Before I get on with what I did today, I just want to mention something that is something of a New York phenomenon. Almost everywhere you go in mid and downtown New York, you are almost always guaranteed to be within a block or two of one of these:
These hotdog and pretzel stands are everywhere dispensing cheap food all day. I’ve even seen intersections with four of them, one on each corner, all doing business. Street food is common in many cities, however, I’ve never seen them have this much reach across a city before.
Another thing i’ve never seen before, with the sole exception being midnight on George Street in Sydney, is the stupidly high ratio of taxi’s to normal cars. While at the top of the Empire State Building (more on this later) I played a little game counting the cars going down what I think was 5th Avenue. Out of every 6 cars that drove past 5 were a taxi. This wasn’t the exception to the rule, however, as every other street I observed also had a high ratio of taxis over normal cars.
So, back to the events of today. We had previously booked tickets to visit the Empire State Building and had decided that today was the day we would go. It was a nice, cool, and clear skied day so we’d be able to see quite a lot. Taking the trusty subway down to 33rd street, we quickly orient ourselves and walk to the observatory entrance. We are greeted with a nice art deco lobby and the beginnings of possibly the most epic queue ever.
Fortunately most of the queue was empty and we quickly made our way through the vastness that is the observatory queue system, which snakes around the building taking many turns until it finds it’s way to the centre where the lifts are.
From the ground floor, you take a lift up to the 80th floor. You then get out and get in another queue where you take a lift, or the stairs like many (including me), up to the 86th floor which is the main observatory deck. From this you have a full 360 degree view of the surrounding city from both it’s indoor and outdoor areas.
From this level you can also buy access to the 102nd floor, which is the secondary observatory deck high up in the more rounded spire-like part of the building. This section is quite small, most of the floor space seems taken up by the mechanicals and as a consequence not many people can be up here at the same time. The added expense also deters people from venturing up here, so it’s actually the best place to really take in the view. The primary observation deck is just too crowded to really take your time in taking in the view.
The photo above neatly encapsulates the situation I explained above, with regards to the ratio of taxis to normal cars. Here you can see the one normal car is surrounded. Certainly a contrast with San Francisco, by all accounts a taxi free city.
Afterwards we had some lunch and headed south towards the Flatiron building. Near that famous building there is a park which has, among other things, a popular burger shop. Not just slightly popular, ridiculously so, with the most epic single queue I have ever seen for food. The queue was so large it was impossible to get the proper sense of scale from a single photo.
Most of the people standing in line here, going towards the burger shop at the back of the photo, are waiting in this queue. It gets better, though.
Most of the poeple standing here on the path are also in this queue. There is a circular seating are in which the shop resides, and the queue takes a straight line out to the surrounding path and then winds around the seating area. The queue wraps at least two thirds of the way around the seating area which is not small. Must be one helluva burger they are waiting for.
We then set off in a random direction, ultimately ending up on the western side of the island. From here we follow the water’s edge until we end up at the USS Intrepid, an aircraft carrier which has been turned into a museum.
On the way we saw a pair of helicopters land at this small helipad right next to the river.
While the exhibits are familiar, being able to explore an old aircraft carrier and truly get a sense of it’s scale was pretty good. They also have a Concorde (another one, I know) and the USS Growler, a Grayback class submarine.
From the flight deck, you get a good view of a large number of aircraft of historical significance set against the new york skyline.
There would be at least one photo of the USS Growler if I hadn’t somehow completely messed it up 
As we arrived later in the day, around 3:30pm, we only had a few hours to explore. As you’d imagine, with the size of the carrier, that only got us through part of it before we had to leave. You really could spend all day here.
Heading out and walking east, we found a street that I can only equate to something like King street in Newtown. Lots of compact restaurants and cafes with lots of pedestrian traffic, close to theatres and not far from anything. It was here, I decided, that we would have dinner.
We explored the area while waiting for a suitable time for dinner, as it was only 6pm then. We quickly found that we were only a handful of blocks from Times Square, and thus easy walking distance back to our hotel.
After dinner, we slowly made or way back to our hotel via Times Square. Even though it was 9pm, the square was still absolutely packed and the whole place was lit up brighter than day.
I’m yet to meet a writer as amazing as you are. Hats off for a awesome job!