New York City: Day 2, Part 1

On Day 2 of our NYC experience, we took a city tour.  There are several companies that offer these, we chose On Board Tours.  It was awesome.  We got to see so much of the city!  Here we are on the bus ready to see the sights. 

Our first stop was Central Park, where we visited "Strawberry Fields," the area dedicated to the memory of John Lennon, who had been killed nearby.  At most of the stops, we all (about 25 of us all together) got off the bus with our tour guide and walked to the various places of interest.

Central Park is such a beautiful place.  It's nice that there is this oasis of grass and trees inside the huge maze of concrete, steel, and blacktop that makes up New York City.

 It's a great place for some peaceful reading,

Or for a scenic pedicab ride,

or a romantic horse and carriage ride.

This man sleeping along the sidewalk was pretty hard for me to see.  I knew I would encounter homelessness, and poverty, but when it is in such close proximity to the wealth just across the street, it is quite hard to stomach.

Yoko Ono lives in this building (just across the street from the Lennon memorial).  The tour guide told us how much an apartment in this building would sell for, and I can't remember exactly, but I know it was several million.

 I loved to stop whenever we encountered street performers.  I'm always fascinated by them.

The architecture of the old buildings and churches was amazing! 

 We visited Rockefeller Plaza.

I'd love to see the view from the top of the Rockefeller!

 They were in the process of putting up the famed Christmas tree.  It was several stories tall and there was special scaffolding built around the front of the building to allow workers to decorate the tree.

I love this shot of Harold with our tour guide (in the red cap) in front of the NBC studio! 

The Flatiron building. 

 The Empire State Building!

 The Occupy Wall Street protesters were in NYC during the time we were there.

 Here are a few of the signs we spotted.

 We actually passed Zuccotti Park the day after it had been cleared out.  There were so many police men, but no more protesters.

We also passed through China Town, which was pretty neat.  I guess it never occurred to me that China Town is actually mostly inhabited by people who are Chinese.  (I know, big duh, right?) But it really was just like stepping into a little town in China. 

After buzzing through China Town, we headed down to the South Sea Port for the boat ride portion of our tour.  I'll write about that next time.