WE'RE ALL GOING ON A SUMMER HOLIDAY.

 

WEEK 1 - THE LEGSYBOYS DO 'THE BIG APPLE'

Home for a week

1st night dinner with Bill

Summertime, the livin' is easy, and the LegsyBoys joined Madrid's mass exodus for the holidays. We've never been before, and so it was off to New York, the BIG APPLE (bear with us if you've been before). What a great time we had. We were lucky enough to travel in the pointy end of our British Airways flight to JFK and found NY to be unseasonably temperate. We found a great little apartment in E53rd Street (around the corner from Bloomingdale's!) (Travel Pointer/Tip: taxi charges from JFK are regulated and a set fixed price - great idea. We found our apartment via the Airbnb website and highly recommend it - good locations and secure PayPal payment, so no need to cover excess cash). The conundrum was how best to see this massive, iconic city with 2 juniors in tow. Firstly, get trusted feedback from those who know (i.e. Billy & Lois Heisenburg) and build around that; second, buy a 7-day subway pass and you will be saving money after 3 days; third, buy a NY City Pass (it's a no brainer) - it helps you skip queues that go forever, gets you into 6 world famous landmarks/attractions, and saves you about $70 per person....as I said, a no brainer.

 

5 segments of the Berlin Wall - 53rd St

 So what did we see and do? The Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) was terrific and had an excellent interactive programme for the kids. There was some great and famous works on display, e.g. Picasso, Warhol, Miro, Pollock (seriously, I reckon Aimee and Buzzy's kindie paintings are as good as his masterwork!), but surprisingly little wacky stuff. We stayed for an enjoyable 4 hours (too long for the kids, not long enough for the grownups) and THE VERDICT - terrific, ranking behind Los Angeles MOMA and the Pompidou in Paris. A short stroll took us past the (wf) world famous (let's face it, most things here are) RADIO CITY MUSIC HALL (more on this later) as we made our way to the gargantuan ROCKERFELLER CENTER (their spelling, not mine!).

The Top Of The Rock (TOTR) is some 89 stories high and the vista was absolutely stunning - the best of its kind in NY (hold questions please!). Visiting the 9/11 Memorial in the shadows of the Freedom Tower skyscraper was interesting. With all the construction going on around it, the concept of a place for quiet reflection is misplaced. It is very tastefully done, however, and the only part that drives you crazy is the ridiculous level of security (our free passes were checked on no less than 4 occasions before and after we passed through a full security check!).

MOMA:

Interlopers in the Garden Of Eden

'The River' - Aristide Maillol

Andy Warhol

'Woman Plaiting Her Hair' - Picasso

You all know this one....

.......and this..

Three Musicians' - Picasso 

'Guitar' - Picasso

'The False Mirror' - Rene Magritte (spooky!)

Art lover

'No!' - Gino De Dominicus

......spooky...

'Dada Head' - Sophie Tauber-Arp 

 

'One' - Jackson Pollock

Budding Jackson Pollocks!!

'Girl With Ball' - Roy Luchtenstein



You know this one...

'Basic House' - Martin Ruiz de Azua. Ingenious!!

Picasso's 'She-Goat' with some kids

 TOTR:

ESB - awesome

North towards Central Park

Chrysler spire

The Rockefeller

 Next on the agenda was the Metropolitan Museum Of Art (Met). It also had some fine collections - the music and Egyptian come readily to mind - but the special exhibit on Punk Fashion (an oxymoron nes pas?) was amateurish and lacking in focus. The kids were bored stiff and I must admit Don L wasn't that far behind them; great building, but the Met didn't do it for me. From there it was a stroll back past Carnegie Hall, dinner in the famed Carnegie Deli (the kids avidly partaking of the biggest corn beef sandwich - the renowned house specialty - I've ever seen) and on down to the glitz of Times Square at night - los ninos loved it.

 9/11 Memorial:

 

Freedom Tower

Future recruit

World's deepest man made waterfall

Carnegie Deli:

 

The MET:

.....hmmm...

Someone's seen too many movies!!

4 mummies

10 string geee-tah

Even Jimmy Page would struggle with this

Stradivarius

Gold plated harpsichord

The absolute best thing to do - for FREE that is - is a return trip on the Staten Island ferry. It provided us with a glorious view of the Manhattan skyline and a close up of the Statue Of Liberty; a piece of French scrap metal it may be but it is nonetheless impressive to see, and los ninos were totally enamoured by it. Eataly was a great place for lunch on several counts - it is an amazing melange of organic fresh produce, delicious and varied culinary food bars, the best coffee we found in NY, and it is directly opposite the Flatiron Building, the singularly most fascinating edifice in the city bar none. We ended this particular day with a stroll along Wall Street in pouring rain before being fired out of the Trump Building!

 

The free ride

Lower Manhattan vista - spectacular

Flatiron Building

NYPD pursuit car

Chicks outside the Fed Reserve

You cant fire me!!!

Popping in for a quick spot of shopping!

The Empire State Building is, by any measure, an engineering and visual spectacle par excellence. We sailed through the endless security lines (thanks to our pass!) and enjoyed every part of this 106 storey scraper. The interior is all understated elegance, the audio guide is simply FANTASTIC, and the view marvellous (it's inferior to the TOTR vista simply by virtue of the obvious - you can't see the ESB when you're standing on top of it!). It's a short walk past the wf Grand Central Station and Chrysler Buildings before hoeing into a slice of pizza in Bryant Park. The gals had a night out (more later!) and the boyz went to see 'Monsters University' (without subtitles!!!). The Museum Of Natural History is, to my mind, the jewel in NY's artefacts crown, filled with visually stunning dioramas (Travel Tip: if you go with kids then I recommend you watch the movie 'A Night At The Museum' first - they scan spend ages finding the exhibits used, and there's even an official NATM walking map you can access). Just across the road you can go for a stroll and enjoy the tranquil beauty of Central Park.

ESB:

Statuettes Of Liberty

Manhattan & Brooklyn Bridges

Chrysler Building - magnificent

Queens Bridge

The Flatiron

Chrysler on the left, UN Building on the right

 

Museum of Natural History:

 

Central Park

 

In between we managed to squeeze in a visit to NY's gigantic toy store FAO Schwarz (consensus that it wasn't in the same class as Hamley's in London) as well as the NBC Store, Lego Store Times Square Toys'R'Us and Disney Store (we did have kids with us!). We had a fabulous afternoon tea at the Stardust Café on Broadway, the kids particularly taken by all the singing waiters/waitresses, all looking for a stage and screen break. I was just as happy trying to devour my milk shake so big it would have filled an ice bucket! Time had come for us to catch the shuttle bus to Newark Airport and head to our next destination. I expected to see Bruce Springsteen hanging out at the New Jersey turnpike, but he must've forgotten we were coming through.

 

Grand Central
 

Times Square

Stardust Cafe

Next up, week 2...............