New York Explorations

I'm back in NYC for my second visit.  Should have been here oh, about 50 times, but better late than never.  The Lizards have a fine perch at the window of my room at the Park Lane from which they are surveying Central Park.

A path through the park goes through a tunnel near...

Strawberry Fields.  This is an area of Central Park near the Dakota apartment building, where John Lennon was murdered in 1980.  Dedicated to Lennon, Strawberry Fields is a peaceful, reverent spot.  There is usually a musician playing Beatles songs on acoustic guitar here, and everyone seems mellow, even the tour groups that come by.

Central Park is also geologically interesting.  The ice age glaciers made it here...the ice was a thousand feet thick on this spot 12-15 thousand years ago.  The glacier only advanced a few miles farther south, though...and dumped the debris from its snout in a pile that became Long Island.  Here, the ice polished the rock to a fine grooved surface.  There are many such rocks in the park available for slotation on a fine day.

Standard shot of the park on Saturday.

We went to the Frick Museum, just E of the park.  Couldn't take pix in the galleries, but could record the fine courtyard in the middle of the mansion.  Henry Clay Frick was a protege of Andrew Carnegie, and made his fortune in the steel business.  This building was his residence.  He died in 1919; when his widow passed in 1931, she willed the mansion to the city, which opened the museum in 1935.  Frick's art collection was mostly classical European...right up my alley.  Suz and I enjoyed the stories behind the paintings told on the hand held recorder we got for free when we toured the museum.  BTW being a senior has its advantages on the museum circuit...the Frick, the Met, and the Natural History museum were all 4-8 dollars off for being over 65.

A pleasant old residential street.

This was the scene when I arrived on Friday, Sep 30.  Rain, fog, and wind.  The ensuing four days have been mostly cloudy but dry, with some sun the past two days.

The park on a rainy afternoon, looking south.

Suz and I wandered through Greenwich Village on Saturday.  Through the arch in the far distance is the Empire State Building.

Fine detail on the Flatiron Building.  When it was constructed in 1902 it was the tallest building in NYC...21 stories.  Still an architectural masterpiece.

The Flatiron from on end.