Day 19: Rest Day
Welcome
Yesterday we enjoyed a rest day in New York
I met Liz in the lobby at 10am and we walked to the dock just across the road from our hotel. A NY Waterways ferry came steaming in a few minutes later and we boarded for a short trip across the Hudson, a very pleasant ride on this sunny, still morning. On Manhattan Island we disembarked and walked fifteen minutes to the Times Square subway station and jumped on a Q train for the long journey down to the bottom of Brooklyn. The Manhattan Bridge carried us over the East River and the driver was even nice enough to stop at the top so we could enjoy the view of the adjacent Brooklyn Bridge.
At the end of the line we reached Coney Island - actually a former island that was transformed into a peninsula by land reclamation. What this place lacks in encircling water, it makes up for in attractions like white sand beaches, ice cream shops, a board walk, and two amusement parks with a variety of rides that range from placid to terrifying.
After disembarking from our train we met Chelsea Jade, a good friend from home, who currently resides in New York, and was happy to show us around this part of the city that we had never explored. We began down the boardwalk and strolled for a while before reaching our first port of call, Nathan’s Famous Hotdogs, which since 1972 has been home to the prestigious Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest. I ordered a classic hot dog and dressed it with ketchup and mustard. I should have added onions, but I thought they would be at the condiment bar, and when I realised, they weren’t I had already eaten the hot dog and it was too late. On this side I had a pile of cheese fries.
We headed to the beach for a couple of hours, enjoying the presence of the lifeguards who sat up in their towers frequently blowing their whistles and doing hand signals from one end of the beach to the other. The water was particularly refreshing on this very warm day, and we took advantage of our location in the northern hemisphere, having our first swim of the summer well before anyone back in New Zealand would be able to.
The Cyclone roller coaster looked tame from a distance. The drops didn’t look very steep, and the corners didn’t look very tight on this 96-year-old ride, so even though it looked like it shouldn’t still be operational, it had to be fairly docile. A large wooden lever was flung to release the cars and we drifted around the first corner slowly before beginning a slow climb up the chain lift of the first hill. Then we dropped surprisingly quickly, passing dangerously close to a piece of overhead track in what I have just discovered is described as a headchopper, a classic coaster trick. We were then flung into a hard u-turn, and since there was no camber on this corner and I was sitting on a wide, leather bench seat, I was flung across into one side of the car by this violent manoeuvre. There were plenty of these turns, and I felt like I was going to be flung out of the car or have my head removed on quite a few occasions. After a minute and fifty seconds of excitement we sidled back into the station and disembarked with smiles on our faces after this surprisingly thrilling experience.
We didn’t ride this one, a machine for shaking lunches out of people.
We enjoyed a few rides at Luna Park before heading next door to the competition, which is called Deano’s Wonder Wheel Amusement Park. You wouldn’t know they were separate entities because they are only separated by a chain link fence, but the way you can discern them is that Deano’s park has a 103-year-old Ferris wheel that towers 46m high, and has a rather handsome pastel-coloured paint scheme. We didn’t know about the immaculate safety record of this attraction when we rode it. The only time the wheel has experienced an uncontrolled stop was the 1977 New York City blackout, and the operators were able to hand crank the wheel and offload all the passengers. The most notable feature of this attraction though, is the special cars which are mounted on railings allowing them to slide forwards towards the next car when you reach certain points in the rotation. When we weren’t scared about detaching from the railings, it was a gentle and scenic experience, and the views of Coney Island were well worth the ascent.
The evening was fast approaching so after riding one final coaster (The Steeplechase) we caught the train to Flatbush to get dinner. This was another new area of New York for me, and I greatly enjoyed it; the streets were busy and alive, a variety of characterful shops and street vendors providing the kind of stimulating and human experience that is the inverse of a shopping mall. Liz and I bought new hats, and we are both stoked.
Jonathan spent a good part of his day working on operational spreadsheets for the Durie Hill Elevator, a fine piece of public transport located in Whanganui, Aotearoa, and operated by our good friend Anthonie Tonnon.
Tristan had been out and about in Manhattan, spending his afternoon the Museum of Modern Art which was hosting an exhibition of Georgia O’Keeffe’s paintings, pastels, and charcoals.
We all assembled at a restaurant in Flatbush and enjoyed some nice Mexican food before it was time to begin the long journey back to Hoboken, taking the subway back to the Port Authority Bus Terminal, and then our favourite bus, the 158 to get us through the Lincoln Tunnel and back to our hotel.
I’ll leave you with this week’s art corner, a clever arrangement of photographs that use contrasting aspect ratios to create a story about food’s journey, from field to table.
