CENTRAL PARK
Wiki: "Central Park is an urban park in middle-upper Manhattan, New York City. Central Park is the most visitedurban park in the United States as well as one of the most filmed locations in the world.
It opened in 1857 on 778 acres (315 ha) of city-owned land. In 1858, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, two soon-to-be famed national landscapers and architects, won a design competition to improve and expand the park with a plan they titled the "Greensward Plan". Construction began the same year, continued during the American Civil War further south, and was expanded to its current size of 843 acres (341 ha) in 1873.
It was designated a National Historic Landmark (listed by the U.S. Department of the Interior and administered by the National Park Service) in 1962. The Park was managed for decades by the New York City Department of Recreation and Parks and is currently managed by the Central Park Conservancy under contract with the municipal government in a public-private partnership. The Conservancy is a non-profit organization that contributes 75% of Central Park's $57 million annual budget and employs 80.7% of the Park's maintenance staff."
It's summer!!
Who says you can only wear bikini in a beach?
Nice green oasis in the middle of concrete jungle...
The girls were having fun!
Keena was exploring around...
Kids should be like that!
Cute Gwendolyn was trying to get in when we kept her outside. Haha.
View from the room in Courtyard by Marriott near Time Square.
It was my last night in New York City, and I would like to have a nice place for my nieces to take a short nap before they go to airport in the evening. Hence, I decided to splurge a bit on the last night and managed to get a decent deal for such a central location in New York. Room rate was US$275 (S$380/night).
It was a stark contrast to the underground windowless dormitory bed that I stayed during the last time I was in NYC.
Love the benches and chairs for people to chill.
Keena & Marilyn
What does it remind you of?
Desperate Housewives!
Time Square during the daytime.
The location of the hotel was great.
Everything is so close!!
The younger girls were sleeping again. Tough on them.
A good friend recommended me to visit this McKittrick Hotel
and prompted me not to do any research.
So I paid US$100 without knowing exactly what this was all about..
**Spoiler Alert!!!**
I went alone and had to wear the white mask (as seen in the photo) throughout the 2-3 hours.
I was apprehensive as I was alone and not knowing what to expect.
It was dark and everybody was mask-up.
I kept running around the hotel and following random performers.
I have never been so close to naked performers.
Slowly, I got to piece the story together.
It was quite a novel and interesting experience.
It is definitely worth the money!! =)
BROOKLYN BRIDGE
Wiki:"The Brooklyn Bridge is a hybrid cable-stayed/suspension bridge in New York City and is one of the oldest bridgesof either type in the United States. Completed in 1883, it connects the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn by spanning the East River. It has a main span of 1,595.5 feet (486.3 m), and was the first steel-wire suspension bridge constructed. It was originally referred to as the New York and Brooklyn Bridge and as the East River Bridge, but it was later dubbed the Brooklyn Bridge, a name coming from an earlier January 25, 1867, letter to the editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle,[7] and formally so named by the city government in 1915. Since its opening, it has become an icon of New York City, and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1964[6][8][9] and aNational Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in 1972.[10]"
Brooklyn bridge at night.
My parents & brother went to Washington DC, and my sister family went to the airport.
I was alone. In fact, it was quite nice to be alone and have some quality solitude time.
Really enjoyed working across the Brooklyn bridge.
I had a good view of Lower Manhattan and the new World Trade Center. =)
Admittedly, when I was in Brooklyn, it was quite scary.
Street was quite dimly-lit, and I felt kinda unsafe.
I quickly found the nearest subway station and made my way back to Manhattan.
In the empty subway cabin , there are 2 guys seated opposite me and they had interesting conversation about racial discrimination. They were strangers. One guy was a Caucasian from Europe who had been living in NYC for a while, and the other was a Black New Yorker who was complaining how he felt discriminated as a black. And I was just a random Asian tourist in cabin. May be only in New York, you can talk to random people about such sensitive topics. Haha
Time Square.
Still full of people past midnight.
Homeless people. =(
While NYC is the center of capitalism with so many billionaires, there are still lotsa poor and homeless people around. Always a big contrast!
Interestingly, I just read this news article:
Homeless model: New York's hidden homeless
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34574818
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