New York City

with

Dave

June 2009

We've got Father's Day in June and my birthday in July so our youngest, Dave, hatched the idea of a father/son trip to New York City.  Dave is as passionate about photography as I am so this was an opportunity to share the experience and take a bunch of pictures.

Our adventure begins in Kutztown PA at the Bieber bus terminal where we signed on for one of their regularly scheduled trips to the Port Authority Bus Terminal in NYC.  We were making the trip on a Friday which is convenient because buses are scheduled just about every half hour.  Lots of people commute to the city for work.  The trip takes about 2-1/2 hours even with a couple stops along the way.

First stop was a hike to B&H Photo, a premiere seller of photo gear which we have purchased from several times via the internet.  B&H has just about anything you can imagine which was of concern to our wives.  Believe it or not, we spent an hour or so looking around and didn't buy a thing.  The prospect of carrying something around all day put a damper on any ideas we might have had. 

Our original intention was to spend the day visiting the Intrepid but decided to branch out a little and visit several "sights" via the NYC subway system.  We ended up visiting the New York Transit Museum in Brooklyn, walking the Brooklyn Bridge back to Manhattan, having lunch in Grand Central Station, then stopping at Times Square before taking the bus home.  What follows are a few of the hundreds of images we captured between us....

The New York Transit Museum was something I had never heard of until 2-3 days before when someone at work mentioned it.  The museum is housed in an old subway station so everything was underground out of the weather.  In fact, the entrance looked so much like an ordinary subway entrance that it is often confused for one that is still in service.  The museum covered everything transportation related; busses, railroad, and of course the subway.  The main floor had a lot of photographs and a wide variety of station memorabilia like signs, maps, and hardware.  The lower floor was the original station and was lined with beautifully restored subway cars from a variety of time periods.  It was very interesting seeing how different interior designs, materials, and layouts were utilized.

We were originally going to take the subway back across the river to the Manhattan end of the Brooklyn Bridge and simply walk half way across.  The security guard at the museum encouraged us to take the short hike to the Brooklyn end of the bridge and walk the whole thing back to Manhattan.  On his advice we ended up walking the entire bridge which was a truly awesome experience!  This is an old bridge with lots of cabling and stone support towers.  The walkway itself is wood and runs down the center at an elevation that is higher than the roadbed.

As luck would have it the station we needed for the uptown ride to Grand Central Station was right there at the Manhattan end of the bridge alongside City Hall Park.  Grand Central Station was restored a few years ago and is very nicely maintained.  Of course the place was teeming with people going here and there.  Many were tourists like ourselves.  I couldn't resist capturing an image of Dave standing still while all the people around him were in motion.

From Grand Central it was the "S" train to Times Square.  The "S" it turns out stands for "shuttle".  The city recently closed off sections of the road in Times Square to traffic which opened up the area for pedestrians.  We arrived to find hundreds of people sitting in the street on lawn chairs which, we found out, were placed there by the city.  We even spent a few minutes sitting on one which was pretty bazaar.  Of course a visit to the square wouldn't be complete without taking a peek in Toys R Us which is their largest store.

In summary, we had an awesome father/son day and must do it again....

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