New York Day 3

I thought we walked a lot yesterday. Today was even more, over 21,000 steps and 8.2 miles all over Manhattan. We started a day with a food tour in Chelsea Market. The Foods of New York food tour was a great introduction to everything about Chelsea Market. It is the old Nabisco factory where the Oreo was created. It now has shopping and food throughout. It is also the home of the MLB Network and more importantly, the Food Network. The foods you see on Iron Chef and Chopped are all sourced from the Chelsea Market. We had everything from steak tartare to aged cheddar cheese, to cupcakes.

After the Chelsea Market, we went to one of the places I really wanted to see in New York, the High Line Park. The High Line is a park that has been made from the old, abandoned, elevated train tracks that run on the western part of Manhattan. Instead of tearing them down, they turned it into a beautiful urban park in the sky. What a great way to change how people think about places and spaces! It runs for over a mile and during the summer will have performers and artisans along the way. I definitely recommend a visit and wish we could have explored more of it.


 After the food tour, we returned back to our hotel (I forgot to bring the camera, Had to do the food tour with just my phone camera.) Also, our daughter Allison was coming to town, so we met up with her. We took the subway down to the Ground Zero area. So much history and so many memories are there. We couldn't stay long because of the emotions. It was nice to see that most everyone was reverent as we visited the site. It was also great to see the new Freedom Tower rising high in the sky. You definitely can't keep the USA down!

Since we were downtown, we headed close to the tip of Manhattan where we were able to get a view of Lady Liberty in the distance. Since we were in the area, we decided to walk over to Wall Street. I kept thinking of the movie National Treasure, 'Here at the Wall' with Trinity Church being the location. As we got close, we could see Trinity Church in the distance. I thought the Bull of Wall Street was outside the New York Stock Exchange, but it turns out it is a couple of blocks away at Bowling Green park. It still gets me how people were waiting in line to get a picture with the bulls testicles, lol.

From there, we headed back to rest for a few minutes and to get ready for dinner. We had dinner at an Italian Restaurant in the Times Square area, Scarlotto's on 47th. It was really good, but what was odd, was that my cousin from Virginia Beach, was in New York at the restaurant next door! He came over and said hello. We hadn't seen each other in 10 years. It was nice to catch up for a few minutes.

We ended the day with an evening walking tour with Free Tours by Foot. I thought it would be a nice tour to see midtown Manhattan by night. We started at Grand Central Terminal, and went from there. We saw some of the buildings we had seen before, but many we had not. A couple of the highlights for me was the New York Public Library, and the Flatiron Building. I have seen so many pictures of the Flatiron, that I wanted to see it in person, and who can forget the scenes from Ghostbusters with the the Library in the background! It was the perfect way to see the city that doesn't sleep and even better that Lisa and I were able to enjoy it with Allison. The best part is, that the tour costs what you want to pay. No fixed price, or no price at all if you wish. However, this is how the guides make their living, so if you enjoy the tour, make sure you take care of them.

All in all, this was our busiest day, but it was a lot of fun. Tomorrow is our last full day in the city. There are a few things left we want to see, but we will try to take it a little easier.+