New York - Day One

We just flew back from New York, but it's not our arms that are tired--it's our legs.

Wendi and I spent the week in New York City, and in that time I think we must have walked a hundred miles. I exaggerate, but not by much. Here, with photos when I remembered to pull out the camera, are the highlights.

Our flight on Tuesday got in around eight in the morning, and we hit midtown Manhattan around 9:30 a.m. We checked our bags at our hotel and then (figuring that if we took the subway we'd arrive long before anything opened) we decided to walk the fifty or so blocks to SoHo. At Bryant Park, we stopped to watch the ice skaters.

Further down Sixth Avenue we saw the Macy's at Herald Square and the nearby Empire State Building (which we rode to the top of on our last visit to the city). From there we took a detour down Broadway, for a glimpse of the famous Flatiron Building.

Further downtown we were delighted to find the Parsons New School for Design--home to our beloved Project Runway! The bottom floor was getting a makeover, perhaps in preparation for season four. We were dressed to impress, but did not see Tim Gunn.


I had to take a picture of this. These signs are all over Manhattan. What a joke!


In New York, even the sidewalk graffiti is high art:


Next up was Washington Square Park, where Sally dropped off Harry.


After walking around SoHo for half the day, it was time to eat. The Famous Cozy Soup and Burger lived up to its name. Wendi had the split pea soup, I had the skinny fries. Both got a thumbs up.


With another thirty blocks to go back to the hotel, we gave up and took the subway. It's not that we were trying to avoid the subway--we planned on using it a great deal during our time in the city. It's just that we were in New York to see the city, not the subway. Nevertheless, we hopped the metro and hit our hotel room, where we promptly fell asleep. (What can I say, we'd been awake since four and walked a total of around eighty city blocks that day!)

That night we crashed a gathering of New York area young adult writers at a bar called Sweet and Vicious on the Lower East Side. We met a bunch of great folks like Jordan Sonnenblick, Gordan Korman, Cecil Castelucci, Emily Jenkins, David Levithan, and Libba Bray. Afterward, a few of us went out for pizza at a place called Pomodoro's. (That's Wendi in the foreground.)


This time we didn't even try to walk the whole way back to the hotel, as our legs were already threatening to secede and we had lost all communication with our feet. (We do a lot of driving, not walking, in Atlanta.) We emerged from the tunnels to the sights, sounds, and smells of midtown Manhattan, and turned in to gather our strength for another day in New York.