America 2018: New York, New Apartment

We've just had 6 full days of exploring new (to us) parts of Manhattan. We were visiting my sister Joy, who, after over 30 years of living mainly in the West Village/Greenwich part of Lower Manhattan, has recently moved to a much larger, very comfortable apartment on Columbus Avenue, in the Upper West Side.

Two Views from Joy's Apartment

Apart from one rather gloomy day, when we all mainly spent our time in her apartment catching up on e-mails, laundry, and other 'housekeepery' type things, we've been walking, walking, walking, all around her new neighbourhood and beyond. On two mornings, we had breakfast at typical American diners - always a must in NYC. We spent some time walking through Central Park, which is just one block east from where Joy now lives, over to 5th Avenue on the Upper East Side. We also trolled along virtually the whole length of the gorgeously green Riverside Park, which runs almost the whole way up the West Side of Manhattan, right alongside the River Hudson, where we enjoyed watching the boats on the river, and the runners, cyclists, skateboarders and strollers like us enjoying the late summer sun. This also being a pretty unfamiliar part of the City for Joy too, we were all delighted when we found a little gem of a cafe right beside the West 79th Street Boat Basin (imaginatively called The West 79th Street Boat Basin Cafe) with lots of blue-parasolled patio tables, river and boat-basin views, a typically NYC 'pub food' menu, plus cocktails, and only 20 minutes' walk from her new home. (Not that there's any shortage at all of great diners, cafes, restaurants and bars, as well as a diversity of shops,within spitting distance of her new apartment in Jefferson Towers.) Nevertheless, the three of us couldn't resist going back, the day after we'd discovered it, to eat at the Boat Basin Cafe, where we were surrounded by the hubbub and holiday-like atmosphere of dozens and dozens of other drinkers/diners enjoying the early evening sunset. We were on our way back to Joy's place, returning from a lengthy 40-blocks walk down Broadway (two blocks East from Columbus) as far as the Lincoln Centre, just before the point where Broadway turns into 'theatre land', and it was a wonderful way to finish off the day's exploring.

Walking Along the Hudson River

Children's Street Art

More on the Hudson River

Civil War Memorial

Across the Jackie Onassis Reservoir in Central Park

Two Views of and from the West 79th Street Boat Basin Café

On another occasion, as we walked around the 'hood', we saw quite a number of make-shift shelters along several streets. Joy was familiar with these shelters, many of which were covered in wooden poles with palm leaves or various kinds of thatch, which she said appeared annually, and she believed were called 'sukkahs' and related to a Jewish feast or celebration of some kind, but she was not sure of their origin or significance. So, when we noticed a number of young Jewish men going into an open door at one of the synagogues one morning, we stopped to ask about these temporary huts. They immediately invited us inside to have a look around the synagogue, and between them (some of them were admittedly not entirely sure of all the details themselves) managed to explain to us that Sukkot is a week-long holiday in the Jewish calendar, marking the gathering of the harvest and the protection which was provided for their children during the 40 years of wandering in the desert during the exodus from slavery in Egypt. They celebrate Sukkot - a time of vacation - by temporarily 'dwelling' (though mainly, these days, by laying on children's parties with much singing and dancing) in sukkahs erected along the streets, and by shaking the 'Four Mnim' - four special species of vegetation representing different levels of religious observation, represented by the 'thatched' roof. The last day of this celebration, although attached to Sukkot, is apparently a different holiday, Simchat Torah, celebrating the day that Moses handed over the Torah to the Jews. So, now we know what these annually-erected structures are all about - it's good to learn new (to us 'goys' anyway) customs and celebrations!

Two Views i=Inside the Synagogue

On our last day out before Joy had to return to work, we decided to visit the Cloisters Museum in Fort Tryon Park, way up in Hudson Heights, almost at the northern tip of Manhattan. What we hadn't realised until we chatted to some other passengers on the bus going up there, was that on this particular day, Tryon Park was given over to a now annual Medieval Fayre. Even so, we weren't quite prepared for the huge throng which greeted us as we got off the bus. There were thousands and thousands of people in the park, a good proportion of them, children and adults, really getting into the spirit of the event by wearing a great variety of 'medieval' fancy dress. There we hundreds of tents where vendors were offering all kinds of children's toys and clothing - tabards, swords, jewellery, touristy tat - or selling food and drinks (one of them offering not just mead and cider, but also 'medieval water' - in plastic bottles!). There were also several displays of sword-fighting skills and jousting tournaments, where knights and 'ring-masters' would whip up the crowd to cheer and boo loudly to spur on the combatants. A great way to spend a sunny Sunday afternoon - though not exactly conducive to a peaceful stroll around the Cloisters as we'd originally intended: we'll save that for another time...