On the Avenue

Three weekends each summer the city closes Park Avenue to traffic from 72nd Street south to the Brooklyn Bridge. It is open to bikers, skaters, walker, and runners. Paul and I donned our cute bike helmets and hopped on our commuters (Paul prefers to call them "old people bikes) and rode the city streets. It really was lots of fun to cruise down Park Avenue around Grand Central Station, through Union Square, Soho, City Plaza, to the Brooklyn Bridge. Along the way, vendors were out hawking their fitness products and good food. One event that attracted lots of attention was the dumpster diving. The city had converted several huge dumpsters into swimming pools. We didn't get to take a dive, but we did get close enough for a photo.

Yankees spelled backwards

A true Red Sox fan knows that Yankees spelled backwards is "I-l-o-v-e-S-a-t-a-n," and even with that knowledge firmly implanted in our hearts, we decided we needed to see a game in the new Yankee Stadium. It is huge, gaudy, elaborate, and exactly what you would expect of the Yankees and with apologies to all our die hard Red Sox friends, we liked it.

Unconditional Surrender

August 14 was the anniversary of Japan's surrender after World War 2. Hundreds of men and women from the armed services had gathered in Times Square and as the announcement was made, a sailor grabbed a nurse who was standing close to him, bent her over and planted a kiss on her as a way of celebrating this huge event. The kiss was captured by a photographer and made it's way onto the cover of Life Magazine. In commemoration of this kiss, a statue was commissioned a couple of years ago and was temporarily installed in Times Square this past week. Saturday, August 14, the city sponsored a re-enactment of the kiss. Sailor hats were distributed to all in attendance and everyone kissed at 12:00 noon. Paul and I were in Times Square earlier that morning and had our kiss sans the sailor hats.

A room with a "clear" view

I was sitting on the sofa reading one morning and I heard a noise like someone was tapping on the window. Since we live on the 27th floor, it seemed unlikely that someone would be tapping on the window. But to my surprise, not only had I actually heard the noise, but I saw the guy making it. It was a window washer and I hope that by taking his picture, I didn't throw him off balance!

Looking Back

We recently gathered in South Carolina for a family reunion. The entire McKinnon clan gathered in the small beach community called Isle of Palms. It just so happened that the only week we all had open was from June 12-19. I tell you this to say that it was so generous of Meredith and Eric to spend their first wedding anniversary traveling to the family vacation. It then occurred to me that perhaps I never blogged about their New York City wedding on June 12, 2009. It was such a wonderful event and certainly fits my blog requirements of describing what I do in the city. Therefore, here are a few photos from the big day, which actually was about four days of fun with everyone here.
And since I mentioned the family vacation, it would only be fair for me to post a few pictures from that event even though it didn't happen in NYC. We spent most days in the pool or at the beach, but with Fort Sumter just a short ferry boat ride away we definitely needed to go take a look at this historic site. Paul was sure the little ones would love the ferry boat and the adults would be quite thrilled to see the place where the Civil War began. The trip over to the fort was quite pleasant but we soon realized why the phrase "hot as Hell" has been changed to "hot as Fort Sumter." This very small island in the Charleston harbor still has some of the barracks and cannons from the Civil War in tact. Interesting for a brief time under the best of circumstances. But try and find shade or a drinking fountain and you come up empty. The day we went to Fort Sumter I believe the humidity and temperature readings for Charleston were both in the 90's. I think we all came away convinced that had the leaders of the North and South met at Fort Sumter with the direction that they couldn't leave until they had solved their differences, it wouldn't have taken them long to come up with a solution. Perhaps on another day in the middle of winter we would have come away with a more favorable impression of the fort. For now, it is just the great story of how grandpa forced everyone on the "hot as Fort Sumter" boat tour.