Last week Jon and Tanner got to go to New York. I asked Jon to write a blog about it since I wasn't there. I was invited but I don't like to leave my kids very often and I had already gone to Chicago the month before. I will go to N.Y. some day in my life for sure. They had a really great time.
This past week, my son and I spent three days in glamorous Times Square and New York City.
In three days we were able to pack in a lot, so I'll just share the best of what we did here. First, some background: we took my other two sons on a trip to Houston where the older of the two was earning his black belt in Karate and we took my daughter to Chicago where I was attending a conference. So I suggested to my son that I should take him on a trip somewhere and suggested New York City. He was tepid to the idea until I mentioned that we could see Rockerfeller Center, where they film the TV show 30 Rock; that got him excited and he agreed to go.
Rather than bore you with an exhaustive description of what we did and when, I'll use my writerly skills and chose only the highlights. We did, in fact get to Rockerfeller Center and saw a number of locations from the TV show, which was more exciting than I thought it would be. Taking our pictures by the statue of Atlas near the plaza was a highlight. For me, the best part of this excursion was stumbling across St. Patrick's Cathedral, one of the largest and most breathtaking cathedrals I've visited.
I've always enjoyed visiting churches and cathedrals when I visit other places, and I was pleased that my son showed an interest, too, so we also stopped by the Trinity Cathedral down in the financial district. The building itself was inspiring, especially the smaller chapels with their exquisite sculptures. However, what most impressed us both was the cemetery attached to the church; we saw gravestones from the 1690s, some that were so old that time and the elements had worn them smooth, and even the marker for Alexander Hamilton.
We were in the financial district for one of the highlights of our trip: visiting the 9/11 memorial. Since we watched a special about its planning and construction around the 10-year anniversary last year, I've been interested in actually visiting, and it was well worth it. The incessant sounds of construction around the memorial detracted a bit from the reverence of the site, but looking over the edge of the "footprints" and running my fingers across the engraved names was humbling.
I'm a big fan of the Seinfeld TV show, and visiting New York City made me feel on a number of times that I was revisiting episodes of the show. Passing the news stands, almost buying a Clark Bar candy bar from one, eating a hot dog from a street vendor, and riding a crowded subway all brought back memories from the show. The most singular reminiscence came when we were walking in the Theater district and came across Sardi's, a famous restaurant referenced in an episode where Kramer mistakenly wins a Tony award. My son didn't understand my excitement at stumbling across this famous site.
Overall, the singular impression from visiting New York City is one of immense scale. Walking through Times Square, especially at night, is an awe-inspiring site--flashing advertisements cover every inch of building space, crowds of people surge through the square, and the whole sight stretches in every direction as far as you can see. The square seems overwhelming in its scale. Then you get to the top of the Empire State Building (which means waiting in long lines and takes quite a bit away from the experience, truthfully), and you look down on the city and gain a whole new sense of the immensity of the place. Central Park looks lush and green and huge, even from 86 stories up, and apartment buildings and streets and skyscrapers literally stretch out to the north as far as the eye can see. As we looked north into the city, peering between a couple of skyscrapers, we caught a glimpse of a sliver of Times Square (the Hershey's store, which you might be able to see if you enlarge the view from the top of the ESB and look just to the left of the green MetLife tower)--and were struck at how microscopic it seemed from that vantage point. The whole city has that feeling of immensity, a feeling that I understand can be exciting but that, ultimately, made me glad to live in a quiet suburb between cities of moderate size.
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