NYC Day 5: Museums and the Press Room
Aug. 8th, 2018 11:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sawylSlightly gentler day after last night's late finish, with a decision to take in some of the museums. A and I made a bee line for the American Natural History Museum on Central Park West. We caught the subway to Columbus Circle and walked 10-15 blocks north, initially enjoying the heat but quickly longing for the joys of air conditioning!
Although it features quite a lot on natural history — lots of dioramas and taxidermy — it's actually more like the British Museum in its collection, with large numbers of artifacts from early civilisation. Sadly, the hall with all the gemstones — including the largest sapphire in the world — was closed for renovation, but the rest made up for it and I was particularly interested to see the Rose Space Centre, which was being rebuilt last time I was here and which I remember discussing with someone from SGI who had been involved in Hayden Planetarium digital display system.
The display which compares the size of the planetarium sphere to distances at different order of magnitude, from the Planck distance up to those of galaxtic clusters, was particularly good and the design of the sphere clearly shows where Cave Johnson got his inspiration from!
After the Natural History Museum, we walked across the park to the Metropolitan Museum but were deterred from actually going in by the queues that snaked down the steps.
After a bit of uncertainty about what to do next, we walked north to the Guggenheim, which was much, much less busy. Rather than tour the collection, as C and J had planned to do, we took a spin around the (air conditioned) gift shop and enjoyed the amazing art deco architecture. We then headed south again, walking past various guys handing out rap CDs who complemented one or other of us — or maybe poked fun at one of us — by telling us we had nice eybrows; a very random thing to say!
We lunched in the Plaza Food Hall, where we'd eaten the previous day and knew there were good gluten-free options. Amusingly, we bumped into Alice's parents there: they'd stayed late at the hotel, talking to some American guests, and had settled on the Plaza for the same reasons as us. After lunch, we walked back along 5th Avenue and did a bit more window shopping.
That evening, our last full one in Manhattan, we took advice from people at the hotel and went up to the Press Lounge, the rooftop bar at the Ink48 Hotel on the corner of West 48th and 11th. As before, I got carded by the bouncer on at the lift at the bottom and we made our way up to take in the stunning views of Hell's Kitchen, west to Midtown and Times Square, and across the Hudson to New Jersey. The city got dark while we waited for C and J to join us; an unforgettable sight, made all the better by our previous failures to make it up to a rooftop bar earlier in the trip.
We finished off the evening at Il Melograno on the corner of West 51st and 10th, which featured a range of gluten-free pasta and various different sorts of stake, and went back to the hotel, content that our last night in New York had been well-spent.
Although it features quite a lot on natural history — lots of dioramas and taxidermy — it's actually more like the British Museum in its collection, with large numbers of artifacts from early civilisation. Sadly, the hall with all the gemstones — including the largest sapphire in the world — was closed for renovation, but the rest made up for it and I was particularly interested to see the Rose Space Centre, which was being rebuilt last time I was here and which I remember discussing with someone from SGI who had been involved in Hayden Planetarium digital display system.
The display which compares the size of the planetarium sphere to distances at different order of magnitude, from the Planck distance up to those of galaxtic clusters, was particularly good and the design of the sphere clearly shows where Cave Johnson got his inspiration from!
After the Natural History Museum, we walked across the park to the Metropolitan Museum but were deterred from actually going in by the queues that snaked down the steps.
After a bit of uncertainty about what to do next, we walked north to the Guggenheim, which was much, much less busy. Rather than tour the collection, as C and J had planned to do, we took a spin around the (air conditioned) gift shop and enjoyed the amazing art deco architecture. We then headed south again, walking past various guys handing out rap CDs who complemented one or other of us — or maybe poked fun at one of us — by telling us we had nice eybrows; a very random thing to say!
We lunched in the Plaza Food Hall, where we'd eaten the previous day and knew there were good gluten-free options. Amusingly, we bumped into Alice's parents there: they'd stayed late at the hotel, talking to some American guests, and had settled on the Plaza for the same reasons as us. After lunch, we walked back along 5th Avenue and did a bit more window shopping.
That evening, our last full one in Manhattan, we took advice from people at the hotel and went up to the Press Lounge, the rooftop bar at the Ink48 Hotel on the corner of West 48th and 11th. As before, I got carded by the bouncer on at the lift at the bottom and we made our way up to take in the stunning views of Hell's Kitchen, west to Midtown and Times Square, and across the Hudson to New Jersey. The city got dark while we waited for C and J to join us; an unforgettable sight, made all the better by our previous failures to make it up to a rooftop bar earlier in the trip.
We finished off the evening at Il Melograno on the corner of West 51st and 10th, which featured a range of gluten-free pasta and various different sorts of stake, and went back to the hotel, content that our last night in New York had been well-spent.
