Our Second Day In New York City - Travel Guide For New York Newbies
Hi guys,
No, I haven't forgotten that I wanted to put my New York guide of our second day together, which was the day when we walked 23 kilometers. No wonder, because we were on the road from early in the morning til night. So we visited a lot of amazing places and many things happened during the whole day, what I really like to share with you. But it definitely took some time to prepare the second day guide. That’s why you haven't heard from me for a while. Now you can enjoy the second day of our New York city trip. Let yourself be inspired or simply travel in thoughts with us to all this incredible places...
Have fun!!
First of all we wanted to have a quick breakfast and we gave it a try and went to a french Cafe called Anges Noir Cafe in Brooklyn, which was recommended by a friend of us. It wasn't on our way to the subway station but the croissants were worth it to take a detour. We both grabbed an almond croissant, which were the best ones I had eaten for a long time! I think they're getting close to the croissants in Paris. The cold brew was also fantastic and this place has a cool and nice atmosphere, that we already planned for the next day to have an extensive breakfast.
Since we always bring new inspirations of drinks or food from our trips home into our everyday life, one day I would like to show you how to make a "Cold Brew", which we took twice a day during our New York trip. It was just the perfect way to enjoy a coffee in that heat. And I can say it tastes even better than a normal coffee. But, no worries, I’m going to explain everything in more detail when I show you how to prepare it.
With almond croissant and cold brew in our hands we went to the subway station and we drove to the district called Chelsea. Chelsea is a mixture of beautiful townhouses, sweat little apartment buildings and noble skyscrapers. There are also a lot of art galleries in old factory buildings.
When we came out of subway station, we saw on the stairway up to the street a barrier with the words "CREIME SCENE". This suddenly gave us a weird feeling and let us thinking and asking about "What happened here?" Things like that let us realize that we are in a city with a very high crime rate. Richness and poverty are lying very close together. You gonna see next to the Luis Viutton Boutique a homeless man with his dog or in the subway a guy with dirty and broken clothes next to a well-dressed business manager asking for money. That's a frequently seen image and quite normal. But what I have noticed is that people don't just walk by without leaving some money. On the contrary many people are willing to help and donate a few dollars. It may be due to the fact that many people in New York start with nothing before they succeed in that city. They say if you want to live in New York, you have to learn to survive. I've read an article in a New York Magazine that the people who come to New York willing to live there, believe that SHE (the city) has to crush and spit them out first, only after that they are able to live in that city successfully. How crazy right...? But, for sure, they made their experiences.
After we got out of the dark subway station and we saw how beautiful it was outside, we started to relax and we took some time to stroll through the pretty streets to the Chelsea Food Market, we would like to visit. Because we heard about its delicatessens, restaurants and shops located in that old big fabric building. This place is definitely the first address for gourmets. The building was once a biscuit factory and the place where the famous Oreo biscuits were invented. Today the halls house bakeries, wine merchants, vegetable traders, a fish shop, sushi bars, a butcher's shop with a steak restaurant and much more. Unfortunately we were a little bit too early, many restaurants and shops hadn’t opened yet, but the good things was, that it wasn’t so overcrowded yet (what we didn’t realized, until we returned at noon).
Due to the opening hours of the shops we decides to check out first the High Line, which wasn’t far away from the Chelsea Market and equally worth to discover. The High Line is a park situated on a former railway line. You'll find very pretty flowerbeds and a lot of green lawns. Everything is very well maintained and there are plenty of benches to sit down, having a rest and enjoy the nature in the middle of the skyscrapers. During a nice walk, you have a great view to the streets of New York because the park is higher situated and provides a better point of view. Many New Yorker spend some time during their breaks, having lunch in green surrounding. We took some fresh fruits from the Chelsea Food Market and ate it at the High Line Park.
After we've eaten all the fruits we walked the whole High Line until we saw some interesting buildings. Since it was almost the end of the High Line we thought it might be interesting to check out this area. There were really nice buildings to look at. This whole complex is quite new and called Hudson Yards complex. One building inside of that Hundson Yards complex called “The Vessel”. As you can see on the pics it has a very special architectural look. If you're an architecture lover you can visit this unique building, but you need a ticket, which costs 10 dollar per person, which you should get at the surrounding information pillars. Since we are not so interested in architecture and many people already standing in a long queue to come up there, we decided not to go. Actually it isn’t quite high anyway, so that the view is limited and is covered by the surrounding higher buildings. I think from the outside you gonna have a better view on it.
As we wanted to get back on the High Line to finish the last part, which was closed for some reason, we discovered on the opposite side of the 11th Avenue a nice view to New Jersey and a great photo motive of many trains parked on a lot of tracks.
After Daniell took some photos with his analog camera, we slowly got hungry again. So we decided to go back to the Chelsea Food Market. In order not to take the same way back, we walked through the streets of Chelsea and discovered really nice residential areas. Like this area, for example, where Daniell took some pictures of me on the stairs in front of a pretty ivy-covered townhouse.
The Meatpacking District is one of the trendiest areas in New York City. In addition to the high line and many great rooftop bars, restaurants and shopping opportunities, the Chelsea Food Market, which stretches over an entire block of streets, is particularly worthwhile. So we went back to the Chelsea Market having lunch. The old walls inside the historic factory building, whose origins date back to 1890, give the market a unique ambience. While strolling, you can discover old granite statues, watch the bakers bake, or simply linger in one of the many cosy restaurants.
The choice and offer in the Chelsea Market is unbeatable. Those who come here should definitely be hungry. Here you will find something for every taste. Delicious cupcakes, fresh bread, asian food or also Italian specialties, wines and delicious coffee, even German Curry Wurst. After a long look around we decided to go for authentic streetfood and got stuck at Very Fresh Noodles. We had a very delicious noodle soup, which was prepared in front of us. You can sit at the bar and watch the noodles being fresh made. Price-performance was perfect! The taste was indescribable and truly Asian!
After this huge portion of noodle soup we have to force ourselves to go further, since we were so extremely full and almost having a lameness, it was quite difficult to keep on track. But we made it and due to a cool shopping area next to the Chelsea Food Market we discovered a Patagonia store, where Daniell purchased a super nice thermo-jacket for our upcoming trip to New Zealand.
Next stop was the Central Park where we first just sat in the gras. In front of us a lake and the skyline of Manhattan. Unfortunately we didn’t take some pictures. Maybe because we rented again a Citi Bike and drove through the whole Central Park, so probably we didn’t have some time to take pictures. I don’t know…!
We also planned to visit “Top Of The Rock” and the legendary Time Square at night. “Top Of The Rock” is an observation deck at the top of the Rockefeller Center.
When we arrived with our bikes at Columbus Circle we have found a lot of hustle and bustle because the Columbus Circle is one of the biggest roundabouts in New York City. It’s located at the intersection of Broadway and Central Park. It was a quite tricky to get through the crowd by bike and to find a Citi Bike station to return the bikes. After we finally got rid of the bikes we first had to orient ourselves again.
Since we wanted to visit the Broadway and Time Square at night and we were supposed to be at the Rockefeller Center soon, we headed toward the Rockefeller Center and we passed one bigger street after the other and the legendary Radio City Music Hall.
Daniell reserved 2 tickets for “Top Of The Rock”. He wanted to take some analog shots of the sweeping and unobstructed views Central Park and Manhattan's Midtown and Downtown skyscrapers. The View from the “Top Of The Rock” (70th floor) is truly one of a stunning views as you can see at the pics. Luckily we waited until it slightly got dark and all the lights of the skyscrapers switched on. From one side of the Rockefeller Center you can see the amazing Empire State Building, which was simply breathtaking especially when the sunset was over and the blue hour started.
The darkness had finally set and we drove down the 70 floors within a few seconds. That was the fastest elevator I've ever been inside. Arrived at the bottom we had to get out of the tangle of the Rockefeller Center, which worked out after a few roundabouts bellow that incredible building.
The Time Square/ theater district was fortunately not far away and we arrived at the right time, because we wanted to see all the lights shining on the advertising screens at night. There we got an incredible impression of this city and we realized, that everything is possible in this city. You can make money with everything, you just need a good idea and you just have to make it. For example, these two girls who went with only a slip and body painting on Time Square and got paid for every picture. You’ll see preachers who preach about Jesus' love and people with big snakes on the shoulders to find someone who wants to take the snake as well for a paid picture.
New York is known for its street food culture and especially the classic hot dog and halal food carts are at every corner, we thought that we should definitely eat a hot dog at Time Square. Since we weren't that hungry anymore, we came up with the idea that a hot dog would be the right later night snack. Unfortunately it turned out that is was a stupid idea. Well, at least we can say that we ate by far the most disgusting hot dog in New York. :-)))
However, all in all it was another great day, we had so much fun and we saw again a lot of fantastic sites. We took our subway back home to Brooklyn. After a shower and a cold beer we fell into the bed and dozen off.
I hope your wanderlust has been calmed a little or you've got some new inspiration for another trip you would like to realize. Just remember, wherever you go, go with all your heart, even if you are travel only in your mind.
PS: There's one thing I would like to mention. You probably think that traveling and the numerous flights we always took doesn't fit into my sustainable life, which I’m going to try to live. That’s true it doesn’t fit, because due to the strong impact of high altitude carbon dioxide, it’s expected that flights are 75% realistically responsible of the total climate change effect. But thankfully there are already some ways to compensate it. Of course, you can't fix it. But at least it's something you can do. About that issue I'd like to write soon.
Love
Katy
Analog pics by Daniell Bohnhof
Text by Look2 Ocean