Seeing a Broadway Show – On to Bryant Park

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I intended my make my first stop to be at Bryant Park, but first a picture (above) taken right outside Grand Central Terminal

Bryant Park is a 9.6-acre (3.9 ha), privately managed public park in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is located between Fifth Avenue and Avenue of the Americas (Sixth Avenue) and between 40th and 42nd Streets in Midtown Manhattan. The eastern half of Bryant Park is occupied by the Main Branch of the New York Public Library. The western half contains a lawn, shaded walkways, and amenities such as a carousel, and is located entirely over an underground structure that houses the library’s stacks. The park hosts several events, including a seasonal “Winter Village” with an ice rink and shops during the winter.

The first park at the site was opened in 1847 and was called Reservoir Square due to its proximity to the Croton Distributing Reservoir. Reservoir Square contained the New York Crystal Palace, which hosted the Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations in 1853 and burned down in 1858. The square was renamed in 1884 for abolitionist and journalist William Cullen Bryant. The reservoir was demolished in 1900, and the New York Public Library’s main branch was built on the site, opening in 1911. Bryant Park was rebuilt in 1933–1934 to a plan by Lusby Simpson. After a period of decline, it was restored in 1988–1992 by landscape architects Hanna/Olin Ltd. and architects Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates, during which the park was rebuilt, and the library’s stacks were built underneath. Further improvements were made in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. (Wikipedia)

The above mentions: “a period of decline”. That doesn’t quite tell the full story. By the 1960s, Bryant Park had deteriorated badly. When I arrived in New York in 1974 it had been taken over by drug dealers and the homeless. In was considered to be somewhere that ordinary people and visitors should avoid.

The park was substantially renovated and rebuilt during the 1980s and re-opened to acclaim in the early 1990s. The dramatic improvement in the park led to an equally dramatic rise in real estate values in the surrounding area. By 1993, the area had become a highly desirable office area, and formerly vacant office space around the park was being filled quickly. The Park is used mostly as a passive recreation space. It is one of the world’s busiest public spaces. Now more than 12 million people per year visit the park and enjoy gardens with seasonal displays, free daily amenities, cultural programming, exercise classes, and much more!

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The Winter Village

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Plastic igloos where you can sit and eat or have a drink while protected from New York winters.

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Statue of William Earl Dodge by by John Quincy Adams Ward. It was cast in 1885 and dedicated on October 22 of that year. The statue was initially installed in Herald Square, having been financed by Dodge’s admirers and friends. It was moved to Bryant Park in 1941 and was renovated in 1992 by the Bryant Park Restoration Corporation.

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The Josephine Shaw Lowell Memorial Fountain, a memorial to Josephine Shaw Lowell, a social worker active in the late 19th century. The fountain was designed by architect Charles A. Platt and dedicated in 1912.

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Coins in the fountain.

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One of the numerous decorative planters scattered around the park.

Taken with a Sony RX100 MVII

A visit to upstate New York and Vermont – last dinner before leaving Vermont

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After a fairly long drive back from Ticonderoga we decided to eat in Rutland, Vermont at a restaurant called Roots. We had a great meal in a pleasant and interesting location. This was marred by only one thing. When I came to pay for the meal their machines would not accept any of my credit cards. So, my friends had to pay. When I was able to contact my bank, they told me that there was no problem with the cards, and that if they had been declined, they would have received a message – which they didn’t. The only thing they could offer was that the machine being used by the restaurant must have been faulty.

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Taken with a Sony RX10 IV

A visit to upstate New York and Vermont – Star Trek Original Series Set Tour

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When I mentioned to a colleague that we would be visiting Ticonderoga, NY she suggested that we might want to check out the Star Trek Original Series Set Tour. I’ve been watching Star Trek since I was kid, and my friend’s husband was an even more devoted fan than I am (he seems to be able to remember every episode in great detail, which is something that I’m a long way away from being able to do). So he got tickets for us.

The tour’s website provides the following description:

Star Trek: Original Series Set Tour is Located in Historic downtown Ticonderoga, New York.

When the STAR TREK television series was canceled in 1969, the original sets were dismantled and largely destroyed, only a few small items of the actual sets remain today, and those that have survived are in private collections. Trek superfan James Cawley began the process of rebuilding the sets just as they would have been seen 50 years ago when the series was being filmed, a 14 year journey has culminated in the most accurate rebuild of the original sets, and is now open and welcoming STAR TREK fans from all over the world!

Our sets are complete recreations built using the original blueprints, hundreds of hours of serious research and thousands of photographs – both period images and images culled from extensive review and capture from the original episodes. The sets will NOT and were NOT designed to move from one city to another and are fully licensed by CBS. The Star Trek: Original Series Set Tour Invites you to come see the Desilu Studio as it looked during the years between 1966-1969 while Star Trek was in production.

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This “Batmobile” stood outside the entrance to the tour. We later discovered that it had been built by the person who also owned to tour.

The picture at the top of this post, and the next three pictures were taken in the lobby while we were waiting for the tour to begin.

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The next three pictures show the transporter room, featuring my friend’s husband and (in the second picture the two consoles used in the original series)

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In the next two pictures we’re in sick bay.

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The famous curved corridor.

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The conference room featuring a Vulcan lute (sometimes referred to as a Vulcan harp, Vulcan lyre, or Vulcan lyrette) was a twelve-stringed musical instrument played on the planet Vulcan that was tuned on a diatonic scale and noted to be very soothing.

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A couple of artifacts featuring a skull and a Tricorder.

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Captain Kirk’s room

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The Engine Room (I’m not sure about the first picture below, but I think it was the engine room. The second one certainly is.

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On the bridge

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All in all, it was much better than I thought it would be and I really enjoyed it. The highlight of the tour was being able to sit in the captain’s chair on the bridge of the starship “Enterprise”!

Taken with a Sony RX10 IV

Lantern Revealed

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I’ve posted before about the stone lanterns that are scattered around the village of Briarcliff Manor. I believe there are about six of them in the village (For more information see: The Story of the Stone Lanterns on the Briarcliff Manor-Scarborough Historical Society website).

This lantern (#5 on the website) was placed by Walter Law (the founder of Briarcliff Manor) at his daughter Edith Law Bröckelmann’s property named “Little Mount Vernon,” across from the entrance to the Law Manor on Scarborough Road, where it remains, in its original location. The “Little Mount Vernon” mansion was built by W. W. Law for his daughter, Edith who returned to Briarcliff Manor from China in 1902 as the widow of Fritz Bröckelmann, who we believe was responsible for sending the lanterns from China.

I’ve lived in Briarcliff Manor for about 26 years, and my house is only a short walk from this lantern. I’ve passed it many times and didn’t see it until about a year ago. It was behind some bushes, and you couldn’t see it from the road. You had to virtually crawl under the bushes to get a view of it. That’s now changed. The present owners have been doing some landscaping and I’m pleased to say, as you can see from the picture, the lantern is now clearly visible from the road where passers-by can see it. I don’t know who owns the property nowadays, but I’d like to thank them for making this piece of Briarcliff History visible to all.

Taken with a Sony RX10 IV.

In New York City with Jasmine – 9/11 Museum

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In an earlier post I mentioned that I’d visisted the 9/11 memorial back in October 2013. At that time the museum wasn’t yet open and so this was the first time I would see it.

According to Sowing Seeds of Faith:

Also on the site is the newly opened, National September 11 Memorial Museum which has become the central location for preserving the history of the tragedy. Located in the space between the North and South Towers, the museum is designed to help you relive what happened that day but also chronicles the stories of the survivors as they and the city rebuild.

As you walk through the halls, you hear stories about the victims, recordings from 911 calls, interviews with survivors. You view dozens of media images and even touch objects found near the site. There is the Ladder Company 3 Fire Truck smashed by chunks of debris. There is the Giant Cross made of two steel beams tha stood at “Ground Zero.” There are sections of the original walls and even a damaged elevator motor.

One hall is called “102 Minutes: Events of the Day” that helps you relive moment by moment what happened during the 102 minutes between the impact of the first plane into the North Tower to the crash of the fourth plane in Pennsylvania. There is the “Tribute Walk” that presents many of the artistic tributes created in response to 9/11.

One my favorite exhibits displayed a beautiful motorcycle named the “Dream Bike.” According to the description… “Firefighter Gerard Baptiste purchased a battered Honda motorcycle. Baptiste believed that he could restore it to good working order. His fellow firefighters joked that it would take time and money just to start the engine. Following Baptiste’s death on 9/11, the broken-down motorcycle remained at the firehouse until a memorial tribute inspired Baptiste’s colleagues to restore the bike in his memory. Surviving members of the firehouse and motorcycle enthusiasts nationwide, transformed the motorcycle into a “bike of healing’ known as the Dream Bike. Ten roses painted on the cover of its gas tank symbolize the members of Ladder Company 9 and Engine Company 33 killed that day.”

Near the end of your museum tour, you are invited to watch a multi-screen 360 surround film experience appropriately named “Rebirth at Ground Zero” which uses time lapse footage and interviews to show the rebuilding and renewal of the World Trade Center site. Upon leaving the museum you can’t help but notice the newly built World Trade Center towering above the memorial and the museum grounds.

I came to “Ground Zero” to pay my respects but I left the 9/11 Memorial and Museum with a sense of awe and pride at the resilience and fortitude of the survivors, New York City and America. 9/11 will always be a tragic day burned into our memory forever but September 11 may ultimately be one of America’s greatest examples of triumph in the face of tragedy; accomplishment in the midst of destruction.

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Two pictures above: The World Trade Center Tridents. According to the World Trade Center Website:

These seven-story steel structures were part of the original façade of the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center, once forming the distinctive Gothic arch motif at the base of the skyscrapers. The forked columns are so large that the Museum Pavilion’s structure will be built around them. The steel icons were recovered from the World Trade Center site during the recovery effort in 2001 and 2002. The Port Authority has worked to conserve the steel columns and other historic World Trade Center artifacts at JFK International Airport’s Hangar 17.

‚The ‘tridents’ are visual references to the towers that once stood at the World Trade Center,? Chairman Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said. ‚Installed within the Museum, they will symbolize our resolve to overcome the devastation of 9/11 and signal a hopeful future as they greet visitors to the site.?

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Above a scale model of The Sphere which once stood in the World Trade Center complex. As the only piece of iconic artwork to survive the 9/11 attacks, it became a symbol of strength, survival and resilience and reflected “the tenacious spirit of all those affected,”. Like the United States after the fateful event, the Sphere emerged “very bruised, much broken, but not defeated.” On March 11, 2002, the Sphere was erected in Battery Park as the first official memorial to the victims of 9/11 in New York City. The Port Authority voted in 2016 to return it to World Trade Center site.

The next two pictures show the World Trade Center’s foundations.

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The two pictures below show The Last Column. It stands in the center of the 9/11 Memorial Museum’s Foundation Hall, is covered in thousands of markings and tributes placed on the beam by workers and family members. The story of how and why the markings began to appear links back to one fireman’s personal and practical act. For more information see Story Behind the Last Column’s First Markings

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To the right of the stairs in the picture below you can just make out the Survivor’s Staircase. According to Wikipedia:

View of the Memorial Hall. The Survivors’ Staircase is a granite and concrete staircase that was the last visible remaining original structure above ground level at the World Trade Center site. It was originally an outdoor flight of stairs and two escalators, which connected Vesey Street to the World Trade Center’s Austin J. Tobin Plaza. During the September 11 attacks, the stairs were an escape route for hundreds of evacuees from 5 World Trade Center, a 9-floor building adjacent to the Twin Towers. The staircase was moved from its original location in 2008, and in 2010 it became part of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum.

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Below another view of the Memorial Hall featuring a quote from Virgil:

In the vast space known as Memorial Hall, first glimpsed from the overlook, you will again encounter the quote from the poet Virgil, presented in letters about fifteen inches tall, forged by blacksmith Tom Joyce in steel recovered from the World Trade Centre Site. Virgil’s words read “No day shall erase you from the memory of time. ” A sea of blue surrounds the quote: 2983 individual paper watercolours in different shades of blue pay tribute to the people killed on 9/11 and in the 1993 bombing. Artist Spencer Finch created this exhibition titled “Trying to remember the color of the sky on that September morning” especially for this space in the museum.

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Below A 10,000-pound elevator motor that shuttled hundreds of people a day at the original World Trade Center. The exhibit also tells the story of John Menville, who arrived at the World Trade Center in 1969 to install the elevators and stayed for 32 years to maintain them. For more on this story see: Elevator Motor that Helped Save Thousands for 9/11 Museum.

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Below: New York City, Ladder 3. For more information see: The tragic & symbolic wreck of Ladder 3 – victim of 9/11

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Below motorcycles associated with the World Trade Center including (final picture) “The Dream Bike”

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Below The Dream Bike. For more see: Black History: “The Dream Bike”

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All things considered it was a very interesting, if sobering experience. Part of me wanted to browse around some more. Another part just wanted to get out of there as soon as possible.

Taken with a Sony RX100M3