it was part of the experience eating and drinking at this pub. He brought us our beers and we asked if we could order food. He said, you sure can...it is mostly bar food because we are really not known for our food. We both ordered chicken sandwiches and fries. He added, they will be up in a jiffy. We thanked him.
We spent time drinking our beers and looking at all the history this place had in it. The only two times this McSorley's has closed in its history was in 2016 when they had to close due to health violations and when everyone was forced to in 2020 because of the pandemic. It has sat famous authors, artists, ball players, President's, mayors, residents and thieves throughout its melting pot of history. It didn't allow women until 1970 and features sawdust on the floor which is great for absorbing spills--the last known bar to still use this practice.
Our food came and it hit the spot with all the walking we had to do earlier. It was a pretty chill place with a lot of history. I recommend it to anyone who is looking for a laid-back atmosphere with inexpensive food and drinks. Remember though, it's cash only! We paid, thanked our waiter and checked our map to find our closest subway to take us back uptown. I found one that would get us back within a few blocks of our hotel. We got on the green line 6 train at Astor Place, and it took us uptown to 51st Street and Lexington.
We got off and walked up to the street level to orient ourselves of where we needed to go. We walked west three blocks towards Rockefeller Center and then five blocks down to 46th. I was so excited to get to our room and take my shoes off!
When we did get to our room, we both did just that, took our shoes off. I got in a shower, relaxed, posted pictures on Facebook, talked to Ben for a little bit, Mom chatted with Dad and then we watched some really late sports on television for a while until we decided to go to bed. Watching sports suck on the east coast!
Next Adventure: NYC-DE-PA Vacation: Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, 9/11 Museum & Memorial, Brooklyn Bridge, DUMBO and Ghostbusters HQ (Day 4)
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