We are all pretty tired by this point so we started late and had a lazy morning at the hotel. Our first stop today was Roosevelt Island. I'm trying to incorporate a few slower-paced, nature-centric stops today since the city life is wearing on most of us.
Roosevelt Island is a small island in the East River between Manhattan and Queens. It is about 1.5 miles long and 1/8 mile wide. We took the ferry from the Brooklyn Navy Yard to Roosevelt Island just for fun. It wasn't too crowded and we sat inside in the air conditioning, which was nice on this hot day.
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| Roosevelt Island from the ferry |
We exited the ferry and started walking south. There is a paved sidewalk that runs all around the perimeter of the island. We saw some geese with their cute baby!
Roosevelt Island used to be known as Welfare Island and was used as a sort of New York version of Alcatraz for many years. It has had a prison, a "lunatic asylum", and also a smallpox hospital where patients could be quarantined from society yet still close by. The smallpox hospital was abandoned and now only the shell remains.
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| Ruins of Smallpox Hospital |
At the southern tip of the island is the FDR Four Freedoms Park. There were many people enjoying the outdoors here when we walked through.
The very tip of the island is a place called The Room. A very large bust of FDR is just outside the entrance to the large rectangular "room" made entirely of white granite. It's an interesting monument and a great place to enjoy the views of Manhattan and the United Nations building just across the river.
We headed north again and decided to end our exploration of the island and head on to Manhattan. The ferry stop and tram station are both located near the center of the island. If we had continued walking, we would have passed through the downtown area and ended at the lighthouse on the northern tip. About 11,000 people actually live on Roosevelt Island so it has businesses, housing, and schools. There is a bus route on the island, but not a lot of cars. The most fun way to access the island is by tram. The Roosevelt Island tram is part of the NY Metro so your subway pass will get you a ride for free.
The tram runs two cars and it only takes a few minutes to get from the island to Manhattan. We saw the other car passing as we went over the river.
After our tram ride, we had now experienced all available modes of public transportation in NYC: subway, bus, ferry, and tram.
We tried to stop in for a snack at Serendipity, but a sign on the door said that there was a minimum order of $18 per person to be served so we kept walking.
We ended up at the Plaza Hotel and we peeked in at the people having high tea. So fancy!
We were in need of a break and some food so we stopped at the Carnegie Diner. Our plan was to eat here for dinner (when it is less crowded), but we improvised. We only had to wait about 5 minutes for a table and soon we had a booth looking out at Carnegie Hall.
Rodney and I split a Pastrami Reuben and we got pie and cake for dessert. It hit the spot!
Morgan's favorite spot in the city so far had been Central Park so we wanted to spend a little more time here. The park was busy on this beautiful Sunday afternoon. There were so many people relaxing together on blankets on the lawns, playing sports in the fields, shopping at the local vendors set up along the Mall, and even dancing to live music. The dogs were really enjoying the beautiful day too!
We stepped out of the park briefly to visit the New York Society Library. This is the neighborhood library of an author I really like and I wanted to check it out. I love going into libraries and I have been wanting to see this one because of this author. Unfortunately, it was closed for Memorial Day weekend so I couldn't go inside.
We went back into the park, sat on a bench for a while, stopped at Belvedere Castle, and exited the other side at the Museum of Natural History.
After experiencing Morgan's favorite spot, we jumped on the subway towards Caleb's favorite spot - Times Square. These kids could not be more different.
Above the TKTS booth in Times Square is a set of bleachers that Caleb was wanting to sit on. We had a chance to do this on our tour the first day, but we decided to save time and come back to it another day. That was a mistake. It was nice and calm on the first day with only a few people quietly sitting on the bleachers. Today it was packed and rowdy. We made it up about 1/3 of the way, sat for a few minutes, and decided we'd had enough.
We got out of Times Square as quickly as possible and walked to the FAO Schwartz store on the ground floor of Rockefeller Center. This toy store was previously located in Times Square and was the location of the giant piano scene in Big. The store has since moved, but the piano remains.
We had a reservation to go to the Top of the Rock at 8:10 to catch the sunset. This is supposed to be one of the best views in the city. We had some time to kill so we relaxed in the courtyard where the ice rink is in the winter.
I wanted to see if we could go up early, but Rodney wanted to stay and rest longer. We ended up going a little early, but it wasn't enough. As we walked in, they told everyone that there was only 50% visibility at the top. We could have rescheduled for free, but it was supposed to rain the next day and then we were leaving so we just went on up. It was very cloudy when we got to the top and it quickly got even worse. By the time the sun went down, we couldn't see anything at all.
Even in dense fog, Times Square still lights up the night!
We didn't stay long since there was nothing to see. Luckily, we saw a lot of great views during our trip so this wasn't too disappointing.
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