After lunch we kept walking up 5th Avenue towards the Empire State Building. We didn't actually go to the top, (the cost was pretty high and we only had a few hours left in our day). But we walked up and around it and took some pictures. Then we kept walking, heading for the library and eventually Times Square.
On the way to the library we saw smoke coming up from underground and lots of emergency vehicles... I have no idea what it was – but it was certainly smoky! We did a little detour around all that and wound up outside the New York Public Library. What a great and amazing building. The reading rooms are awesome and more. I didn't get a gift for the girls from the gift shop, but I did promise myself that one day I was going to bring them here to see for themselves the wonderful lion statues and the beautiful floors and reading rooms.
Then it was just a few blocks walk to Times Square. We stood in line for 45 minutes and got tickets to see God of Carnage with James Gandolfini (which is what sold it to us) but in the end Jeff Daniels stole the show.
Anyway back to more exploring. After we got our tickets we made our way to Grand Central Station. I was getting tired and the late nights and early mornings were getting to me, but I was still happy to stare, dumbstruck, at all the beautiful architecture around that area, including the Chrysler building, which was really the most amazing thing to see up close.
We did a lot of walking, managed to miss eating dinner, and then had a coffee and a croissant before the play started. It was a really surprising play, very funny, very offensively shocking in a lot of ways. But I really enjoyed it and I hope it has a long run.
We took the subway back to the hotel, and I did my last sketches on the trip back. We could have gone out to dinner locally I guess, but I was too tired to even think about it. I fell into bed (after showing my husband the blister on my little toe) and slept for four hours, because we had forgotten about the time change to daylight savings time.
We got up at 4:30 to catch our plane home. I was really very sad to leave the city. I enjoyed it far more than I thought I would. It was exactly what I expected to see, it was amazing and beautiful, dirty, and desperate, and yes, I would happily go back to do it all over again. I am hoping that I can bring my kids next time and let them see all the wonders that I did, and more.