Category Archives: Travel

Twas a long day and a long drive. I hope I’m where I was supposed to be!

In summary: New York City had a life of it’s own in my head. In early August 2016, I visited there for the first time. On the first afternoon we visited Central Park and were there for hours, despite the jet lag. We started our first full day with a tour of the Intrepid and the Space Shuttle Enterprise. Next was the full cruise (two and a half hours plus) around Manhattan – south down the Hudson River into the Upper Harbor, up the East River under the “BMW” bridges, past Midtown and the UN, into the Harlem River, into the Hudson River, past the George Washington Bridge, and past Grant’s Tomb.

In retrospect, perspective is interesting, especially in New York City. As noted, I had some odd ideas about what New York City would be like, but had a wonderful time during my entire stay. However, studying maps in advance to have “the lay of the land” is one thing. Being there on the ground is another. And now I’m finding as I’m writing these posts that even that wasn’t what it seemed.

For example, take this picture of the Upper West Side. To me it was totally disconnected from the Central Park area of Manhattan. This is because of how I got to here – taxi from our hotel to the Intrepid and then to the cruise, which spent two and a half hours taking us all around Manhattan. So to me, even five minutes ago, Central Park (where we were staying) was one area of the city, while this was a separate area of the city that was somewhere “over there,” out of sight, “probably” miles and miles and a cab ride of unknown length away.

Yet now, as I’m using Google Maps to identify places for me, I see that these buildings along the Hudson River were only five blocks away from where we were staying, an easy fifteen minute walk. If I had known to go that way instead of that other way, which is also tied to the “if I had had the time” issue.

Perspective. Weird stuff. This also shows how perspective is related to time, but I guess that’s a discussion for another day.

So, four blocks directly behind these buildings is the southern end of Central Park that I had explored the previous day after arriving in New York City. Looking at the map (now) it seems that Lincoln Center is right about in between these buildings and the Park. That’s another place that we’ll have to get to on the next trip since I didn’t even know we were that close and didn’t get there.

The map tells me that the elevated highway here is the Joe DiMaggio Highway. We may not know where Jolting Joe has gone, but we know where his highway will take you.

Just a few blocks away from returning to the dock at the Circle Line Sightseeing Cruise dock, the Empire State Building’s coming into view. What’s also interesting is to go look at the Google Maps photos of this area. These pictures were taken in August 2016, but the large, “three-tiered” building on the left and the fancy triangular building on the right don’t show in the Google Maps photos. The triangular building is being built in the Google Maps imagery, but the “three-tiered” building is just a dirt lot.

Things change fast in the big city!

There’s our Empire State Building. We’ll get up close and personal with it in a couple of days. (Trip time. The way these posts are getting dragged out, it might be months before you get to see it. Sorry!)

I love different, odd, and unique architecture. Do you see that square, black, Allianz building there just to the right of center? It’s not different, odd, or unique. It’s boring. but the twisty, turny building next to it that’s built like a ramp? That’s apparently the Mercedez Benz building and being built that way it creates about three dozen penthouses instead of one or two, all with a great view of the city, the river, and New Jersey beyond.. However much those penthouses cost, I’m sure that I won’t be buying one any time soon!

Here’s the other side of that “triangular-shaped” building, just to the north of the Terminal 5 building (with the blue-green glass facade). Our odd building not only has a unique outline, it’s got a big hole gouged out of the side. And the windows are in a bizarre, almost random pattern. This is a building I would love to tour, or at least just spend a couple of hours wandering around, taking pictures.

(Have I mentioned recently that I take a LOT of pictures?)

Almost home! There’s the Intrepid, with the Concorde on display on the dock next to it and the angular grey building that contains the Space Shuttle Enterprise.

As we swing around to pull into our pier next to the Intrepid, we get to see the Concorde from the back. And the crowd waiting to get in to tour it. At least the rain had (more or less) stopped.

Once back on dry land, it was time to hustle across the city for our evening’s entertainment. I thought we would just grab a cab and be gone. I never saw the trek that lay ahead of us.

In summary: New York City had a life of it’s own in my head. In early August 2016, I visited there for the first time. On the first afternoon we visited Central Park and were there for hours, despite the jet lag. We started our first full day with a tour of the Intrepid and the Space Shuttle Enterprise. Next was the full cruise (two and a half hours plus) around Manhattan – south down the Hudson River into the Upper Harbor, up the East River under the “BMW” bridges, past Midtown and the UN, into the Harlem River, into the Hudson River, and past the George Washington Bridge.

A few minutes south of the George Washington Bridge, among all of the high-rise apartment buildings, these two distinctive towers rose above the trees.Officially this is the General Grant National Memorial. Unofficially it’s the punchline of one of the oldest and silliest jokes in the book.Next to it, looking very ornate and European-cathedral-like, is the Riverside Cathedral. Just a block away from Grant’s Tomb and the Riverside Cathedral is the campus of Columbia University.From this point you can see down the river all the way to the skyscrapers at the southern tip of Manhattan.There wasn’t nearly as much wildlife on the Hudson side of the island as there had been on the East River side. Just this one seagull bobbing high in the water.The tall, brown building here looks like the place designed by Evo Shandor (a well-known Gozer worshiper in his day) where Dana’s apartment was located. Good to see it survived the explosion of the Stay-Puft Marshamallow Man.Although looking back at it, the clouds were gathering and making me wonder if Zool was going to make a reappearance…That’s a BIG toy boat tied up at the 79th Street Boat Basin – just what you need if you want to hop down to the Bahamas for the week and your Gulfstream is in the shop.I thought these three buildings were a lot more interesting before I looked up what they were. Let’s just say that they’ve got one of my least-favorite human being’s name plastered all over them. If you zoom in on the far right building you can see the name between the school bus and the green freeway sign.

Next, we finally make it back to port after our circumnavigation of Manhattan.

In summary: New York City had a life of it’s own in my head. In early August, I visited there for the first time. On the first afternoon we visited Central Park and were there for hours, despite the jet lag. We started our first full day with a tour of the Intrepid and the Space Shuttle Enterprise. Next was the full cruise (two and a half hours plus) around Manhattan – south down the Hudson River into the Upper Harbor, up the East River under the “BMW” bridges, past Midtown and the UN, into the Harlem River., and around the northern tip of Manhattan Island into the Hudson River.

As soon as you turn south on the Hudson River, two things are obvious. First, the Hudson is a honkin’ big river. It’s also a true river, not a glorified tidal estuary like the East River or a man-made ship canal like the Harlem River.The second thing, of course, is that honkin’ big bridge crossing that honkin’ big river. It’s the George Washington Bridge, connecting Manhattan with New Jersey. Unlike the East River, which we saw with dozens of bridges across it, only the George Washington Bridge crosses the Hudson from Manhattan.As we got closer, I noticed something at the base of the East Tower. I had not known it was there or expected it at all, but I immediately knew what it was.The George Washington Bridge is a tall one, allowing ocean-going freighters and ships to pass underneath. It reminds me of the Golden Gate Bridge in many ways.At the base of the East Tower is The Little Red Lighthouse. The subject of a favorite children’s story, The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge by Hildegarde Swift, it was to be torn down in 1948, after the bridge was built. However, the beloved book had come out in 1942 and the uproar that followed the announcement that the lighthouse was to be dismantled led the Coast Guard to donate it to the New York Parks Department.Not only was I caught off guard by the appearance of The Little Red Lighthouse, I was completely caught off guard by my reaction to it. I remember the story as a favorite of mine from when I was very young, but I don’t remember thinking of it in decades. Suddenly seeing it there took me straight back to being four or five years old. The whole experience was quite moving.South of the George Washington Bridge, Upper Manhattan stretches away to the south, with the skyscrapers at the southern tip of the island visible far away in the distance.This side of the island not only has more rows of matching high-rise apartments and townhomes, it also has the main north-south train line. Here’s an Amtrak train headed north toward that bridge we just had swung open for us a few minutes earlier. Just beyond these Washington Heights high-rises are several hospitals, including the Columbia University Medical Center and New York Presbyterian Hospital.

Next, we’ll see Upper Manhattan and the Upper West Side.

In summary: New York City had a life of it’s own in my head. In early August, I visited there for the first time. On the first afternoon we visited Central Park and were there for hours, despite the jet lag. We started our first full day with a tour of the Intrepid and the Space Shuttle Enterprise. Next was the full cruise (two and a half hours plus) around Manhattan – south down the Hudson River into the Upper Harbor, up the East River under the “BMW” bridges, past Midtown and the UN, and into the Harlem River.

Along the northern section of the Harlem River the scenery changes rather significantly, at least the view from the river on the starboard side of the boat. The banks rise with steep cliffs and everything’s covered in forest.

The tower here is in Highbridge Park and was originally part of a system to bring fresh water in from upstate. The bridge shown, not surprisingly, is the High Bridge.

The Alexander Hamilton Bridge is just upstream from the High Bridge and it also is beautiful and spectacular. (There is no Aaron Burr Bridge – I checked. Although Burr’s cousin apparently built the first wooden bridge across the Hudson River about the same time that Aaron was doing that dueling thing.)

The aforementioned cliffs and forests. It reminded me a lot of scenes in Vermont along the Connecticut River (and others). Given that it’s the same general part of the world and the geology is similar, that’s not too surprising.

Looking at the map, I see that this is actually the Harlem River Park. I was constantly amazed at the number and size of parks in New York City. Given the price of land in the city, it’s very much to their credit that so much of it is kept open.

Looks are deceiving here – the park is a long, thin strip along the river but isn’t very wide. At the top of the bluff the park is only about a block to two blocks wide, then it’s wall to wall high-rise apartments again. If you look carefully, just over the top of the trees at the top of the bluff in the center, you can just see the top of one of the buildings.

Remember I mentioned the water birds that seemed to not be bothered by the big city being right there?

This large blue heron was cruising along and made a perfect landing on that old, rotted pier piling.

North of Smuggler’s Cove the east bank of the Harlem River turns back into a standard NYC industrial landscape. At the far northern tip of Manhattan Island you’ll find the Broadway Bridge. Yes, that Broadway. It’s not just the theaters down by Times Square.

While that might be the northern tip of Manhattan Island on the left bank of the Broadway Bridge, it’s not the northern tip of the borough of Manhattan. Over on the right bank is Marble Hill, which is the only part of Manhattan on the North American mainland. It used to be a part of the island, but the 1895 construction of the Harlem Ship Canal cut it off from Manhattan and left it as its own island. When the river on the north side was filled in 1914, the island of Marble Hill became a part of the mainland. But they didn’t want to be part of the Bronx, so a special resolution was passed making it a part of Manhattan, as well as a part of New York County, not Bronx County.

Word is they’re still pretty touchy about that.

Once the Harlem River reaches the northern tip of Manhattan Island the waterway turns east. It’s actually the Ship Canal, but this short east-west section is referred to as the Spuyten Duyvil Creek. (Just a touch of the old Dutch settlement influence in that name I suspect.)

At the very northern tip of Manhattan Island here is Muscota Marsh and the Columbia University athletic complex, including the rowing center seen here.

Passing under the Henry Hudson Bridge, you come to the Amtrak Bridge at the end of the Harlem River. This bridge isn’t tall enough for one of those Canada geese to go under, so it swings out of the way for everyone that passes on the river, then swings back for the trains.

Heading out onto the Hudson River to finish our circumnavigation of Manhattan, we see the Amtrak bridge closing, with the Henry Hudson Bridge high above it.

Next, south on the Hudson and back to our port.

Remember the pictures and stories from our August New York trip? So did I, finally. (Damn election!)

In summary: New York City had a life of it’s own in my head. In early August, I visited there for the first time. On the first afternoon we visited Central Park and were there for hours, despite the jet lag. We started our first full day with a tour of the Intrepid and the Space Shuttle Enterprise. Next was the full cruise (two and a half hours plus) around Manhattan – south down the Hudson River into the Upper Harbor, up the East River under the “BMW” bridges., and past Midtown and the UN.

After passing Gracie Manor and waving at the mayor (who did not come out to the lawn as we passed and wave back) we entered the Harlem River. These matching high-rise apartments along 1st Avenue at about 106th Street looked impressive. However, behind them and around them were block after block filled with groups of buildings that looked like clones of each other. That makes me think that these might not be high rent, in-demand properties, despite their river views. I could be 100% wrong and would look forward to be corrected by anyone who knows better.

I kept discounting any expectations of wildlife in the city, until I got near the water. Not just seagulls (the pigeons/sky rats of the shoreline) but herons, storks, ducks, egrets, and more.

The Robert F. Kennedy toll bridge, the last of the tall bridges along the river.

Our tour guide had been nattering about maybe not being able to get all the way up the river and around Manhattan if the tides were too high. I figured it was just a wacky little bit of showmanship.

North of the Robert F. Kennedy toll bridge, the bridges were a lot more frequent and a lot lower. The 3rd Avenue Bridge is a good example. There is not a lot of clearance above the boat as we go under.

This railroad bridge was even lower. Or we were higher. What’s that old movie, “Don’t Raise The Bridge, Lower The River”?

Off to the right was The Bronx. On our side of the boat we got a glimpse of a sacred place that we would return to later in the trip.

The railroad bridge could be raised and lowered to allow taller ships underneath, but all of the rest of the Harlem River bridges had these structures. Right in the middle of the river was an island holding this huge axis on which the bridge could rotate.

It’s slightly brilliant. If you don’t want to spend a gazillion dollars building a huge, tall bridge and the river is more narrow (the Hudson River and East River are too wide) then you can just put the entire bridge balanced on a monstrously huge pivot with a whole lot of really big wheels and a honkin’ big motor. When a taller ship needs to get through, just turn the bridge sideways so that it’s facing the same way as the river, not perpendicular to it.

Passing Coogan’s Bluff (no sign of either Clint Eastwood or Lee J. Cobb) there was a large group of Canada geese that were mildly perturbed by our passing. They might have had the right of way, but we outweighed them by about a factor of 10^6, so they gave way.

Next, the northern stretch of the Harlem River