New York Adventure – Day 6 The Final Day

Back in June I embarked on my first trip to New York with my best friend D. We’d wanted to go since we were 13.

Days 1 to 5 have all been logged (check them out in the Holidays Category if you missed those) so I’m moving on to our last day in NY, which unfortunately for me was not the most enjoyable as I had started to come down with a cold and was feeling less than great. But as it was our last day I was determined to carry on regardless. 

Thankfully our last day was quite a gentle one and we headed off for breakfast prior to catching the Gossip Girl Tour. The only problem was that D had mis-read the pick up point so whilst we were waiting patiently at The Plaza Hotel the bus was waiting at The Palace Hotel (of course). With only minutes to get across town we hailed a cab in true movie style and asked for The Palace Hotel – and step on it! 

Needless to say NY cab drivers are just as good at negotiating the streets as they are on the silver screen and we made it just as everyone was boarding the bus! Our first stop on the tour was at The Museum of the City of New York which was used as the outside of the Constance School in Gossip Girl.

D and I had our picture taken on the steps of the museum which doubles as the school for the outside shots. We also had a brief sit down at the tables in the courtyard. It’s lovely from the outside and definitely somewhere we’d like to go into if we ever go back to NY.

The next stop on the tour was The Metropolitan Museum of Art, or as it’s referred to in the show, ‘The Met Steps’.

Here’s D on the Met Steps looking every inch her Blair Waldorf best.

Our stay at the Metropolitan Museum of Art was brief and we only had time to take a few photos of the steps. When we return to NY we will definitely be setting aside a day to have a look around this beast of a museum.

From the met we hopped back on the bus, and whilst we didn’t stop we did pass the building used as Nate’s home and Hunter College where the characters took their SAT’s.

Here’s a snap I took of Hunter College as we passed it on the bus.

The next stop on the tour was The Empire Hotel which in the show is owned by Chuck Bass.

Here’s a look inside the hotel:

And from the outside:

After the tour we had just enough time to grab a bite to eat and collect our belongings from The Pod before our transfer came to take us to the airport. I did however manage to get a photo of the famous Silvercup Studios sign which any Queen fan will tell you is VERY famous!

I’d seen the sign on the way in, in fact it might have been the first thing I saw in NY that made me realise I was truly in NY, but it was too dark to take a picture without the flash. And as we were in a taxi I didn’t really want to freak the cab driver out! I was so happy that I got to take a picture of it on the way out but it made me so sad to be leaving NY behind. 

D, when are we going back? :0(

Well that’s it folks. The NY adventure is over. The next stateside adventure for me is going to be San Diego Comic-Con in 2 years time. I will be taking my trusty camera with me and who knows, there might be another holiday blog series to come?! I hope you all enjoyed re-living my NY adventure.

Lady K

New York Adventure – Day 5 Conquering The Fear

I recently embarked on my first trip to New York, with my best friend D. We’d wanted to go since we were 13.

Day 1 to 4 have all been blogged (check them out in the Holidays Category if you missed those) so I’m swiftly moving on to the penultimate day which was amazing, beautiful, terrifying, heartbreaking and visually the most stunning city that your eyes could possibly take in, all in one day! Ladies and gentlemen I give you Day 5.

First plan of action on Day 5 was to go to The Top Of The Rock, or more specifically, the observation deck at the top of the Rockefeller Centre.

Whilst the view from the top of the rock was stunning, it was also terrifying for D and I as D suffers from Vertigo and I have a huge fear of heights. More than anything I was proud that we were able to go up the Rockefeller Centre at all and that we managed to stay up there and take some truly amazing photos that will help us remember this day always.

The one thing I wanted to get a clear photo of was my favourite building – The Chrysler Building. Unfortunately, from the top of the rock, the view of the Chrysler Building is somewhat marred by the Metlife Building standing in the way of getting a clear view. Below, regrettably, was the best I could do.

The Top Of The Rock fully explored – yes folks I went all the way up to the very top, all 70 floors of it – we headed to the Flatiron Building, my second favourite building in New York. Gorgeous architecture and I finally got daytime shots of it in all it’s glory.

I played around with the colour on that one but here’s one from the other side in all it’s natural glory.

Just a beautiful building. It might interest film buff’s to know that the Flatiron Building was used as the Daily Bugle Building in Spider-Man.

Continuing the movie theme we headed to the last stop on Lady K’s Movie Tour which we hadn’t had time to get to on Day 4. The Ghostbusters Fire House.

Anyone would think, looking at the stops on my movie tour, that I was the biggest Ghostbusters fan in the world. I do love it and I think it’s one of the best 80s films ever made, but I’m not the biggest Ghostbusters fan in the world. It’s just a very easy film to find the locations of as it’s set solely in New York and has some of the most famous NY iconography of probably any other film set there.

A lot of my friends had been to 8 Hook And Ladder before but not many had seen it when the main door was open. We were lucky enough to see not only the Ghostbusters 2 logo inside but also a series of melted telephones that had been rescued over the years.

After seeing the Fire House there was only one place on our minds. The newly built (although still in progress when we were there) Freedom Tower loomed in the distance showing us the way to Ground Zero.

We stopped at Starbucks to quench our thirst along the way but remained fairly sombre on our walk towards the spot where the twin towers once stood. We had wanted to go into the memorial and pay our respects but you can only get tickets online, and when we’d tried, it crashed our computers. Not wanting to push our luck for something that clearly wasn’t meant to be we simply went to see the new tower and the church that so many people had told us to visit.

One world trade centre, otherwise known as Freedom Tower, stands impressively in the vast open space left by the fallen twins. It really is a symbol of showing the world the finger and saying that America can go bigger and stronger when you knock them down. But it is still only a building. Not as beautiful or picturesque as some others New York has to offer. It’s merely what it stands for that makes you want to see it. The moment that it really hit home for D and I was when we visited the nearby church of St Paul’s Chapel.

This was the base for the firefighters during the rescue efforts. A display outside the church shows a time line from the moment the first tower was hit on 11th September 2001 to the present day. D and I held it together at the start but by the time we got to the part about the firemen leaving their boots on the church railings, and the ones unclaimed at the end of the day belonging to their fallen comrades, we were so moved that we both burst into tears.

The displays inside the church were equally moving and made the events of 10 years ago all the more real to someone who, thankfully, only experienced it via a series of images on TV and in newspapers. For anyone thinking of going to New York I would highly recommend going to see St Paul’s Chapel. It won’t be a fun part of your trip but it will be something you will never forget. Just like the events of that fateful day.

Outside the church you can see the church spire. Despite being so close to the towers, the church was relatively unscathed by the falling buildings around it and the spire was one of the first things the rescue workers saw when the dust started to settle. Inspiring, no matter what your faith.

Feeling very upset and in need of something sweet to cheer our spirits we decided to pay our only visit to Brooklyn and go to the Ice Cream Factory which sits just under Brooklyn Bridge.

We hailed several cabs, none of which would take us over the bridge (you have to ask them rather than just getting in the cab as many drivers won’t go). Eventually we hailed the nicest cab driver we’d had all trip, and he was from Egypt, not even a New Yorker!

He gave us lots of handy tips for our walk back over the bridge and was by far the friendliest cabbie we met. Worth the tip and then some! He took us straight to the factory where I ordered a chocolate and coffee cone. Bigger than my head and so delicious! Yum!

We lounged in the sun for a little while and then prepared ourselves to walk the Brooklyn Bridge back to Manhattan.

Ah, it looks like I’m caught in Spider-Man’s web but it’s just the view of Brooklyn Bridge from on the bridge!

After our very long walk across the bridge we headed back to the Pod to freshen up and get changed before going for our last supper at Thai 51, a lovely little Thai restaurant just down from our hotel. Delicious food, friendly and quick service and a cute little Thai Bar, perfect! One of the nicest places we ate in New York.

Full to bursting we hopped in a cab and made our way to The Empire State Building which was lit up in Hulk colours just for me!

We were determined our last night was going to be the finale to remember and so decided to end it by going up one of the most iconic buildings in New York. Forget King Kong, this was Lady K and D conquering our fear once and for all. “Would you like to purchase additional tickets for the 102nd floor?” “Err, no, the 86th will do just fine!”

I got a shot of the Flatiron at night

And finally got that longed for, uninterrupted view of the beauty that is the Chrysler Building

My recommendation for the Empire is to take a book or something to keep you occupied as the queues are long and no-where near as well managed as those in the Rockefeller (which didn’t feel like queues at all – more like being moved from place to place at a pace until you reached your destination – the Empire is the total opposite to this with queues that you’re in for over an hour). And make sure you’ve got the settings on your camera at their optimum for taking night shots. My camera could have taken much better pictures than these but was new and I hadn’t taken the time to study the manual (I should have done that in the queue). But overall I’m still pleased with the memories captured and the fear conquered.

See you all next time for the final day in the city that never sleeps. Lady K x

New York Adventure – Day 4 Lady K’s Movie Tour

Anyone who read my previous New York posts will know that I recently embarked on my first trip to New York, with my best friend D. We’d wanted to go since we were 13.

Day 1, 2 and 3 have all been blogged (check them out below if you missed those) so I’m swiftly moving on to the super cool Day 4.

We’d pre-planned our days quite meticulously but the plans were open to change. Day 4 however pretty much went to plan. Well sort of…

Day 4 – as I had planned it, was to be ‘Lady K’s Movie Tour’.

I thought we could start with breakfast at Katz’s Deli, THE diner from When Harry Met Sally and then work our way back up this list from the bottom (missing out any locations we’d already done – I stupidly thought we could do all of this in a day!):

1. Columbia University (Ghostbusters/Spiderman)

2. Maya Schaper Cheese and Antiques, 106 West 69th St, Upper West Side (The Shop Around The Corner in You’ve Got Mail)

3. Tavern on the Green, Central Park at West 67th Street, Central Park (Used in Ghostbusters as the restaurant Louis Tully runs up to before he gets attacked by the snarling animal)

4. 300 Central Park West, Upper West Side (Dana Barrett’s building in Ghostbusters)

5. Fountains at the Lincoln Center, 140 West 65th St, UWS (Fountains used in Ghostbusters/Sweet Home Alabama)

6. FAO Schwarts (Big)

7. Tiffany and Co (Breakfast at Tiffany’s/Sweet Home Alabama)

8. The Plaza Hotel (It Could Happen To You/Home Alone 2)

9. St Patrick’s Cathedral (Gremlins 2)

10. Rockerfeller Roof Gardens (Spiderman)

11. Rockerfeller Center (Elf/Home Alone 2)

12. Times Square (Gremlins 2/Spiderman/King Kong)

13. The News Building, 42nd St between 2nd and 3rd Ave (Superman aka The Daily Planet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

14. Grand Central Station (Armageddon/Superman)

15. New York Public Library (TDAT!!!!! Ghostbusters and Spiderman)

16. Empire State Building (Elf/King Kong!!!/Sleepless in Seatle)

17. Macy’s (Miracle on 34th St)

18. Madison Sq Garden (Godzilla?)

19. Flat Iron Building (Armageddon/Spiderman)

20. Corner of Bedford and Grove (Friends Building)

21. Katz’s Deli, 205 East Houston St (When Harry Met Sally. THE diner!!!!!!!)

22. Moondance Diner 6th Avenue and Canal Street (This is technically now just the site of the moondance diner seeing as the actual diner has now been moved to Wyoming!!!!)

23. Hook and Ladder 8, 14 North Moore St (Ghostbusters fire station!!!!!)

All sights were found on this fabulous website:

http://www.movielocationsguide.com/movie_location_maps/New_York_Filming_Locations.php

Anyway, needless to say we didn’t quite manage to fit it all in. We didn’t start at Katz Deli and instead decided to head straight for Columbia University at the top of the list and find somewhere cheap to eat nearby. Being near a University there was no problem finding somewhere cheap to eat and we soon stumbled upon Max’s Caffe. I had delicious crepes with Nutella and D had a Fretatta (also delicious). From Max’s we headed straight to Columbia University, stop 1 on the tour.

You may recognise Columbia University from the first Spider-Man movie and Ghostbusters. The campus was filled with gorgeous architecture and as it was such a sunny day it was so nice just to walk around it.Stop 2 on the tour was Maya Schaper Cheese and Antiques used as The Shop Around The Corner in You’ve Got Mail. We covered this later in the day.Stop 3 and 4 were both Ghostbusters locations funnily enough, The Tavern on the Green in Central Park, which was used in Ghostbusters as the restaurant Louis Tully runs up to before he gets attacked by the snarling creature, was closed – we discovered this on the previous day when we’d been in Central Park – so we couldn’t see that and instead decided to see Stop 4 up close. We’d seen 300 Central Park West, the Upper West Side apartment block where Dana Barrett lives, from Belvedere Castle on the previous day, but I wanted to see it in the flesh so to speak.

Having not got very far at all and desperately needing to use some facilities, we popped into The American Museum of Natural History and got a little waylaid by the movie locations inside – from Night At The Museum.

When we came out of the museum we were rather ravenous and grabbed a snack from one of the many vendors outside. We then headed to Stop 2 of the tour - The Shop Around The Corner in You’ve Got Mail. As it is now a rather uninspiring dry cleaners shop I didn’t take a photo of it, though now I quite wished I had. :0(From there we decided to make a stop at The Magnolia Bakery for a cupcake and sit down before continuing on with the tour. Stop 5 was the Fountains at the Lincoln Center which were used in Ghostbusters and Sweet Home Alabama (not that I can remember the scene they’re in from Sweet Home Alabama?

Although not part of the tour, we also stopped at Columbus Circle which I later discovered was featured in many movies including It Could Happen to You, The Devil Wears Prada, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, Taxi Driver, Die Hard with a Vengeance, Enchanted, I Am Legend, Cloverfield, The Other Guys and Ghostbusters, as the site where the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man begins his trek to Dana Barrett’s apartment building. The site was also used as the  dominant location in the movie August Rush.

From Columbus Circle we headed to stop 6 of the tour – FAO Schwarts – to see the Big Piano (the one you stand on, so big in the sense that it’s huge and also because it features in the Tom Hanks movie Big).

We’d already completed stop 7 – Tiffany and Co (from Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Sweet Home Alabama) – and 8 - The Plaza Hotel (from It Could Happen To You and Home Alone 2) - on Day 2 of our NY Adventure so it was straight on to stop 9 - St Patrick’s Cathedral which featured in Gremlins 2.

We knew we would be covering stop 10 - Rockerfeller Roof Gardens (Spiderman) - 11 – Rockerfeller Center (Elf/Home Alone 2) and 16 – Empire State Building (Elf/King Kong/Sleepless in Seatle) on another day so they were purposely left out of the tour. We’d already done it by day but we decided to cover stop 12 – Times Square (Gremlins 2/Spiderman/King Kong) – at the best possible time to see Times Square – at night!

We’d already covered stop 13 – The Metlife Building (Superman aka The Daily Planet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), stop 14 – Grand Central Station (Armageddon/Superman), stop 15 - New York Public Library (The Day After Tomorrow!!!!! Ghostbusters and Spiderman) and stop 19 – Flat Iron Building (Armageddon/Spiderman) and decided we weren’t that bothered about seeing stop 17 – Macy’s (Miracle on 34th St) or 18 – Madison Sq Garden (Godzilla). We were however, still hopeful that we’d get to see stop 20 – Corner of Bedford and Grove (Friends Building), 21 – Katz’s Deli, 205 East Houston St (When Harry Met Sally. THE diner!!!!!!!) and 23 – Hook and Ladder 8, 14 North Moore St (Ghostbusters fire station!!!!!) on another day. So after a horrendous dinner experience at TGI Fridays in Times Square (I won’t bore you with the details but if you’re going to NY I STRONGLY advise against going there!) we decided to head back to our Pod for some much needed rest.

Only two more days to go readers, I hope you’re still enjoying the New York Adventures.

Until next time… Lady K x