Trip to Liberty Island

The area around the ferry to Liberty Island is known as Battery Park.

It was INCREDIBLY sunny and it took proper ages to get on the boat.

This globe statue was in front of the World Trade Centre, and still bears the scars of the events of 9/11.  There's a wee eternal flame in front of it.  This was a WAY more evocative sight than even the actual site.

This is your new desktop wallpaper

This is me on Liberty Island.  I've got a headset on giving me an audio tour.  I had to turn it off because it was strangely moving.  Particularly, bizarrely, a soundbite from a exhuberant visitor from Scunthorpe.

Morningside Park

Not really a famous landmark, this, a hidden little park in the Upper West Side.  I had just walked 50 blocks to the Seinfeld diner, and stopped for a sit down here.

 

 hard to get a good angle of this waterfall, but it bore an attempt anyway.

 

No idea what this is.

SOME PHOTOJOURNALIST, HUH?

Miscellanous snaps

The street leading up to the New York Library (where they filmed some exteriors for Ghostbusters) is lined with quotes like this.

I really do.

Spot the very deliberate mistake.

Wall Street.  I believe parts of "Wall Street" were filmed here.

Ground Zero.  I tried to take a close up shot here, and was barked at by a man in a hardhat and a hi-viz.  I later saw people recieve similar reprimands trying to take photos of the site.  To this day I'm not entirely sure whether this was out of respect or because of security concerns.

So it goes.

Grand Central Station

Not really much you can say about this.

It's Grand Central Station.

It's HUGE.

Times Square billboard

Here's a really inventive billboard, the gimmick being it looks like a live feed of Times Square (which it is), but every now and then this big lass comes along and takes a polaroid of you.  When she does this, you can no longer be seen in the street.  Painted out.  However much you wave your arms.

If you look carefully, you can see me in the top of the big number 2 (ho ho) just above her head.

FAO Schwarz

This is the toy shop where they filmed Big.  Well, at least the part with the piano.

You've seen me mucking about on that already though.  Would you believe that while you wait to have a go on the piano, they take a photo of you and greenscreen you onto the piano so they can sell you a keyfob of you pretending to be on the piano?

Or you can just take a photo of yourSELF ACTUALLY on the piano.  Which was the route I took.

Partly because they made me do jazz hands.

Here's the sweet little ritual they go through every morning to welcome the punters.  Once you get inside, all the employees are lined up like the "downstairs folk" at an English mansion, clapping and saying welcome.

It was beautiful.

Here's a man made of jellybeans

Here's a stand inside FAO Schwarz where you can make your own muppet!  It was really sweet, but at $99 I didn't really fancy lugging a muppet round Manhattan for the rest of my stay.

More to follow.