New York City - Day 3

We took yesterday off after two days in the city and a late night Wednesday.

I asked the kids this morning if they would prefer to squeeze everything else in today or return to the city tomorrow and they all wanted to do everything today. Since it costs at least $50 every day we go in, I'm in favor of that as well. We still wanted to see the Empire State Building, Rockefeller Center, Times Square, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Unfortunately, the weather today was not great. It was drizzling or raining all day long which wasn't a big deal, except the views from the Empire State Building and especially Rockefeller Center were really poor. I didn't take nearly as many pictures today because of the rain.

We went directly to the Empire State Building and made our way to the top. The kids thought it was cool and you could barely see downtown, but you could see nearby buildings. We also passed by the New York Public Library on the way.

This is 432 Park Avenue, the tallest residential building in the world and the second tallest building in NYC. It is also the third tallest building in the United States. It is considered an eyesore by many critics and a symbol of the rising cost of living and exorbitant wealth of many in the city. The first apartment sold, which was 4000 square feet and occupied half of the 35th floor sold for $18 million.

We then took the subway to The Met with only minor problems. My subway phone app told me what to do, but didn't specifically say "uptown" or "downtown" and I didn't notice that 14th St./Union Station was downtown. Thankfully, a nice gentleman on the subway could clearly see I was confused and helped us out. Turned out he was going just one stop farther than we were so we followed him during the subway transfer and all the way to Central Park (The Met is right next door to Central Park).

The Met is the fourth largest (by gallery space) art museum in the world and the largest in the United States. There are over two million items and, believe it or not, we did not see them all. I suppose you could call me a casual art fan meaning I like art, but not that much. I really like to see the famous pieces and this museum has loads of them. The kids liked parts of it, more than I expected. There are seventeen separate museum departments and you could literally spend several hours in each. I wanted to streamline our experience, so I googled a list of the ten things you have to see here and we made sure we focused on them. We spent more time in the Egyptian area because Stacey likes that and I wanted lots of pictures. We also spent a lot of time in the Greek/Roman section because Haley was excited about that.

The famous "Washington Crossing the Delaware." We could not believe how enormous it is!

Notice that these horsemen have five legs.

The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer by Edgar Degas.

A Wheat Field with Cypresses by Vincent van Gogh.

Olive Grove: Pale Blue Sky by Vincent van Gogh.

Water Lilies by Claude Monet.

Self-Portrait with Straw Hat by Vincent van Gogh.

Here begins the modern art section. None of us are artists and I assume we are "wrong" since these paintings are hanging in The Met, but, come on, some of these hardly qualify, at least to us. I'll elaborate below I suppose.

Autumn Rhythm (Number 30) by Jackson Pollock

The description on the wall literally said something like paint, wax, and graphite, which translates to crayons and pencil. It really looked like Jacob just scribbled around for a while. We don't get it.

We actually thought this one was pretty.

Yes, that is two blue stripes on an otherwise completely empty canvas. We admired it for hours.

Before and After by Andy Warhol

We don't get this either. These are just solid colored panels. Someone let me know what I'm missing.

This is a sort-of Rube Goldberg machine that used to actually run from an attached electric motor, but it doesn't operate anymore. The kids liked it.

Woman Asleep at a Table by Pablo Picasso

The Dreamer by Pablo Picasso

Faberge Eggs: quite amazing. These were stunning and had unbelievable detail.

We were at The Met a long time and we still wanted to do Rockefeller Center and Times Square. Fortunately, Mike said we should definitely do Times Square at night and I wanted to go up in Rockefeller Center at night since we already went up in the Empire State Building during the day. Unfortunately, the weather had worsened and all the Rockefeller Center personnel told us that the visibility was zero and that we should come back another day if possible. This was our last day in the city, so we had no choice. Just across the street from Rockefeller Center is Radio City Music Hall. I literally took zero pictures at or up in Rockefeller Center because of the rain. You could not even see the building next door. It was a complete waste of time except for the little exhibit they have inside about the history of the building. Broadway runs right through Times Square, so I took some pictures of it for Alyssa, a friend who has dreams of performing on Broadway. I wasn't really sure what I was looking for though.

St. Patrick's Cathedral