Glorious buildings

Tuesday.  Sleep in day.   After our night out in Times Square and Chicago, we felt that we deserved it.  We did want to make sure that we started the day right though, so first stop was Bryant Park for Blue Bottle coffee (also discretely hidden, but I spied a park goer with the right coffee cup and extracted directions and the secret password from him). 

Our architectural walking tour started opposite the United Nations.  There was a small protest outside to stop starving Yemen.  I was quite pleased when the guide allowed them to speak briefly to the group.  The United Nations main building itself is a quite dull high rise.  However,  we learned that this is based on sustainable architecture - build up so you don't take up too much land.  It wasn't stepped in like most New York high rises but I think this was because there is also a low rise portion of the complex.  We thought about stopping in to see Helen, but didn’t want to miss the rest of the tour.

Stops on the tour included the Tudor complex (also based on sustainability), but they didn't look very Tudor to me. New Yorkers are quite proud of their activist heritage with protests stopping many of the gardens being replaced with buildings and, thanks to Jacquie O, saving Grand Central Terminal.  The Daily News, or the Daily Planet when Clark Kent of the 1970s worked there, has a fabulous globe in the foyer.  The Chrysler building is all steal and sparkling on the outside, and all warm and amber in the foyer.   (If you've heard the story about the two buildings competing to be the highest, this is the one that won with a stealthy overnight mast move.)  The doorman at the Former Bowery Bank gave us the nod so we were allowed to peek inside - very ornate). 

We left the tour at Grand Central after visiting the whispering room and seeing the clock made from the world's largest opal. We had lunch sitting at the bar of the Oyster bar before heading to the Met.  It's a huge building so we picked a few things that we wanted to see: the temple from Egypt, the American section  (which was mostly furniture so we didn't stay long, European art, and Roman and Greek statues.

Our evening harbour cruise was like a giant cattle ship with all the people packed in like sardines.       It felt very cash cow.  We spent most of the trip standing on the front deck with short stops inside to defrost  ('Do you think we'll need a jacket?', 'No, it's going to be 18 degrees,  we'll just take a light jumper instead.') 

We saw where the plane landed on the Hudson, lots of cool buildings, the Empire State from all angles, Statue of Liberty,  One World Trade Center,  Brooklyn Bridge, the Chrysler - basically there and back around lower Manhattan. 

All in all, a very good day.