Checked in at the Gershwin hotel E 27th street near 5th ave a few blocks fom the empire state bldg. a bit of a pretintious arty crafty kind of place (fashion shows next door) but very nice and quite convenient. took the subway uptown to times square and broadway and walked around a bit but decided on an early night and had dinner in a local steak house, which was one of the best we had enroute.
Next day - the big one THE metrop museum of art. ve-rry impressive. got lost a few times in the mazes of galleries and tiredourselves out. wanted to walk back downtown thru central park but gave up after a couple of blocks. we had booked to see an off-broadway show called "gone missing" in greenwich villag. it was great. small theatre - second row - we could see theit tonsils - very funny -can't remember a line, but it was good. had dinner in an (italian) restaurant around the corner (b4 the show) - also very good.
Walked up the (5th) avenue to the empire state bldg in the morning but unfortunately the visibility was poor (2 miles) (should have checked the weather report)!!! went on to the moma (met museum of modern art) and had to agree with aidan about a lot of the "stuff" the have there - although some of it was good. LION KING in the evening preceded by italian food again and again really good. lion king was good too!!
The Guggenheim was along way uptown and we decided that we weren't so interested in architecture at $65/p/p so went on to the Frick collection which (although small) turned out to be the best we'd seen yet... headed off for chinatown (downtown) for dinner but got stuck in "little italy" and had italian for the third night running - but we had fish and steak instead - also very good.
since we hadn't been able to see miss liberty from the empire state we went down to battery park and had a look from there (see photos). visited the 9/11 site and had a look at macy's, bloomingdales, rockefeller centre, (no skating rink), said a prayer for pat at st. patrick's 5th avenue and had lunch in herald square. after a short rest we finally made it to chinatown for dinner & had some peking duck.
hired another car for the drive to philly and washington dc and thought we'd leave new york via the brooklyn bridge, but unfortunately it turned out to be the manhattan bridge. c'est la vie.
new york in a nutshell: interesting - exciting - great food and a lot of walking.
