Tag Archives: midtown

A Very Brief Night & Day in NYC

November 24, 2015 Hobie Leave a comment

I had a very long and exhausting experience over the past few days. On Saturday, Larry & I went to see Mockingjay, Part 2 at the Chinese Theater and it was great and everything (maybe a review coming later, who knows). After that, which probably got the exhaustion off to a good start, we went over to Jacen’s house for a party. Not just ANY party though – it was his coming out party. Who knew? It was an absolute blast and included two very attractive shirtless men serving drinks, which I think is now going to be a condition for any party I attend in the near future. I mean, it just makes sense. No while we didn’t stay till super late in the evening – I did drink my fair sure of red wine to ensure the celebration was wonderful! We left around 11 or so though and got to be probably around 12. Unfortunately for me, my flight was at 7am on Sunday, meaning I had to get up at 4:30 to get on the road by 5. UGH. I did get up, got out the door (wisely, I had packed before the party), and drove over to LAX Long Term Lot C. Off I went to NYC!

In a Middle Seat! Yay for last-minute flight bookings! My booking was so I could be present, in person, for an engagement kick-off where the client is in NYC. I didn’t want to get into the city late at night like I have in the past, so this early morning flight got me there around 3:30 in the afternoon. Even then, by the time my cab got me into town from JFK, it was twilight. I was exhausted. Probably had 2 hours of sleep to my name at that point and I definitely didn’t sleep on the plane. But a shower helped when I got checked in – and man, this hotel where I stayed, the Andaz, was AMAZING. It’s located on the same block as the PwC building, so there’s a decent deal for rooms there. I thought that would mean it was going to be standard and formulaic – OH CONTRAIRE! Seriously swanky – the room is pictured here:

The PwC building from my hotel room window at the the Andaz

Swanky room

Great big bed and window

Trendy closet

Big ol’ bathroom in Andaz

I talked to Larry for a little bit and it was now time to get some dinner – I considered just going downstairs to the hotel’s nice restaurant, and while I was super tired, my love of the city made me want to leave and go to Blue Smoke. Because reasons. Larry encouraged me, and off I went! I ended up taking the subway there and getting in around 6pm. On a Sunday, that’s pretty damn early and meant NO LINE. Yay! Plenty of room at the bar too, so I sat there and got my fix of delicious Blue Smoke, including their delectable mac and cheese. It’s noticeably a different recipe than what Larry & I fell in love with, but still so damn good.

Dinner

Drink

Before

Delicious After

My view of the Blue Smoke bar from my bar seat

Not that crowded on an early Sunday evening

As you can see, I did pretty good with putting away food. And that energy burst helped fuel me for what came next: an impromptu walking tour around Midtown!

My journey started at Blue Smoke, and I walked up Park Avenue from there at 27th St to Grand Central at 42nd. From there I walked west to Fifth Avenue and continued heading north, as I realized I wanted to see 30 Rock. Gotta say – I think that Sunday may be the last calm time for Manhattan for a great while as the holiday rush is coming. Believe that! It was actually a pleasure to walk around. Sure, there were plenty of people, but NOTHING like the deluge of FTPs that come in starting Thanksgiving. Ugh. So yeah, this was a nice walk. After reveling in 30 Rock, I swung by Times Square and again, not so terrible of crowds. I even finally climbed up the tkts booth to get a higher view of the commotion. It’s quite a cool view. After that, it was time to head back to the hotel, and conveniently Bryant Park is on the way. There’s an ice rink set up and it ends up being a nice place to just sit down and people watch. So I did that for a little bit and realized I miss living in NYC a LOT. Always so much to do…in an ittybitty living space (h/t Aladdin). After that – back to the hotel and glorious glorious sleep.

Sunday, Nov 22, 2015 – My Midtown Walking Tour

Looking west to the ESB while walking up Park and crossing 34th

Approaching GCT while walking up Park Ave

GCT and Park Ave

Grand Central, the Met Life building, and the Chrysler Building

42nd St views

Looking west on 42nd towards more Times Square and MIdtown

GE is gone

Hello again, 30 Rock

Still stunning as ever

The rink is here and surprisingly not too crowded

Not that crowded….YET

Osman’s balcony

The tree under construction

Familiar overhang

The Times Square view from atop the TKTS booth

It’s me!

Made it to Bryant Square and saw their skating rink too

The NY Public Library was across the street from the Andaz

My plans for working out never happened, and I had big plans. But yeah, no. It was awesome to have a very short walk to work, and great to see Osman and Dan again, as well as meeting some new coworkers. The kick-off went well and afterwards, we had a good team lunch at a nearby PJ Clarke’s and damn, it was good burgers there.

My work view on Monday – not too bad

The insanely tall 432 Park Ave – its roof is taller than the ESB

So now, I’m back. The flight back was not a total shitshow, but maybe an almost total shitshow. I’m hoping I manage not to get whatever the woman next to me had – I made it a point not to engage with her from the start as she was annoying as fuck, but when she came down with something that apparently her whole family had been suffering through the last few days, and disappeared into the bathroom for the majority of the flight, I made sure to desanitize everything I could. So we’ll see if I end up sick for Thanksgiving. If so, fuck those people.

just a post, on life, pictures

In a New York Minute!

October 9, 2007 Hobie Leave a comment

Okay, that has absolutely nothing to do with your Mom, but it sounded cool in my head while typing it.

Alright, bear with me – I think all chronological order will be thrown out the window as I recount the past week and a half or so of events here in ol’ NYC. First, some of the more recent things:

Robie Saunderson of San Antonio Chicken Divinity fame sent me a digital movie file of my TODAY show glory – click here to download it for yourself (it’s about 2 MB or so, so keep that in mind dial-up folks!). So it’s not exactly a CLOSE-UP of me, but hey, I Springsteen.NBC.Today 190 (1) was still intercut with Bruce Springsteen and when I saw it on the jumbotron screen at Rockefeller Center (NOT Times Square though…bummer), it was lifesize! Also, here are some stills that Robie thoughtfully sent as well (thanks Robbie!).

Â While waiting for the Ferry bus (no smartaleck comments, kthx) to pick me up outside work today (I was standing outside a Kenneth Cole store and kept looking in – I definitely need to go in there and look at their shoes and jackets…and hope they’re not like $500) as I was heading home early to meet the DirecTV folks who ended up not being able to install HD because my receiver I brought with me is BROKEN…okay, I rambled there, but while waiting for the Ferry bus (heh heh) who walks by me but Conan O’Brian? That dude is tall! And what’s funny is that he wasn’t mobbed or nothin’ while walking down the street. In fact, he probably never is, but still, he’s pretty distinctive looking. And tall.
Speaking of Conan O’Brien, this past Friday I remembered that on the internal NBC channels in 30 Rock, you can tune to each of the studios and watch rehearsals. So during the afternoon, I was working and watching Conan work on that night’s broadcast, which was actually pretty damn cool as you see how they tweak the material to make it funnier and such. And he cusses. Awesome. Then, a few channels over, you can watch Studio 8H aka the Saturday Night Live studio and watch them prep for Saturday. If you thought some of their sketches were painful to watch just once, try listening to it REPEATEDLY over and over – and it doesn’t get funnier, folks. I can’t imagine the skit I saw was one that was hilarious to watch on Saturday evening.
The Rockefeller Center SKATING RINK has opened up as of yesterday. Yes, the skating rink is actually open. Yesterday the temperature was in the 80s. Go figure. But maybe they knew something we all didn’t because while Monday was sweltering and muggy, the rest of the week the temps are dropping over 20 degrees and by Friday, our highs are in the 50s! Yowza. Guess I’ll get to finally use my new umbrella and jackets.
Have I said recently how cool it is to work in Midtown???? If not, it’s freakin’ awesome. So much goes on right there.
Okay, so last I updated, the TODAY show experience had just happened, and now I’m posting the video. What’s happened since? Glad you asked.

So on Saturday, I embarked on my first sightseeing-as-a-native trip, wanting to go into Manhattan and see the Barnes & Noble flagship store as well as see more of Midtown Fifth Avenue, which is where all the fancy stores are. So I did that, traveling first to Midtown (#12 in the map to the left, which is courtesy of the NFT NYC guide, indispensable!) and taking some more pics of 30 Rock before taking the subway down to Union Square (which is in the southern part of #9), which is south of the Empire State Building and kinda close to Greenwich Village. Needless to say, the B&N there is pretty awesome. 4 stories. And like the retard I am, I couldn’t stop myself from buying not one but TWO heavy computer books that I now had to carry around the rest of my trip. I’m stupid.

You know, I’m looking at the map I put there and it makes me laugh – you see how close it looks like between where I live and where I work. Probably no more than 3-4 miles. But it takes at a minimum 40 minutes to get there. An hour when it’s heavily crowded or horrendous streets. Hopefully me getting to work ahead of the rush will help a bit, as I’ve signed up as a member of the 30 Rock gym and will work out in the mornings. I got to work early (meaning, 7:25 am) today and it was amazing how fast it was. The rush hour really is if you try to get to work between 9 – 9:30. That blows my mind coming from the military and getting to work by 7:30 (okay, I didn’t quite do that near the end of my time, but cut me some slack, bitches).

Okay, where was I? Oh yeah, I was in Union Square and bought a couple bricks to walk around with during the rest of my trip. I had originally anticipated just staying in Manhattan all day because the plan was to go to the movies with Shannon and some of her friends that evening around 7pm. That plan changed when the skin on my hands was raw after hauling those books around. Union Square is a really cool place though, with a huge farmers market during the weekend and lots of restaurants, shops and bars around there. I then walked up Broadway towards the Flatiron building, one of the older and more recognizable ‘skyscrapers’ in New York. Then it was a quick visit to Madison Square Park which was nice to be in. I jumped back in the subway towards Midtown though (#11, #12, and #13) and walked briefly by the Plaza Hotel, the very bottom edge of Central Park, and then finally back on Fifth Avenue, where like I said, all the very cool shops are. I bought stuff, of course. Then I hauled myself back to the Ferry terminal, went home and unloaded, changed, and then went back into Manhattan to go see “Into The Wild” with Shannon and Co. It was good to see her, but didn’t really get a chance to hang out much as the movie started soon and then afterwards, I left to go home as she had other things going on and I was still unsure of how to get home at this point! But while walking down Broadway, I couldn’t help but see Times Square so I ended up walking through that ridiculousness at night. It’s incredible though. And then I finally got back home. Quite an endeavor. Here are the pics below.

29 Sep 2007 -Â Midtown, Union Square, Flatiron, & Madison Sq Park

The very empty Port Imperial parking lot - Saturday isn't quite as busy a day as a weekday29-Sep-2007 09:54, Canon Canon PowerShot SD900, 11.0, 15.599mm, 0.005 sec

Sunday, Nov 22, 2015 – My Midtown Walking Tour

29 Sep 2007 -Â Midtown, Union Square, Flatiron, & Madison Sq Park

1 Oct 2007 – Rockefeller Center

3 Oct 2007 – Disappearing ESB

7 Oct 2007 – At the MoMA

5 Sep 2007 – 1st Day of NYC Househunting Trip

6 Sep 2007 – 2nd Day Begins at the Lincoln Harbor Ferry Terminal

6 Sep 2007 – Times Square

6 Sep 2007 – Ground Zero & Wall Street

6 Sep 2007 – 30 Rock & the Top of the Rock Observation Deck

6 Sep 2007 – Circle Line Boat Tour (includes Statue of Liberty & Brooklyn Bridge)

10 September 2007 – Dinner at Chili’s

Since 2001 or so, sharing stuff