A Sunday Stroll

The weather broke.  The sun came out, the wind died down, it warmed a bit.  It had been quite a week and we had cabin fever so we decided to take a stroll.

Starting at 10^th Ave and 52^nd St, we headed south, then east, back south and, again, east…..we threaded our way down to Times Square.  This is apparently the destination for anybody and everybody who comes to New York.  It is something to see.  Right away you see where Dick Clark counted, and now Ryan Seacrest counts down the ball on New Year’s Eve.  The neon lights, the animated billboards soaring 20 stories high on either side of the street, covering the walls of the giant skyscrapers, advertising the current musicals on Broadway, the array of cartoon characters on the street hustling tourists to take a picture (and then asking to be paid for the photos), the tourists from all over the world with their cell phones taking selfies…..it is a surreal sensory overload, but something that should be experienced by everyone at least once.

After our exposure to this human menagerie meandering through this concrete, steel and neon world we continued south to 34^th Street and 6^th Avenue.  We stopped and I looked up.  And there was the Empire State Building.  For a brief moment, I visualized an air force of bi-planes circling above, trading turns at strafing King Kong perched on top, hanging onto the antenna spire on top of the magnificent building.

I thought of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Yogi and Whitey and all the Yankee championship parades that must have passed through here.

Then there were all the FBI movies where all the Public Enemy #1s were taken down.  Yep.  It’s a nice building.

Turning to return home (to the apartment), we walked through the Chelsea area and the Theater District.  It’s odd how unassuming most of the theater entrances are.  Behind those normal looking doors are some of the most gifted and talented actors in the world.  I checked on the prices of tickets for Hamilton.  The upper mezzanine are $400.  It is sold out through next November.

We got back and I checked my Fitbit.  Our Sunday stroll was 5.1 miles.