Journals #1
Impressions of New York:
Growing up on Long Island and being a forty-minute train ride away from Manhattan I have had the opportunity to explore many things that the city has to offer. Personally I love everything about the city from the constant traffic and the mass amount of people that always seem to be in a rush. You can tell if someone isn’t from New York very quickly by the way they walk. The city truly never sleeps and I love that.
I have been going to the city since I was very young seeing countless Broadway Shows, to attending numerous concerts in Central Park and Madison Square Garden. Also, taking field trips with my school going to the Body Exhibit and Madame Tussauds Wax Museum. Shopping with my family and friends on Canal Street is always fun or even attending a Met or Yankee Game in Queens and the Bronx is always a favorite of mine. My favorite time to be in the city is during Christmas time especially skating at Bryant Park that has always been a great memory that stands out.
Living so close to the City I feel as if I haven’t explored like I would have if I were vacationing here. There is so much more of New York City that I haven’t explored yet and I am so excited to take this course to see what this amazing city that we live in has to offer!
Growing up on Long Island and being a forty-minute train ride away from Manhattan I have had the opportunity to explore many things that the city has to offer. Personally I love everything about the city from the constant traffic and the mass amount of people that always seem to be in a rush. You can tell if someone isn’t from New York very quickly by the way they walk. The city truly never sleeps and I love that.
I have been going to the city since I was very young seeing countless Broadway Shows, to attending numerous concerts in Central Park and Madison Square Garden. Also, taking field trips with my school going to the Body Exhibit and Madame Tussauds Wax Museum. Shopping with my family and friends on Canal Street is always fun or even attending a Met or Yankee Game in Queens and the Bronx is always a favorite of mine. My favorite time to be in the city is during Christmas time especially skating at Bryant Park that has always been a great memory that stands out.
Living so close to the City I feel as if I haven’t explored like I would have if I were vacationing here. There is so much more of New York City that I haven’t explored yet and I am so excited to take this course to see what this amazing city that we live in has to offer!
Journal 1: Queens:
Thursday morning I woke up feeling nervous not knowing what to expect with this class, I was especially nervous with the amount of walking that we were going to entail. I am extremely happy that it wasn’t bad at all my legs surprisingly didn’t bother me at all. I signed up for this course knowing my two best friends were going to be in this class as well which is making this experience that much better. It was raining in the morning so we made sure we left early enough so we would have time to get settled before the class began. We arrived to Penn Station around 10:15. Our adventure started off in Penn Station getting metro cards and having a discussion before we were off on our journey. We first started to learn about the history of Penn Station. An interesting fact that I didn’t know of is that Penn Station is the bustiest train station in the United States serving over 600,000 passengers every day. (ENY, p. 28)
Our journey than continued to the Grand Central Terminal, I have been their only once before and forgot how beautiful this beaux art style terminal is. I really loved the mural on the ceiling of the constellations the colors were just lovely. Most people don’t realize this but on the ceiling there is a single dark patch that was left to show what the ceiling used to look like from all the smoke. This terminal wouldn’t still be around if it wasn’t for Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis to save this landmark status. (ENY, p.50)
Continuing our journey to the Chrysler Building located on Lexington Avenue this building style is known as art deco. This building is one of the most well designed skyscrapers in the world. When looking at this building I thought it was neat how this building was designed like the hood on their cars. What I found fascinating was that there is a law that when you have a building with x amount of floors you have to keep setting the building back and making it smaller to allow light and air in the streets to not make it look so gloomy. Also, I didn’t realize that this building was once the tallest building in the world. (ENY, p.51)
Other buildings we saw on our journey were the General Electric Building and Daily News Building that were also art deco style. The G.E. Building is themed radio and electric. I liked how they used the theme on the front of the building. They had a clock with the image of hands grasping lightning bolts. The Daily News Building had a different look than the other art deco buildings this building had a flat roof, which was very uncommon.
The Waldorf- Astoria was amazing and very elegant! The bathrooms were mind blowing one stall was bigger than my bathroom at home. An exciting part of the day for me was taking the tram over the Queens Borough Bridge; I didn’t know that existed prior to Thursday. That was a great experience. Roosevelt Island is beautiful especially on a day like Thursday with the sun shining over the East River and having the whole city in view was incredible. What I liked about this park was that it was almost hidden and seemed as if many people didn’t know this park existed. How it was designed was clever making it as if you were on the bow of a boat. I am definitely going to visit Roosevelt Island again!
Now we are finally off to lunch, we ate Indian food at the Jackson Diner. This was the first time I had ever tried Indian Food and it wasn’t too bad! I don’t think I would eat it again but I am happy I got to experience this food. After lunch we continued this journey to Astoria to the Museum of the Moving Image what a cool experience seeing all the different things that go on behind the scenes of films. It was very interesting! Our last stop on our adventure was Long Island City MoMA PS1 I am not really fascinated in art galleries but this was interesting. This gallery was once a school and the café was designed so you would eat at a desk like you were actually in a classroom. We ended our day with a class discussion at the Gantry Plaza State Park this park had an amazing view of the city with all the chairs and benches lined up next to the water, such a great view. The last thing I found highly interesting was the railroad gantries that were used to transfer cargo from ships to trains to be transported throughout Long Island. (ENY, p.150)
We accomplished a lot in day one and I am very excited to continue this journey. I didn’t realize how many things I didn’t know about prior to this experience. I cannot wait until Tuesday!
Thursday morning I woke up feeling nervous not knowing what to expect with this class, I was especially nervous with the amount of walking that we were going to entail. I am extremely happy that it wasn’t bad at all my legs surprisingly didn’t bother me at all. I signed up for this course knowing my two best friends were going to be in this class as well which is making this experience that much better. It was raining in the morning so we made sure we left early enough so we would have time to get settled before the class began. We arrived to Penn Station around 10:15. Our adventure started off in Penn Station getting metro cards and having a discussion before we were off on our journey. We first started to learn about the history of Penn Station. An interesting fact that I didn’t know of is that Penn Station is the bustiest train station in the United States serving over 600,000 passengers every day. (ENY, p. 28)
Our journey than continued to the Grand Central Terminal, I have been their only once before and forgot how beautiful this beaux art style terminal is. I really loved the mural on the ceiling of the constellations the colors were just lovely. Most people don’t realize this but on the ceiling there is a single dark patch that was left to show what the ceiling used to look like from all the smoke. This terminal wouldn’t still be around if it wasn’t for Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis to save this landmark status. (ENY, p.50)
Continuing our journey to the Chrysler Building located on Lexington Avenue this building style is known as art deco. This building is one of the most well designed skyscrapers in the world. When looking at this building I thought it was neat how this building was designed like the hood on their cars. What I found fascinating was that there is a law that when you have a building with x amount of floors you have to keep setting the building back and making it smaller to allow light and air in the streets to not make it look so gloomy. Also, I didn’t realize that this building was once the tallest building in the world. (ENY, p.51)
Other buildings we saw on our journey were the General Electric Building and Daily News Building that were also art deco style. The G.E. Building is themed radio and electric. I liked how they used the theme on the front of the building. They had a clock with the image of hands grasping lightning bolts. The Daily News Building had a different look than the other art deco buildings this building had a flat roof, which was very uncommon.
The Waldorf- Astoria was amazing and very elegant! The bathrooms were mind blowing one stall was bigger than my bathroom at home. An exciting part of the day for me was taking the tram over the Queens Borough Bridge; I didn’t know that existed prior to Thursday. That was a great experience. Roosevelt Island is beautiful especially on a day like Thursday with the sun shining over the East River and having the whole city in view was incredible. What I liked about this park was that it was almost hidden and seemed as if many people didn’t know this park existed. How it was designed was clever making it as if you were on the bow of a boat. I am definitely going to visit Roosevelt Island again!
Now we are finally off to lunch, we ate Indian food at the Jackson Diner. This was the first time I had ever tried Indian Food and it wasn’t too bad! I don’t think I would eat it again but I am happy I got to experience this food. After lunch we continued this journey to Astoria to the Museum of the Moving Image what a cool experience seeing all the different things that go on behind the scenes of films. It was very interesting! Our last stop on our adventure was Long Island City MoMA PS1 I am not really fascinated in art galleries but this was interesting. This gallery was once a school and the café was designed so you would eat at a desk like you were actually in a classroom. We ended our day with a class discussion at the Gantry Plaza State Park this park had an amazing view of the city with all the chairs and benches lined up next to the water, such a great view. The last thing I found highly interesting was the railroad gantries that were used to transfer cargo from ships to trains to be transported throughout Long Island. (ENY, p.150)
We accomplished a lot in day one and I am very excited to continue this journey. I didn’t realize how many things I didn’t know about prior to this experience. I cannot wait until Tuesday!
Journal 2: Brooklyn:
I woke up very excited about everything planned for the day. I have never been to either Coney Island or the Brooklyn Bridge, I yelled at my parents after the fact for never taking me. We began the day taking the F train to Coney Island, which is roughly a forty-five minute ride! Luckily, through out the ride everyone was able to find a seat. I was very excited since I have never been there before. Coney Island has the distinction of being one of the United States’ earliest and most prominent seaside resort communities. Today Coney Island is home to 60,000 inhabitants, but continues to be known for its amusement parks and seaside attractions. (ENY 115) I also learned that Coney Island was once called an island known as Rabbit Island because of the numerous species of rabbits that populated the area. (ENY 116) After walking out of the station the weather was overcast but that was not stopping any of us from enjoying Coney Island. We ventured off for about an hour exploring different things Coney Island had to offer. The first place we went was to ride the Cyclone. I don’t do very well on roller coasters at all but I knew I would have been bummed if I missed out on this experience. I screamed and cursed the whole ride but it was worth every second! We ventured to Grimaldi’s pizza for lunch and of course had to have a bite out of a hot dog from Nathans Original! How could you pass that up? It was definitely overpriced but just for the experience I couldn’t; pass it up. Overall it was a great experience and I am so happy we had the opportunity to go there.
Our next stop was the Brooklyn Heights and DUMBO area. In the 19th century, Brooklyn Heights became New York’s first commuter community with the arrival of steam ferry service across the East River. (ENY 123) The Brooklyn City hall was built in 1848 but changed the name in 1899 to the Brooklyn Borough Hall when Brooklyn consolidated with Manhattan and the other boroughs to form the City of New York. (ENY 125) This building was breathtaking Greek revival, neo classical style with ionic scroll columns. Another beautiful building is the Brooklyn Historical Society building, which was beautifully designed in 1863 by George Post. You would come to this building to find historical information about Brooklyn. On the front of the building there are sculptures of Benjamin Franklin, Christopher Columbus, a Viking and a Native American Indian. (ENY 127)
The Transit Museum is located in the refurbished 1930s Court Street Shuttle and dedicated to the history of the mass transportation in New York. (ENY 125) I loved everything about this museum especially because I know someone who worked for the MTA so seeing this all up close was really fascinating. It was really cool to see all the different styles of trains over the years.
My highlight of the day was walking over the Brooklyn Bridge; it is an experience I will never forget! I wrote my paper on the Brooklyn Bridge so it was fascinating to see up close all the details this bridge has to offer. This was the last stop of our day so many people in the class ran off and did looked at the bridge at their own leisure. My two friends and I stayed back and walked the bridge slow to take this all in for all three of us have never experience walking across this bridge before. It was perfect seeing the Manhattan Bridge to the right and the city right in front of your eyes was incredible. The bridge was so packed with tourists, people jogging and even bike riding. It’s amazing to think that at one time this bridge didn’t even exist. The Brooklyn Bridge is still one of the greatest landmarks and greatest sights of New York. I will never forget this day.
I woke up very excited about everything planned for the day. I have never been to either Coney Island or the Brooklyn Bridge, I yelled at my parents after the fact for never taking me. We began the day taking the F train to Coney Island, which is roughly a forty-five minute ride! Luckily, through out the ride everyone was able to find a seat. I was very excited since I have never been there before. Coney Island has the distinction of being one of the United States’ earliest and most prominent seaside resort communities. Today Coney Island is home to 60,000 inhabitants, but continues to be known for its amusement parks and seaside attractions. (ENY 115) I also learned that Coney Island was once called an island known as Rabbit Island because of the numerous species of rabbits that populated the area. (ENY 116) After walking out of the station the weather was overcast but that was not stopping any of us from enjoying Coney Island. We ventured off for about an hour exploring different things Coney Island had to offer. The first place we went was to ride the Cyclone. I don’t do very well on roller coasters at all but I knew I would have been bummed if I missed out on this experience. I screamed and cursed the whole ride but it was worth every second! We ventured to Grimaldi’s pizza for lunch and of course had to have a bite out of a hot dog from Nathans Original! How could you pass that up? It was definitely overpriced but just for the experience I couldn’t; pass it up. Overall it was a great experience and I am so happy we had the opportunity to go there.
Our next stop was the Brooklyn Heights and DUMBO area. In the 19th century, Brooklyn Heights became New York’s first commuter community with the arrival of steam ferry service across the East River. (ENY 123) The Brooklyn City hall was built in 1848 but changed the name in 1899 to the Brooklyn Borough Hall when Brooklyn consolidated with Manhattan and the other boroughs to form the City of New York. (ENY 125) This building was breathtaking Greek revival, neo classical style with ionic scroll columns. Another beautiful building is the Brooklyn Historical Society building, which was beautifully designed in 1863 by George Post. You would come to this building to find historical information about Brooklyn. On the front of the building there are sculptures of Benjamin Franklin, Christopher Columbus, a Viking and a Native American Indian. (ENY 127)
The Transit Museum is located in the refurbished 1930s Court Street Shuttle and dedicated to the history of the mass transportation in New York. (ENY 125) I loved everything about this museum especially because I know someone who worked for the MTA so seeing this all up close was really fascinating. It was really cool to see all the different styles of trains over the years.
My highlight of the day was walking over the Brooklyn Bridge; it is an experience I will never forget! I wrote my paper on the Brooklyn Bridge so it was fascinating to see up close all the details this bridge has to offer. This was the last stop of our day so many people in the class ran off and did looked at the bridge at their own leisure. My two friends and I stayed back and walked the bridge slow to take this all in for all three of us have never experience walking across this bridge before. It was perfect seeing the Manhattan Bridge to the right and the city right in front of your eyes was incredible. The bridge was so packed with tourists, people jogging and even bike riding. It’s amazing to think that at one time this bridge didn’t even exist. The Brooklyn Bridge is still one of the greatest landmarks and greatest sights of New York. I will never forget this day.
Journal 3: The Village:
Today on our itinerary was exploring Chelsea and the Village. Our first stop was walking the high line, which was an old trine line that they turned into a garden/walkway that was beautiful. I had never heard of the high line before this class and I am so happy we had the opportunity to go there. The gardens were absolutely beautiful. It was such a cool experience to see different buildings at a higher level than when you are walking the streets at a much lower level. In Chelsea there is construction on every corner you turn.
After walking the High Line we than ventured off to different art galleries, picture are below. I had never been to an art gallery before I didn’t know what to expect, as art doesn’t interest me that much but one piece I did like was from the gallery called Jonathon LeVine his painting were very funky and trippy. Another gallery we stopped at was the Katja Loher. This gallery was very interesting there were balls hanging from the ceiling and circle moving images on the wall. I got some pretty cool pictures at this gallery. A very cool part of the day was spotting Andy Cohan from Bravo. Watch what happens live! It was so cool seeing him eating lunch with his friend, I had the camera all ready to take a picture but felt it was rude since we made eye contact. That was the first famous person I have notice, was such a cool feeling. I hope on our journey we are able to spot more famous people!
We than were in the Greenwich Village area where my friends and I have gone to before. It was cool seeing the different bars in the daytime where we have only been to this area late at night. At around two o’clock, Mike and Don let us go off to grab some lunch so some of the girls and myself went to a bar called 1859. The food wasn’t bad and gave me energy to finish the day strong.
One of the most interesting parts of the day was visiting the Merchants house. We were guided on a tour of the house, which we started in the basement. The house was built by Joseph Brewster in 1832 and was sold to Seabury Tredwell, a wealthy merchant, in 1835 for $18,000. Tredwell and his descendants occupied the house until 1933. (ENY 110) It was very interesting seeing how they lived, the eventually had running water because they were wealthy enough to afford running water. The tour guide told us stories of different situations where people have seen ghosts throughout the house that I thought was pretty neat. It was also interesting when the tour guide informed us that it was unheard of at the time for a husband and wife to share a bedroom. While walking floor to floor you could see on the walls bells above the door ways, these were there so the servants can be reached at all times. I give those servants so much credit it definitely couldn’t have been an easy job working around the clock and only having Sundays off so they could go to church. There were four levels in this house and I couldn’t imagine walking up them constantly with buckets of water and laundry.
Overall it was a great day and I can’t wait until Tuesday to see where we are off to next!
Today on our itinerary was exploring Chelsea and the Village. Our first stop was walking the high line, which was an old trine line that they turned into a garden/walkway that was beautiful. I had never heard of the high line before this class and I am so happy we had the opportunity to go there. The gardens were absolutely beautiful. It was such a cool experience to see different buildings at a higher level than when you are walking the streets at a much lower level. In Chelsea there is construction on every corner you turn.
After walking the High Line we than ventured off to different art galleries, picture are below. I had never been to an art gallery before I didn’t know what to expect, as art doesn’t interest me that much but one piece I did like was from the gallery called Jonathon LeVine his painting were very funky and trippy. Another gallery we stopped at was the Katja Loher. This gallery was very interesting there were balls hanging from the ceiling and circle moving images on the wall. I got some pretty cool pictures at this gallery. A very cool part of the day was spotting Andy Cohan from Bravo. Watch what happens live! It was so cool seeing him eating lunch with his friend, I had the camera all ready to take a picture but felt it was rude since we made eye contact. That was the first famous person I have notice, was such a cool feeling. I hope on our journey we are able to spot more famous people!
We than were in the Greenwich Village area where my friends and I have gone to before. It was cool seeing the different bars in the daytime where we have only been to this area late at night. At around two o’clock, Mike and Don let us go off to grab some lunch so some of the girls and myself went to a bar called 1859. The food wasn’t bad and gave me energy to finish the day strong.
One of the most interesting parts of the day was visiting the Merchants house. We were guided on a tour of the house, which we started in the basement. The house was built by Joseph Brewster in 1832 and was sold to Seabury Tredwell, a wealthy merchant, in 1835 for $18,000. Tredwell and his descendants occupied the house until 1933. (ENY 110) It was very interesting seeing how they lived, the eventually had running water because they were wealthy enough to afford running water. The tour guide told us stories of different situations where people have seen ghosts throughout the house that I thought was pretty neat. It was also interesting when the tour guide informed us that it was unheard of at the time for a husband and wife to share a bedroom. While walking floor to floor you could see on the walls bells above the door ways, these were there so the servants can be reached at all times. I give those servants so much credit it definitely couldn’t have been an easy job working around the clock and only having Sundays off so they could go to church. There were four levels in this house and I couldn’t imagine walking up them constantly with buckets of water and laundry.
Overall it was a great day and I can’t wait until Tuesday to see where we are off to next!