Day 7: Meandering in Midtown Manhattan

Overview of Today’s Agenda: Grand Central Station, UN Buildings, Broadway Show: 9 to 5, Empire State Building, Times Square

Many of my fellow hostellers were surprised to learn that I had been in New York for six days already and I hadn’t been to Times Square yet. Today I made an effort to rectify this and see some of the sights in Midtown.

I started early-ish, as the UN building opened for public tours at 9:30. But first I stopped in at Grand Central Station to take the ceiling on the main hall. A guidebook had recommended looking for the dark patch near the crab on the ceiling to see the difference after the latest renovations. I took me a few minutes to find it because it was much smaller than expected (at least it wasn’t as hard as finding the frog on the outside wall of University of Salamanca’s library – that I had to be shown after 10 minutes of looking). Anyways… after people watching in Grand Central for a while I walked over to the UN Headquarters on the East River.

While the UN security was just as extensive as the building in Geneva – but I was a little disappointed we didn’t get cool security passes (it was one of my favourite souvenirs from my trip in 2007) Just like in Geneva lots of countries had donated art to UN, so most of the tour was centered on these pieces. one thing I didn’t like about the tour was the displays on what the UN does. There were several displays on the tour about landmines, development goals, UNICEF etc but the tour does not give you enough time to read all the information. It seems like the tour guide is always rushing you on to the next item because there is a group directly behind us. It wasn’t so bad for me because I had learned most of this at university, but for someone who knows nothing about the United Nations it may be confusing.

After passing other New York landmarks like the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel and St Patrick’sCathedral, I unknowingly ended up in Times Square. The amount of  people on the street had tripled and the brightness of the billboards had doubled. There is no way you could miss it. After standing in line for a bit I managed to get a ticket for the matinee of the new Broadway show 9-5. Originally I had planned only to see one show in NYC, but the playbill of South Pacific had an article about this new musical. The fact that Allison Janney (of CJ Craig-West Wing fame) starred in the musical sold me. It turned out to be a fabulous production well deserving of its Tony nominations.

Finally I decided that despite the overcast weather I was still going to go up the Empire State Building. What you read and hear about the lines here should be taken seriously. Even in the off season the lines are endless. This time the CityPass doesn’t really save you much time in line skipping. Just like Chandler alluded to on Friends, you have to resist the urge to say moo as you are being herded through the lines like cattle on a farm. However the view at the top is pretty great (even on a cloudy day) and it helps to get the audio guide to explain what you are looking at. The whole process took about 3 hours and yet I was only on the observation deck for 30 minutes. If you are looking to recreate a romantic scene from Sleepless in Seattle or An Affair to Remember – forget about it. Mass tourism has destroyed the opportunity for any magic moments. 

I returned to Times Square at night to get the full on neon light experience. I read at the CIty of New York Museum that it is mandatory for all lights in Times Square to be 1.5 times brighter than normal. They are not kidding. You don’t need a flash to take pictures because the reflection from the Coca-Cola ad lights up your subjects quite nicely.

This concludes my coverage of NYC. It’s true what my roomate told me, you can’t see all of New York City in 7 days. However, I’d like to think that got a feel for the city by hitting most of the ‘must see’ tourist icons, like the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building, as well as seeing some of the spirit of the city in some of the ‘off-the-beaten-track’ places like the Louis Armstrong House Museum and the City of New York Museum. There will always be something new and different to city in the city even if you’ve already seen the landmarks. So I hope I will have a chance to come back!