New York City

Central Park & Times Square

October 2008

It seems like October brings with it an annual pilgrimage to New York City for the Photography show and a stroll through B&H but this year was different.  We ventured to the city but decided to take advantage of the great weather forecast and spend the day in Central Park taking pictures instead of drooling over what was on display at the photography show.  Besides, Central Park has been on our list of places we wanted to visit.

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.

The easiest way to enter Central Park from the Port Authority Bus Terminal is to travel up 8th Avenue to Columbus Circle which is about 1-1/2 miles away.  Our tired old bones only have so many steps remaining and we didn't want to waste them just getting to the park.  Two courses of action were available to us:

1) Take a cab or  2) Take the subway.

As apprehensive as we may have been, we decided to brave the subway system.  Research from home provided insight into which train to take which in our case was an uptown "A" or "C" train.  All that remained was to read the signs, go down to the station and do it.  It was GREAT and we are so glad we did it because it now opens up possibilities for other trips to the city.

Our intention was to spend the day walking through the southern half of Central Park.  Most of what us tourists want to see is in that half anyway.  The park was old and yet very nicely maintained.  There were miles of trails many of which were paved.  All were easy to walk on.  Some trails were in open areas and yet others were in wooded locations.  We especially liked the bridges and walk troughs.  In any event, we found ourselves back at Columbus Circle FIVE HOURS later and ready to get the packs off our backs and have dinner.

Now that we were veterans of the subway system we headed into the station and took the downtown "A" train back to the bus terminal.  The bus terminal is near the theater district so we found a place for dinner and rested.  The rest gave us the second wind we needed to walk around Times Square before heading home.

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