New York the twelfth

Sorry I don't have a more harrowing tale of how I survived Hurricane-then-no-longer-a-hurricane Sandy. You're welcome to tell people that someone you know was in New York City the night Sandy hit and got a pretty good sleep, aside from being woken up by a phone call from someone wanting to speak to Joan Jones from Australia and who tried to pass on the message anyway because "well, you sound Australian".

Cool story bro.

I walked as far south as 23rd Street this morning to get a misleading-perspective photo of the Flatiron Building. The power is out south of 39th (I was spared darkness by just two blocks!) so the walk down was...well, lacking coffee, but I didn't see any major devastation.

Coming back up 5th I finally thought to take a photo of the Empire State Building. Eh, I'm not really a fan.

I much prefer the Chrysler Building. And that's Grand Central Station on the left.

I was all excited for missing children, but it seems New York milk cartons advertise Broadway musicals.

Central Park is still closed for business, so the most I could do was look longingly and take photos.

Southwest entrance to Central Park. I tell you, there's a lot of perplexed loitering in the city at the moment.

Crane of Dangling Doom. Also, see how that lamp post is missing a lamp? That's because it was lying on the footpath all smashed to crap.

Squiggle Zealand at Columbus Circle.

Pumpkinville, near Times Square.

The Halloween parade, which I was really looking forward to, has been postponed and the status of the basketball game I'm going to on Thursday is pending - but even if it goes ahead the Brooklyn-bound transport situation is looking to be pretty bleak.

Trying not to pout. Bigger picture and all that. But still!

New York the eleventh

Weird day today. No subway, no buses, hardly any shops open, tourists with nowhere to take their money wandering around stupidly. I did spend most of the day out walking, but I stayed pretty close to my hotel in case I needed to recover quickly from saturation, and it's kind of a bummer to be here and not be able to do things.

The sewer mutants will be partying underground tonight!

New York Pubic Library. Wish this had been open, but it's right by my hotel so hopefully I'll get to see inside it at some point.

This is pick and mix, Lego Store style - you grab a small or large cup and fill it with whatever pieces you want. It's so awesome I can't stand it. I've never even seen orange Lego. Lime! Navy! Magenta!

The empty ice and no flags of 30 Rock. I wonder if some poor NBC intern had to take down all the flags.

Because I was there anyway I went and peeped in the window of the Today Show (now that I know where and what it is - NBC studio tour, entertaining and educational), and totally got myself on TV. I'm practically Tina Fey.

Oh. What's up, Atlas?

Back of St Patricks Cathedral. The front is covered with my old nemesis, scaffolding.

The weather has been unextreme in Midtown - no worse than any tempestuous day in Auckland. All that severe stuff on the news is happening on the ocean coasts, of which Manhattan has none. It does have tidal rivers, and the the lower tip of the island may flood when the tide comes in, but up in Midtown it's mostly inconvenienced out-of-towners.

New York the tenth

This morning I knocked off the last of the major museums on my list, the Museum of Modern Art. MOMA. MO-MO-MO-MO-MOMA.

There's some pretty interesting stuff in there, but also an uncomfortably large number of essentially blank canvasses. Oh how I wish I'd been the one to invent the concept of passing that off as art.

OOF!

Starry Night. I quite like this.

The Scream. I don't really care for this, but here it is. Also, what did you think of my "people looking at art" photographic series?

MOMA sculpture garden. Those chairs may well be art.

When I take my glasses off this photo turns into an Impressionist painting.

Picasso's goat.

Trying to take an artful photo of art. Failing.

Later on I sauntered around Greenwich Village and parts adjacent. It's nice.

It's also full of monsters! Muahahahaha!

Not sure what to make of all this storm business. Abbey's already told me to stand back, but it doesn't feel like there's a hurricane coming through. I did buy a couple of bottles of water, partly as a concession to panic, but mostly to use up this endless stack of dollar notes I've been accumulating.

New York the ninth

When the F Train gets to Brooklyn there's this one part where the track pops out into the open (turning from subway to aboveway) and it was just so Beastie Boys Root Down video that my iPhone spontaneously started playing Ill Communication.

(Also, I later on saw some b-boying at the 34th Street station - and thus was fulfilled all my New York dreams.)

The part of Brooklyn I saw, around Prospect Park, is very cool.

The part of Brooklyn I saw is also around the pie shop. I had a steak and cheese pie! In New York! It was, sadly, a disappointing pie (totally over-seasoned, either to cater to local tastes or cover up for a lack of real flavour). The flat white was tremendous though. However, the barista is not ready for understated Kiwi compliments - I told him the coffee was [pause for emphasis] pretty good and I think he thought I was telling him it was average. Heh.

Prospect Park - delightful, squirrels, autumn, etc.

Avenue XTREEEEEMEEEE!

Aaaand...spontaneous trip to Coney Island! I got all excited when I saw that was the final destination of the F Train, so after my pie stop I jumped back on the subway and went to there. Go Whitefish!

Soarin' Eagle. Headfirst into terror.

That's, like, the Atlantic Ocean!

Art at the Coney Island subway station.

Then I went back to Manhattan and to here. It was horrid, like Harrods to the power of 70. I'm still hating every second of it. I did buy a coat though, so bring it on, super storm! 

This evening I walked along the High Line, which is an old elevated train track converted into a walkway and garden.

From it you get awesome views into the city.

And awesome views of awesome art. Awesome!

The High Line ends at the Meatpacking District, a boutique-and-bar-filled neighbourhood so cool that it's probably already so over. I was there right on nightfall and saw several groups being dropped off in stretch Hummers - when that kind of tacky element arrives, you know it's past time to be looking for the next big thing.

New York the eighth

There's a chance the hurricane currently besieging the Caribbean is going to collide with some nasty wintriness coming down from Canada, creating the weather equivalent of a liger that will unleash its wrath all over the East Coast early next week. My mission, therefore, is to get out and walk while the walking's good. And probably also to buy a raincoat.

Everywhere was so dark today. When New York does overcast, it does it right.

Balloon bendy fountain sculpture.

This is the Winter Garden Atrium. (Man that photo is crooked. I really need to see about getting my fake leg refitted.) I can't quite figure out its purpose - it's like a really under-tenanted mall. It's part of the World Financial Center, and pretty much all that glass was blown out during 9/11. Yikes.

This is the garden outside the Winter Garden...or something.

South Street Seaport is old wharves (or "piers", if you will) redeveloped into something like Wynyard Quarter in Auckland plus that mall on the Sydney waterfront. I had lunch at the place with the umbrellas because it's called Pacific Grill and, heh, ocean confusion.

This is down near City Hall. Those guys standing in the middle there seemed about to break into some b-boying (every so often one of them would bust a partial move) but their hype man couldn't pull a big enough crowd and nothing came of it. 

Yo B-Frank, what it is?

Later in the afternoon I went up to Rockefeller Plaza. It was so ridiculously familiar - like I'd been there before...in that same reality where Liz Lemon is my best friend.

Behold, yon flags!

  And yon ice rink.

And yon Art Deco embellishments.

I was a little underwhelmed by the NBC studio tour. We did go into Studio 8H, which is where SNL is filmed, and that was exciting, but, well, why do Americans have such a dorky sense of fun? Do they really enjoy being made to finish sentences in unison with a bunch of strangers?

We also got to go into the Today Show studio, which turned out to be the one where the hosts sit in front of a street level window. Yeah, that one. I recognise it from many 30 Rock jokes.

New York the seventh

Want to hear a ridiculous story? I was on the Upper West Side, and decided to cut across Central Park to the East Side. I emerged from the park about 20 minutes later, about ten blocks up. And still on the West Side.

If I ever brag about my Girl Guide survival skills again, please just throw a cardboard box at me.

I blame the squirrels for disorienting me. They're absolutely everywhere and they're adorable.

I didn't see too much of the park (although I did see some parts twice!), but it's nice and autumny. Fally.

Goddamn Egyptian obelisk.

Seven billion enslaved crab-people were killed during its construction.

Steps of the Met. I totally sat on them. XOXO

The Met is a beast. Not only does it contain approximately all the art, it ate another building. Don't mess with the Met. In return it will show you cool stuff, like an exhibition of work by Warhol and his influencees. Soup can, Coke bottles, turquoise Marilyn, many Marilyns - all the Warhol standards.

I was also quite taken with the musical instruments section (I can honestly say I have never seen so many bassoons at one time), and oddly, the American furniture. But more to the point - I am not in that mirror. Why am I not in that mirror? What? How? Which?

Hey Upper East Siders! Nice 'kins!

I booked to do the NBC studio tour tomorrow evening. There's no new SNL this weekend so I don't expect to see anyone really interesting, but guess who's going to be on Fallon tomorrow?