New York Report

New York Trip Posts: We're Here / Three Hour Cruise / Report 1 / I'm Trapped / NBC Tour / In the Park / SoHo / Street Shopping / Report 2 / Waiting / The Clinic / At the Trump Tower / Big Green Lady / New York at Night / Report 3 / Day at the Museum / Grand Hall / Wicked / Report 4 / First Impressions of Carnegie Hall / At Last / We're Famous / Terrific Night in NY / Three Favorite Ladies / Guess the Photo / My Group

I finally caught a few minutes on Day 2 to let you know what's going on here in New York City. The trip over yesterday was uneventful, but late. As a result, everything we did after arriving was pushed back and we didn't actually get to bed until about 1am.

Upon arriving at the Sheraton Hotel and Towers, just down the street from Times Square, we checked the kids in, made a quick change, and walked a few blocks to Mama Sbarro's at Broadway and 49th where they had set up a dinner for all 91 of us. After dinner we headed off to Rockefeller Center, a few blocks away, and took the elevators to the Top of the Rock, 70 stories above Manhattan. It's not quite the view I had from the top of the World Trade Center in 1976, but not bad. It was a clear evening and we had a great view of the Empire State Building, Chrysler Building, and many other Manhattan landmarks. At midnight we were counting noses down on 50th street to make sure everybody came off the roof okay.

This morning we had an early start with Gray Line picking up the whole bunch a 7:45 for a 6 hour tour. We had a couple of knuckleheads who managed to oversleep and hold the tour up for about 15 minutes. When I last saw them the orchestra director had them doing pushups on the 7th Avenue sidewalk outside our bus. They won't do that again.

The bus took us straight to Battery Park where we boarded the Ferry to Liberty Island. We walked around the island and got some good shots of the statue (which I will have to post upon my return), and then hopped the ferry to the next stop, Ellis Island. I previously posted a cellphone shot from there.

After that, it was back to New York for a tour in the area of Ground Zero. Much of the impact has gone because now the area just looks like a big construction site, instead of the rubble and destruction of the past. The buildings in the area have all been repaired, and even a new 7 World Financial Center has opened (the original was destroyed by fire and collapse in the aftermath of the collapse of the Twin Towers.

We drove around southern Manhattan for awhile, past the UN building (why couldn't they have hit that instead??), and back to the hotel around 2pm. Everybody was starved so I took my group of six kids (the best group on the trip, by the way) and we hit a little deli at 50th and 7th. Great food!

I turned my six loose to do some local shopping and stopped back at the hotel to get a little work done.

Tonight we're all having dinner together over on Broadway, and tomorrow will bring the NBC studio tour and some sightseeing in Greenwich Village. It was much warmer today than yesterday, and tomorrow we're supposed to see 90 degree weather with New York humidity. Yuck.

I'll post additional updates as I can, and pictures when I get home next week.