nyc, day 2 (10 oct 2008)

Friday, October 10, 2008

Well, it’s actually Saturday morning – just after 1:30 AM.

It’s been an amazing full day!!

D and I started the day out with my first real NYC bagel! Okay, so it was a plain bagel with cream cheese, but there you go. We got a little bit of a late start – we were going to get up earlier than we did, but oh well. Breakfast was at about 10:30. We walked up and got Metro cards (and they will have paid for themselves by the time we leave) and then took the subway downtown. We actually changed our minds about three times ON the train, and ended up going to the Brooklyn Bridge first. We walked up to the first pylon and then back. Yes, I took lots of pictures - link here. I took pics of stuff I didn't know about until later - like the one of the Woolworth Building (used to be the tallest building in the world until the Chrysler Building o'ertopped it) and the American International Building (tallest building in downtown Manhattan now that the WTC is gone). Did I mention that it was an absolutely perfect day? I’d say 70 degrees and clear as a bell. W00t! Thank you, Ryan, for suggesting we walk across the Bridge. :)

Next stop, (after changing our minds again – we decided against Washington Square Park) we went on to Battery Park – we didn’t get to see much of the park (I wish we’d had more time – I’d have loved to look at the battlement ruins. Alas.) However! We got right on the ferry – an adventure in and of itself due to the 3 foot swells at the pier (check out this vid and this one too) – and went over to Liberty Island. Lots more pics! OKay, so, I went a little overboard (not literally). I got a great one of the Statue with the torch’s flame blocking the sun – I’m looking now to see if it turned out! (It did! I’ll link it here) Next stop of the ferry was Ellis Island. We rented the audio sets and did the tour – if you get a chance to go to NYC, this is the one thing that you should not miss. It was an amazing feeling, standing in the Great Hall of the main building and realizing that millions of immigrants went thru that same place. We even sat on original benches from the early part of the twentieth century. We were there for about an hour (we had to come back uptown to change and get the theatre tickets) so we did the tour quickly. Took pictures of the Manhattan skyline, the NJ shore, the building, everything. At least till the battery died on the camera. (ETA: Make sure to read the captions on the pictures - I detailed what we were looking at on each one.)

We got back to D’s Mom’s about 6ish – great considering it was rush hour, and we had to come some distance. We’d intending on sort of eating our way across the city – turned out that we mostly drank water across the city instead. Strawberry drink from Papaya King is yum and was very nice on the parched tissues.

Changed clothes, grabbed tix, and back out we went. We took the subway to 42nd, (which ended up being 40th, for some reason) and I got my first view of Times Square. People EVERYWHERE. The billboards go STORIES up the sides of the buildings. Wow. We did stop for “real NY pizza” – we’d last eaten at breakfast, remember – and then onto the show. The Broadhurst is a half of a block off of Broadway, and is next to the Shubert, which was showing Joe’s fav play – Spamalot! We got seated about 15-20 minutes before curtain. There WAS no curtain, but you know what I mean.

The sets are minimalistic, with a polygon-shaped step-up platform with 4 large blocks. You can actually see the setup in the WSJ video review - the footage they show is from the very beginning of the play, and nother spot later. Around the stage are life-sized wire horse heads, hanging on wooden doors. The ‘stage’ seating was almost like balcony seating, except it was facing the audience. We were about 40 feet from the stage.

The play was incredible. The ‘horses’ were very well-built men with chestnut pants and sheer form-fitting shirts, the large wire-form horse heads, and what appeared to be platform shoes – about 8-10 inches high and with horseshoe bases. Richard Griffiths was funny and thought-provoking at intervals, Kate Mulgrew played the Magistrate who brings Alan Strang to Dysart, and Dan, well, Dan was amazing. I had to laugh at one point – Dysart refers to the patients he sees as ‘freaks’ and then sees Alan for an appointment. Sounds like Uncle Vernon! The large blocks were used at times as a desk, chairs, beds, living room furniture, and hay bales. The lighting was very dramatic, the use of fog really created an atmosphere of dreams, and finally the nude scene was very well done, very tastefully done. I really need to sit and detail out how I felt about the play…there were places that there was laughter from the audience that I thought was rather odd, as the implications of the comments were serious. More on that later.

Sardi’s – salmon and swordfish. YUM. More tomorrow AM – the laptop battery is dying!

Cheers!