Moseying through Manhattan

The Big Apple, The City of Dreams, The City That Never Sleeps, Empire

Dave and Cynthia on top of the
Empire State Building

City, Gotham: no matter what you call it, New York City, and in particular Manhattan, is a great place to visit. We’ve been here several times and I’m not tired of the city yet. On this occasion we took a couple of tours and ended up on top to the Empire State Building after dark. It’s still one of the best views of New York, but we were sad that we didn’t see a giant ape or Fay Wray.

Back in the Big Apple

Dawn over New York City

The first time I actually went to New York, other than to work from morning to night, or to buzz through the airport, was in 2012. Dave took me to upstate New York for our

Entrance to AMNH

anniversary and then down into Manhattan. I loved it all and was anxious to see everything. We had planned to visit the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). I completely underestimated the size of these two treasure troves thinking we could see them both in one day. So since outrunning the hurricane gave us an extra day to explore New York City, we decided to spend it at the AMNH; I was delighted. The American Museum of Natural History is one of the largest museums in the world. It is just across the street from Central Park and has 27 interconnected buildings with 45 permanent exhibition halls, in addition to a planetarium and a library. Given that we had an entire day, we still couldn’t see even the small portion of the 32 million specimens of plants, humans, animals, fossils, minerals, rocks, meteorites, and cultural artifacts that are on exhibit. We did see one of the founders, however; Teddy Roosevelt not only sits astride his horse to welcome guests as you enter, but there is a statue of him on a bench in one of the rotundas. I was also glad to see the T. rex and the cheeky monkey from Night at the Museum were still in residence, as well. Housed in the oldest part of the museum was a collection of Northwest Coast Indians artifacts; this portion of the museum was begun in 1874, with the Victorian Gothic building opening in 1877. Most of the rest of the museum exterior is in rusticated brownstone neo-Romanesque, except for the entry which is an over-the-top Beaux-Arts monument. The entry hall is a vast Roman basilica design that echoes with the excited voices of children and adults.