Nun on the Run

This blog starts on Wednesday Nov 16.

We haven't seen any plays on Broadway, a few musicals, but no plays and we'd heard good reviews of a new play on Broadway called "Other Desert Cities" in a theatre on 45th street, so not far from the apartment, with a great cast including Rachael Griffiths. The critics were right, it was a great play, good storyline and performances.

We spent a few hours over 4 days watching the Presidents Cup, a golf tournament between the USA and an international team including 5 Australian golfers and captained by Greg Norman, from Royal Melbourne Golf Course. Due to the time difference it worked in our favour for a change starting at 8pm and finishing around 1am. The USA won, the Australian golfers didn't play as well as they should have given it was on home soil but it was entertaining.

Terry found an interesting dance performance which was a mix of Irish dance and African American dance  called Soul Steps. It was in a small theatre, a refurbished fire station, in Soho. There was no accompanying music but the dance was to the beat made by the performers with their feet and slapping their hands on their bodies. All in time like Irish dancing but with an African beat. Lots of energy, most enjoyable.

On Saturday we went separate ways, Pam headed off to an Art & Craft show at the Jacob Jevits Exhibition Centre a couple of streets away on the Hudson River. It was a huge exhibition with a mix of art, sculpture, jewellery, furnishings and clothes. Pam also went to the only quilt shop left in Manhattan which is located in Chelsea on 25th Street. It was interesting, but not that different to the ones in Melbourne. Terry wandered down to Lower Manhattan and Tribeca to take some photos of public buildings in those areas. Funnily enough we got back to the apartment at exactly the same time which wasn't planned!

View to New Jersey across the Hudson River

An excursion to Rockaway Beach, located on a peninsula at the southern tip of Brooklyn, was planned for Sunday. It took 2 hours and 3 different subway trains to arrive at our destination, all for the cost of one $2.25 fare! So we got to a beach in New York City with real sand, very small waves and a few diehards trying to surf! There was a very long boardwalk along the shore which was a pleasant walk, it wasn't too cold or windy. It's a pretty dense residential area, lots of high rise apartments and nursing homes. We expect it's quite busy in summer and serves as a respite from the heat and humidity of Manhattan, you just have to survive the train trip.

Bells Beach! really..

We found a small but pleasant Italian place for a bite to eat. We also found a nice bar right on the water with a very distant view back to the lower end of Manhattan called Bungalow Bar so we had a drink as the sun went down, around 4.45pm! We got a subway train home only having to make 2 changes so it was a bit quicker.

To date we hadn't seen a lot of Queens so on Monday after the 1pm musical performance at St Paul's Chapel, which we've gone to a number of times as it's so relaxing, we took a subway over the East River to Queens.

There's a lot of construction happening in this part of Queens so it was a bit confusing to get to the places we'd chosen. However we found our way and walked along the East River through the industrial area to Gantry Plaza Park (great views back to Manhattan), the PS1 Contemporary Museum (for a hot drink and muffin) and the 5 Pointz graffiti buildings. Last stop was Court Square which is located at the bottom of the Citicorp building, probably the tallest building in Queens. The light was fading quickly and it was getting colder so we headed home for a quick turnaround for the next outing.

That night at the Lincoln Centre, Upper West side, the final year music students from the Juilliard School were giving a Chamber concert for free. You had to be there by 7pm to get a ticket so we got there early and had a light meal in the cafe which was very pleasant. The concert was top class.

Lincoln Centre at night

Lunchtime on Tuesday there was another free concert from the Juilliard School. A pianist and a mezzo soprano were performing in the lobby of an office building in Maiden Lane in the financial district on the East River. It was a good performance but a noisy environment as people came and went.

After the concert we took another train to a different part of Queens, Jackson Heights, and its main thoroughfare Roosevelt Ave, which has an overhead subway track running its full length. A busy, predominately Hispanic/Latino, shopping district with most signs in Spanish. It was raining and cold so we found a local cafe for lunch, we were probably the only customers who spoke English as a first language. An interesting place to "people" watch, nice and warm inside. Eventually we ventured out, it was still raining and the light was already fading however we made our way to Louis Armstrong's House. Louis Armstrong lived here with his 4th wife for the last 30 years of his life. Its been setup as a museum but maintained in its original state which is fairly modest when you consider how wealthy he was. You can do a guided tour but we'd missed the last one for the day and could get a sense of what was inside from the display in the gift shop. The rain had really set in so we got back on a train and headed home.

That night we'd booked tickets at Birdland, a jazz club around the corner, to watch the Birdland Jazz Quartet. Great band and singer so we stayed for the 2nd performance at no extra cost. We could hear a group of women at a table close by criticising another female performer, Lady Leah, who we happened to know from Paris Blues, a jazz bar in Harlem we'd been to a few times earlier in the year. We thought it was quite amusing as we were going to see Lady Leah perform the next night!

Terry had an appointment booked with his personal trainer in the gym on Wednesday morning to go through all the exercises she'd been taking him through over the past month. Pam went along to take photos so Terry will remember what they are when we get back to Melbourne. It took over an hour and a half to go through the whole set. The weather was still cold but not too wet so we headed back to the outer edge of Queens. Queens is a huge borough with many different sections. First stop was the Flushing Meadows Corona Park next to the Citifield Mets baseball park and Flushing Meadows tennis centre home to the US Open Tennis Championship. The park was the location of the 1940 & 1964 World Fair. At the entrance to the park are some stunning tile mosaics by Andy Warhol and Salvador Dali.  A shiny metal Unisphere, supposedly the world's largest globe, is located within the park and in summer a number of fountains surround the globe which would be a great sight but at this time of year it's all turned off.

The Queens Museum of Art is also within the park. The main attraction at this museum is a panorama of New York City, in miniature of course, which covers the equivalent of 3 tennis courts. It includes all 5 boroughs, the well known buildings, bridges, parks etc. It's not quite up to date as our building, MIMA, is not shown.

We walked out of the park back down Roosevelt Ave, it was very cold and windy, where Terry took some photos of Louis Armstrong's house as it had been too dark the day before and then we stopped for a hot drink. Pam headed to the train to get home and out of the cold while Terry braved the conditions to take some photos of 6 storey apartment blocks with front gardens and lawns, a rare sight in this city. This area was built in the early 1900's and known to be the first garden city community in the US.

Pam's cousin, Marion Knox, was arriving in the early evening from Florida to spend Thanksgiving with us. Marion's mother and Pam's paternal grandfather were brother and sister, born in Northern Ireland. Marion (Sr Immaculata) moved to Melbourne Florida in 1961with the Sisters of Mercy to open a school, Ascension Catholic School and has lived there ever since. Marion no longer teaches but continues to work in the parish in pastoral care. We last saw Marion in 1994 when she visited Australia. Marion hasn't been to New York City before so we had a full itinerary planned starting with dinner at Mobay a jazz club in Harlem. We jumped on the subway and then a bus down 125th street to the club. We caught up with Lady Leah and her manager, Robert. It was a fun night, we passed on the gossip we'd heard the night before...

Thursday, Nov 24, was Thanksgiving Day. It was a lovely sunny day, we turned on the TV to see how the Macy's parade was tracking. It started at 9am at 77th Street West  Central Park and continued its way around to 7th Ave down through Times Sq, down 42nd street to 6th Ave and finished in 34th Street in front of Macy's. They keep to a strict schedule, it all has to finish by 12.30pm. There's many huge inflated balloons of different characters and Christmas symbols which float way above the crowd as they are pulled by their handlers along the route as well as marching bands, floats, performers etc. You don't have to be close to the parade to see the balloons which is just as well given the marketing people at Macy's state nearly 3 million people line the route! There was certainly a lot of people about and many streets closed off so Terry raced off and went to a few different places, while Marion and I strolled down 48th street where we could easily see the balloons travel down 7th Ave to Times Sq.

After watching for a while and taking Marion's photo with a couple of NYPD officers we headed to the subway as it was the only way to get across 7th Ave and arrived at the Rockefeller centre where we stopped for a cuppa and watched the ice skating.

Next stop was St Patrick's Cathedral, our prearranged meeting place with Terry, just as Mass had started, coincidentally, which was wonderful for Marion.

After Mass we walked up 5th Avenue around into 59th street to Mickey Mantle's bar for lunch. We only had to wait for 15 minutes for a table. Had a lovely lunch before walking into Central Park past the ice skating to Bethesda Terrace, the lake and around to Strawberry Fields.

We jumped on the subway at 72nd street and headed home. We went out to dinner in the dining room at the Intercontinental, in 44th Street, which had the traditional turkey dinner, a lovely night after a long day of sightseeing.

Friday we headed down to South Ferry on the subway and got the Staten Island ferry past that statue and stopped in the ferry terminal at Staten Island for a cuppa and muffin. Got on the next ferry back to Manhattan and took the obligatory photos.

We visited the Mother Mary Seton church which is dwarfed by the surrounding buildings and then walked onto the World Trade Centre visitors centre so Marion could watch the video which shows the rebuilding of the towers and the memorial. Next stop was St Paul's Church, no music today but it has many displays for the volunteers, firemen and policemen who were part of the rescue efforts in 2001. Trinity Church, Wall Street are all close by so after walking for quite some time we got back on a subway and headed to Grand Central Terminal.

We then walked down 42nd Street looking back to the Chrysler Building and onto the New York Public Library and Bryant Park with all its winter activities. We caught a crosstown bus down 42nd street to the apartment, exhausted...

We had a quick dinner as we had tickets for the Broadway musical, Sister Act. We made a quick stop on the way to the show at Swing 46 Bar in 46th street as one of the waiters, David, was a past student of Marion's. He was working that night so we promised we'd stop again on the way home. As we headed up Broadway, Marion got to see the lights of Times Square and the chaos as it was a lovely night and many people were out and about.

Sister Act was a great show, funny, lively and entertaining. We walked back to the Swing 46 Bar for a couple of drinks and a chat with David. We got home around 1am, big day.

Saturday was a rest day. We had tickets for the ice hockey in Newark New Jersey, Marion was going to relax at home before going to Mass at a local church where a friend in Florida had asked her to make contact with the resident priest. The ice hockey was a game between the New Jersey Devils and the New York Islanders. We had to barrack for the Devils as they had the same colours as St Kilda, red, white and black. It was a great game but unfortunately the Devils lost, 2-3, after a goal they scored with 2 seconds to go was disallowed. The referee's ruled it was kicked in by the skater's shoe, not with the hockey stick. The crowd, understandably, was very disappointed.

We got home in time to escort Marion home from Mass. Terry made spaghetti for tea while Marion and Pam updated the Hart family tree with a lot of the Irish information. Very relaxing night which was just as well as Marion had an early start the next morning to fly back to Orlando.

Marion took a taxi to La Guardia at about 7am for a 10am flight home to Florida. We got up to say farewell then Pam headed back to bed & Terry  went to the gym. Was a pretty lazy day catching up on some rest and organising things. Went to a movie later in the day to see "The Descendants" starring George Clooney. Bit of a "chick flick" really. Pam enjoyed it. Had an easy night in watching T.V.

Back on the road again today. Headed to St. Paul's Chapel for our weekly fix of Bach@One. This event has been one of the real special finds for us. Just wonderful every week.

Did a little shopping after that then Pam came back to the apartment to get everything up to speed and Terry went off to Chinatown and Little Italy. Headed to Columbus Park firstly, where there were hundreds of Chinese involved in mahjong, dominoes and card games. A Chinese band was playing in the background. The park is a community park for all the nearby Chinese residents. Walked across to Chatham Square which is nearby to check out the Memorial Arch erected to commemorate Chinese Americans who died in WW2 and a statue of Lin Ze Xu. Walked down through Doyers Street a short L- shaped lane full of barber shops.

Then visited a couple of Buddhist temples, the Eastern States Buddhist Temple and the Mahayana Buddhist Temple with a 16 ft. high Buddha.

The second temple was near the entrance to the Manhattan Bridge pedestrian walkway so decided to go for a stroll. Much longer walk than the Brooklyn Bridge but great views, particularly when I walked back on the other side with the view of the Brooklyn Bridge and Manhattan. Got some lovely photos in the setting sun.

On return headed into Little Italy and strolled up Mulberry St. with all the beautiful Italian restaurants. Checked out the Mulberry St. Bar where Frank Sinatra used to hang out and the Ferrara Cafe and Bakery on the corner of Grand St. Another big day at the office!

Till next time
Terry & Pam