Ruth's Birthday Weekend-New York (and Hyde Park for Alan)

It's hard to believe that it's been a month since we posted; it's been a whirlwind.  In any event, for everyone who knows Ruth, you know that she believes in celebrating birthdays; we have spent a lot of our birthdays in great places doing a lot of fun things.  Ruth's birthday this year fell towards the end our our six month adventure, and Alan took her to New York City since: (a) Ruth loves Broadway shows; (b) Ruth loves the City during Holiday Season; and (c) it was a way for Alan to get Ruth to come to Hyde Park and visit the FDR Presidential Museum and Library, checking another one off the list.

We have been fortunate to spend a lot of time in New York, so we didn't feel the need to do a lot of the more "tourist attraction" types of things. We spent our days walking around different parts of Manhattan, and our nights at Broadway shows.

We "changed it up" a little by staying in the Roosevelt, which is in an area a little way from where we normally stay; it's a grand old hotel with a great lobby, a lot of character, and a sense of history.

Even if you have been to Manhattan many times, there is something magical about it during the Holiday Season:

The lights:

The store windows:

Saks

Bergdorf Goodman 

Macy's 

The stores themselves:

Tiffany 

Anthropologie 

The Apple Store on 5th, which is a large glass cube on street level going down to the real store 

Ice skating

We revisited some of our favorite parts of the City.  We started Ruth's birthday morning with a visit to the "Today" show, where we were lucky to see Al Roker, Natalie Morales and Savannah Guthrie

We grabbed a subway to China Town, and walked through China Town and Little Italy, winding up in Greenwhich Village, where we had lunch with Ruth's cousin Jeffrey.

Unfortunately the top one did not say "Steven" 

Walking through Little Italy; it was warm enough to dine "Al Fresco" 

Washington Square Park 

After lunch we strolled through Greenwich Village and stopped at The Bitter End, where Alan had spent    many nights the years he worked on deals in New York.  The Bitter End has been around since 1961, and almost any folk singer you can think of has played there at one time or another.  Here's a list of who has played there: http://www.bitterend.com/played.html

On Sunday we strolled through Central Park and had lunch with Ruth's cousin Sammy before we saw a matinee.

We also did some things we had never done before.  Ruth went on line beforehand and was able to get a couple of tickets to visit the new 9/11 Memorial, which is built on the site of the original Twin Towers.
Only so many people are allowed in an hour, which is why tickets are required. We got tickets for the last hour it was opened on the day we were there, so the sun had already set although it was only 5:00.
The Memorial is very moving; it consists of two huge pools, one on each of the footprints of the Twin Towers, with what will be a museum in the background, and lots of open space and benches.

The new towers going up 

Names of victims surround each pool 

Names are not alphabetical but in groups; here are names of Secret Service members and of the Jericho Fire Department  who perished in the tragedy 

Water flows down the fountain walls with great force

spans from one of the Towers are inside the museum 

We walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, and had lunch at the South Street Seaport, and then walked over to Battery Park: 

view from the center of the bridge 

South Street Seaport put up temporary booths for Christmas shopping 

The Sphere, a sculpture symbolizing world peace that stood at the Twin Towers, was damaged in the attack, and now is in Battery Park as a memorial.

Statue of Liberty from Battery Park when you forget your telephoto lens 

And we spent a lot of time in Bryant Park 

Temporary Booths are installed for the season 

Lots of people relaxing around the park 

Ice Skating in Bryant Park 

But the main reason we were in New York was for the shows. We saw four, including: 

The main character was the actor who originated "Roger" in "Rent". 

Daniel Radcliffe and John Larroquette made a great team -Larroquette is probably twice the size of Radcliffe and they played off of that in the dance numbers 

Book of Mormon was very funny, but the best line came after the show when the star was hawking a signed poster for $200 to benefit Broadway Cares/Equity Fights Aids, and he said "it's a bargain- less than 10% of what your ticket cost you!"  

We saw Priscilla, not Chicago; the costumes and sets were  over the top! 

All were excellent, and it was fun seeing Daniel Radcliffe outside of Harry Potter (the boy can dance!) but both of our favorites was Memphis. Memphis is loosely based on the life of Dewey Phillips, a DJ in Memphis in the 50's who introduced white audiences to R&B and also "broke" Elvis by playing "That's All Right" over and over again.  If a traveling company of Memphis comes to your town, see it! 

We had a few minutes before Memphis, so we tried to get a drink at Sardi's, also a place with a lot of history. We got into the door but couldn't get to the bar. We did manage to take a picture of the walls, covered with caricatures.  A neat place to wait for a show to start. 

New York, New York, a heck of a town.  We always have a great time there and marvel at the talent on Broadway; it's even more fun in December. But it's also very expensive and crowded; three or four days is our usual time limit there.  So after we saw Priscilla Sunday, we left for Hyde Park; that will be our next post (which won't take a month to put up!)  

And happy, happy birthday to Ruth!!!!