The Big Apple - Day 3-Part 1: Downtown Gray Line Tour (Times Square to Greenwich Village)

Well, good morning!  It is Day 3, a new day with new adventures to tackle and conquer. Our big plans for the day originally started off with Casey heading off to work, Nika and I were going to move our stuff to a new hotel, then take off for the ferry to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty and do the tours; then do MoMA (Modern Museum of Art), Rockefeller Center, St. John's Cathedral [maybe a little shopping along the way]; then when Casey returns from work, do Madame Toussards Wax Museum, catch a bite to eat and then at 10:00 do a comedy show at Comedy Cellar. 

But this morning has started out a little rainier than we wanted.  So, after eating breakfast, we switched hotels right away early in the morning to the gorgeous Sheraton Towers-New York.  Casey headed off to work and Nika and I jumped on the Downtown Gray Line Bus.  Note: Here is where our plans changed as we ended up taking the whole Downtown Gray Line tour (originally heading to the Statute and Ellis Island but with rain the way it was, we will make that jaunt on Friday instead).  Now, that is why I love having a planned-out itinerary -- they are there for structure but can be easily molded to our desires (or Mother Nature's).  And I had boldly loaded our's down, but it, again, was for structure. 

Nika and I looking fresh after just boarding the Gray Line Bus

We weren't that far, actually, from where we hop on the Gray Line Tour bus, so once we boarded and were seated, we snapped a before picture -- no rain ponchos and don't look to worn out by the weather -- yet!

Times Square Ball:  The Times Square Ball is a time ball that has been lowered or "dropped" from the flagpole of One Times Square nearly every New Year’s Eve since December 31, 1907 in Times Square. The ball (now in its sixth incarnation) is currently made by Waterford Crystal. Since 2009, the ball remains on the flagpole over One Times Square year-round, and is only lowered on New Year's Eve or removed for general maintenance. Every December 31 at 11:59 p.m. EST, the ball descends 77 feet over the course of a minute, coming to rest at the bottom of the flagpole at midnight, where a sign lights up with the digits of the new year, as the ball's lights turn off at the same time. Fireworks are then lighted from the building to signal the arrival of the New Year. A fireworks display in Central Park is usually visible from Times Square. While the ball drops, several billboards in Times Square count down into the New Year, most notably, the Toshiba (former Discover Card) screens directly below the ball.

Times Square Ball @ One Times Square

Every year approximately one million people gather in Times Square to watch the ball drop in person while it is watched on TV by over 70 million people in the United States.

The first New Year's Eve celebration in what is now known as Times Square was held on New Year's Eve 1904.  Through the years, the ball has been replaced or revamped six times.  At present the sixth ball is 12 feet in diameter weighing 11,875 pounds. To accommodate the new ball, which is now displayed outdoors year-round, the flagpole atop One Times Square was rebuilt and enlarged, now rising 475 feet above Times Square.

Next, we are entering what is known as the Fashion or Garment District.  

The Button and Needle Statue in the Fashion District

Garment or Fashion District: The Garment District, a/k/a the Garment Center, the Fashion District, or the Fashion Center, is a neighborhood located in Manhattan. The dense concentration of fashion-related uses give the neighborhood, which is generally considered to span between Fifth Avenue and Ninth Avenue, from 34th to 42nd Street, its nickname. The Garment District has been known since the early 20th century as the center for fashion manufacturing and fashion design in the United States, and even the world.  Less than one square mile in area, the neighborhood is home to the majority of New York’s showrooms and to numerous major fashion labels, catering to all aspects of the fashion process–from design and production to wholesale selling. No other city has a comparable concentration of fashion businesses and talent in a single district.

Role in history:  New York City is arguably the fashion capital of the United States and the entire world because the industry based there generates over $14 billion in annual sales and sets design trends for the world. The core of the industry is Manhattan's Garment District, where the majority of the city's major fashion labels operate showrooms and execute the fashion process from design and production to wholesaling. No other city has a comparable concentration of fashion businesses and talent in a single district. 

The Garment District is home to a number of well-known designers, their production facilities, warehouses, showrooms, and suppliers of fabric and materials. Major fashion labels such as Carolina Herrera, Oscar de la Renta, Calvin Klein, Donna Karan, Liz Claiborne and Nicole Miller have showrooms, production facilities, or support offices located in the Garment District.

How Did New York Get This Role? New York first assumed its role as the center of the nation's garment industry by producing clothes for slaves working on Southern plantations. It was more efficient for their masters to buy clothes from producers in New York than to have the slaves spend time and labor making the clothing themselves. In addition to supplying clothing for slaves, tailors produced other ready-made garments for sailors and western prospectors during slack periods in their regular business.

Prior to the mid-nineteenth century, the majority of Americans either made their own clothing, or if they were wealthy, bought tailor-made clothing. By the 1820's an increasing number of ready-made garments of a higher quality were being produced for a broader market.  Continuing to grow, the production of ready-made clothing completed its industrialized profession transformation in the 1850's with the invention of the sewing machine.  Needing thousands of ready-made soldiers' uniforms during the American Civil War helped the garment industry to expand further. By the end of the 1860s, Americans bought most of their clothing rather than making it themselves.

Close-up shot of the sign at Madison Square Garden

Madison Square Garden:  Madison Square Garden, often abbreviated as MSG and known colloquially as The Garden, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in the New York City borough of Manhattan and located at 8th Avenue, between 31st and 33rd Streets, situated on top of Pennsylvania Station.  Opening in February 1968, it is the longest active major sporting facility in the New York metropolitan area, and is the fourth incarnation of the arena in the city. One Penn Plaza is located at its side.

Madison Square Garden Arena

Current Titles: Opening in February 1968, it is the longest active major sporting facility in the New York metropolitan area, and is the fourth incarnation of the arena in the city. One Penn Plaza is located at its side.  And it is the third busiest music arena in the world in terms of ticket sales.  As of the start of the 2010–11 NHL season and 2010–11 NBA season, the Garden is the oldest arena in the NHL and the second oldest in the NBA.

In 1968, when the current Madison Square Garden opened after the Pennsylvania Railroad tore down the above-ground portions of Pennsylvania Station and continued railway traffic underneath, the new structure was one of the first of its kind to be built above the platforms of an active railroad station. It was considered an engineering feat but public outcry over the demolished Pennsylvania Station structure led to the creation of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission.  [You may have noted that previously through many of my posts about some of the buildings we have seen along the way, I have mentioned the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission.  That gives you a sense of the quantity of buildings that have historic value in the New York City area.]

Present Operations:  The Garden hosts approximately 320 events a year. It is the home of the New York Rangers of the NHL, the New York Knicks of the NBA, and the New York Liberty of the WNBA, which are all owned by Madison Square Garden, L.P. -- the same owners as the arena itself. The arena is also host to the Big East Men's Basketball Conference Tournament. Other regular events include selected home games for the St. John's men's Red Storm (college basketball), the annual pre- and post-season NIT tournaments, the NBA Draft, the Millrose Games track and field meet, the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show and was also home to the 2004 Republican National Convention. It has previously hosted the 1976, 1980 and 1992 Democratic National Conventions, and for many years also hosted the NFL Draft.  

Boxing and Concert History: The Garden  is also known for its place in the history of boxing. Many of boxing's biggest fights were held at Madison Square Garden, including the Roberto Durán-Ken Buchanan affair, and the first Joe Frazier – Muhammad Ali bout. Before promoters such as Don King moved boxing to Las Vegas, Madison Square Garden was considered the mecca of boxing. Many large popular-music concerts in New York City take place in Madison Square Garden. Particularly famous ones include George Harrison's Concert For Bangladesh, The Concert for New York City following the September 11 attacks and John Lennon's final concert appearance (during an Elton John concert on Thanksgiving Night, 1974) before his murder in 1980. Elton John currently holds the all-time record for greatest number of appearances at The Garden with 62 shows.

Seating:  Seating in the Garden is arranged in six ascending levels. The first level, which is only available for basketball games and concerts, but not for hockey games and ice shows, is the "floor" or "court-side" seating. Next above this is the loge seating, followed by the 100-level and 200-level promenades, the 300-level promenade, and the 400-level or mezzanine.  For hockey, the Garden seats 18,200; for basketball, 19,763; and for concerts 20,000 center stage, 19,522 end-stage. The arena features 20,976 square feet of arena floor space.

Note:  In the movie Rocky III, the rematch between Clubber Lang and Rocky Balboa is in the Garden.

One Penn Plaza

One Penn Plaza: One Penn Plaza is a skyscraper located between 33rd and 34th Streets, west of Seventh Avenue, and adjacent to Pennsylvania Station and Madison Square Garden. It is the tallest building in the Pennsylvania Plaza complex of office buildings, hotels, and entertainment facilities. Designed and completed in 1972, it reaches 750 feet with 57 floors. From its location on the west side of Manhattan, most south, west and north-facing tenants have unobstructed views of the Hudson River. One Penn Plaza is currently owned by Vornado Realty Trust. It was previously owned by Helmsley-Spear Inc., and the building was sold by Leona Helmsley and her partners for $420 million in the late 1990s. 

New York City United States Post Office Building

New York City Post Office.  I had to show you a picture of the James A. Farley New York City Post Office building. It fills up one whole city block -- it is massive! Built in 1912, the building is famous for bearing the inscription: Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds. In 1982, the post office was officially designated The James A. Farley Building, as a monument and testament to the political career of the nation's 53rd Postmaster General. The Farley Post Office is home to "Operation Santa," made famous in the classic 1947 film Miracle on 34th Street.

The side of Macy's Dept. Store

Macy’s:  Speaking of massive, here is another one that takes up a whole city block.  And what would be a trip to New York City without getting a pic of the world renown flagship Macy's.  

It has produced the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City since 1924, and sponsored the City's annual Fourth of July fireworks display since 1976.

Originally founded in Massachusetts in 1843, Macy's  moved to New York City in 1858. On the it's first day of business in October 1858 sales totaled US$11.08, equal to $297.09 today. From the very beginning, Macy's logo has included a star in one form or another, which comes from a tattoo that the founder Rowland Macy got as a teenager when he worked on a Nantucket whaling ship, the Emily Morgan.  After expanding it now encompasses almost the entire block bounded by Seventh Avenue on the west, Broadway on the east, 34th Street on the south and 35th Street on the north, with the exception of a small pre-existing building on the corner of 35th Street and Seventh Avenue and another on the corner of 34th Street and Broadway.  In 1978, the building was added to the National Register of Historic Places as a National Historic Landmark.  The store has several wooden escalators still in operation.

The classic Christmas film Miracle on 34th Street (1947) is set in Macy's 34th Street flagship store.

Close-up of the Empire State Building sign

Empire State Building.:  Although I never did get a chance to tour the Empire State Building, I did get a couple pictures as noted at right and below, left. The Empire State Building is a 102-story landmark skyscraper at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and West 34th Street. It has a roof height of 1,250 feet and with its antenna spire included, it stands a total of 1,454 ft  high. Its name is derived from the nickname for New York, the Empire State.  Completed in 1931, it stood as the world's tallest building for 40 years, until 1972 when construction of the World Trade Center's North Tower was completed. Following the destruction of the World Trade Center in 2001, the Empire State Building reclaimed the position of tallest building in New York (although it was no longer the tallest in the world). Once the new One World Trade Center is completed, the Empire State Building will once again be demoted to second tallest building in New York.

Empire State Building Lost in the Clouds

Designed in the distinctive Art Deco style, it has been named by the American Society of Civil Engineers as one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World. The building and its street floor interior are designated landmarks of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. It was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1986. The Empire State Building is currently the third tallest skyscraper in the United States (after the Willis Tower and Trump International Hotel and Tower, both in Chicago), and the 15th tallest in the world. It is also the fourth-tallest freestanding structure in the Americas. The Empire State Building is currently undergoing a $550 million renovation, with $120 million spent in an effort to transform the building into a more energy efficient and eco-friendly structure.

The site of the Empire State Building was first developed as the John Thompson Farm in the late 18th century. A stream ran across the site, emptying into Sunfish Pond, located a block away. Beginning in the late 19th century the block was occupied by the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, frequented by The Four Hundred, the social elite of New York.

Construction: Excavation of the site began in January 1930, and construction on the building itself started symbolically on March 17, St. Patrick's Day. The project involved 3,400 workers, mostly immigrants from Europe, along with hundreds of Mohawk iron workers, many from a reserve near Montreal. According to official accounts, five workers died during the construction. The ribbon cutting took place on May 1, 1931.  The construction was part of an intense competition in New York for the title of "world's tallest building". Two other projects fighting for the title, 40 Wall Street and the Chrysler Building, were still under construction when work began on the Empire State Building. Each held the title for less than a year, as the Empire State Building surpassed them upon its completion, just 410 days after construction commenced. With its opening coinciding with the Great Depression in the United States, much of its office space went without being rented.

Suicides: Over the years, more than thirty people have committed suicide from the top of the building. The first suicide occurred even before its completion, by a worker who had been laid off. The fence around the observatory terrace was put up in 1947 after five people tried to jump during a three-week span. On May 1, 1947, 23-year-old Evelyn McHale lept to her death from the 86th floor observation deck and landed on a United Nations limousine parked at the curb.  A photography student took a photo of McHale's corpse a few minutes after her death. The police found a suicide note among possessions she left on the observation deck: "He is much better off without me ... I wouldn’t make a good wife for anybody". The photo ran in the May 12, 1947 edition of LIFE Magazine and is often referred to as "The Most Beautiful Suicide". It was later used by visual artist Andy Warhol in one of his paintings entitled Suicide (Fallen Body). In December 1979, Elvita Adams jumped from the 86th floor, only to be blown back onto the 85th floor and left with a broken hip.

B-25 Empire State Building crash:  In the morning of Saturday, July 28, 1945, a B-25 Mitchell bomber, piloted in thick fog crashed into the north side of the Empire State Building, between the 79th and 80th floors, where the offices of the National Catholic Welfare Council were located. One engine shot through the side opposite the impact and flew as far as the next block where it landed on the roof of a nearby building, starting a fire that destroyed a penthouse. The other engine and part of the landing gear plummeted down an elevator shaft. The resulting fire was extinguished in 40 minutes. Fourteen people were killed in the incident; however, elevator operator Betty Lou Oliver survived a plunge of 75 stories inside an elevator, which still stands as the Guinness World Record for the longest survived elevator fall recorded. Despite the damage and loss of life, the building was open for business on many floors on the following Monday.  A year later, another aircraft narrowly missed striking the building. 

In February 1997, a gunman shot seven people on the observation deck, killing one, then fatally wounded himself. 

Architecture:  The Empire State Building rises to 1,250 ft at the 102nd floor, and including the 203 ft pinnacle, its full height reaches 1,453 feet. The building has 85 stories of commercial and office space representing over 2 million square feet. It has an indoor and outdoor observation deck on the 86th floor. The remaining 16 stories represent the Art Deco tower, which is capped by a 102nd-floor observatory. Atop the tower is the 203 foot pinnacle, much of which is covered by broadcast antennas, with a lightning rod at the very top.

Size Matters: The Empire State Building was the first building to have more than 100 floors. It has 6,500 windows and 73 elevators; there are 1,860 steps from street level to the 102nd floor; the base of the Empire State Building is about 2 acres; and it houses approximately 1,000 businesses. After the Pentagon, it is the second-largest single office complex in America, with about 21,000 people working there.

Movie and TV Fame: Perhaps the most famous representation of the building is in the 1933 film King Kong, in which the giant ape climbs to the top to escape his captors but falls to his death after being attacked by airplanes. MythBusters, a Discovery Channel show, tested the urban myth which claims that if one drops a penny off the top of the Empire State Building, it could kill someone or put a crater in the pavement. The outcome was that, by the time the penny hits the ground, it is going roughly 65 mph (terminal velocity for an object of its mass and shape), which is not fast enough to inflict lethal injury or put a crater into the pavement. 

Marble Collegiate Church

Marble Collegiate Church:  Founded in 1628, the Marble Collegiate Church, at right, is one of the oldest continuous Protestant congregations in North America. The congregation, part of the Reformed Church in America, is now located at 272 Fifth Avenue at the corner of West 29th Street in the NoMad neighborhood of Manhattan.  NoMad is the moniker given this neighborhood meaning "north of Madison Square Park."  So many of the neighborhoods in New York City are given nicknames, such as SoHo, NoHo, etc.

The Marble Collegiate Church was built in 1851-54 and was designed in Romanesque Revival style with Gothic trim. The facade is covered in Tuckahoe marble, for which the church, originally called the Fifth Avenue Church, was renamed in 1906.  You will note throughout my visit to New York City, that I have taken many pictures of churches.  The architecture is so impressive, that I wanted to capture as much of that as I could.

The building was designated a New York City landmarks in 1967, and in 1980 was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, the noted author of The Power of Positive Thinking served as senior minister from 1932-1984. Under Dr. Peale's ministry, Marble's influence reached national levels and became known as "America's Hometown Church." On November 19, 1961, Lucille Ball married her second husband Gary Morton in the church.

The Museum of Sex

Museum of Sex: Yes, ma'am, there is a museum of sex -- only in New York City could you find something like this! 

What will I find there?  First opening on Fifth Avenue in October 2002, and with a multitude of exhibitions and virtual installations, the Museum’s mission is to advocate an open conversation surrounding sex and sexuality and is committed to addressing a wide range of topics, while highlighting material and artifacts from different continents, cultures, time periods and media.

Located on Fifth Avenue the Museum’s permanent collection of over 15,000 artifacts is comprised of works of art, photography, clothing and costumes, technological inventions and historical written and printed matter not intended to be retained or preserved. Additionally, the museum houses both a research library as well as an extensive multimedia library and preserves an ever-growing collection of sexually related objects that would otherwise be destroyed and discarded due to their sexual content.

The Flatiron Building

The Flatiron Building (or Fuller Building, as it was originally called) is located at 175 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan and is considered to be a groundbreaking skyscraper. Completed in 1902, it was one of the tallest buildings in the city and the only skyscraper north of 14th Street. The building sits on a triangular island-block formed by Fifth Avenue, Broadway and East 22nd Street, with 23rd Street grazing the triangle's northern (uptown) peak. As with numerous other wedge-shaped buildings, the name "Flatiron" derives from its resemblance to a cast-iron clothes iron.

The building anchors the south (downtown) end of Madison Square and the north (uptown) end of the Ladies' Mile Historic District. The neighborhood around it is called the Flatiron District after its signature building, which has become an icon of New York City.

What was so amazing is that as we were driving by, our guide noted where you can look at a doorway on the first floor (on the narrower end) and see right through to the other side.

Now Entering Union Square

Union Square:  Union Square is a public square in Manhattan.  It is an important and historic intersection, located where Broadway and the former Bowery Road, now Fourth Avenue, came together in the early 19th century; its name denotes that "here was the union of the two principal thoroughfares of the island."

Union Square is noted for the equestrian statue of U.S. President George Washington, unveiled in 1856 and the first American equestrian sculpture cast in bronze.  It was the first public sculpture erected in New York City since the equestrian statue of U.K. George III in 1770. Other statues in the park include the Marquis de Lafayette (dedicated at the Centennial, July 4, 1876), Abraham Lincoln (1870), and the James Fountain (1881 which is a fountain with the figure of Charity who empties her jug of water, aided by a child). A statue of Mahatma Gandhi in the southwest corner of the park was added in 1986.  

Church of the Village

The Church of the Village: Church of the Village:  The Church of the Village, located at 201 W 13th Street, follows the mission of the United Methodist Church.  Nothing necessarily note-worthy about this church, except its architecture.  Again, I am consumed with taking pictures of the old historic churches and buildings such as this one. 

Greenwich Village: Now heading in Greenwich Village, in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families. Greenwich Village, however, was known in the late 19th to mid 20th centuries as an artists' haven, the bohemian capital, and the East Coast birthplace of the Beat movement. What provided the initial attractive character of the community eventually contributed to its gentrification and commercialization.  Into the early 20th century, 

Entering Greenwich Village

Greenwich Village was distinguished from the upper-class neighborhood of Washington Square – based on the major landmark Washington Square Park or Empire Ward in the 19th century.

Greenwich Village was also home to one of the many safe houses used by the radical anti-war movement known as the Weather Underground. In March 1970, however, their safehouse was destroyed when an explosive they were constructing was accidentally detonated, killing three Weathermen.

In recent days, the Village has maintained its role as a center for movements that have challenged the wider American culture, for example, its role in the gay liberation movement. It contains Christopher Street and the Stonewall Inn, important landmarks, as well as the world's oldest gay and lesbian bookstore, Oscar Wilde Bookshop, founded in 1967. The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center (a/k/a "The Center") has occupied the former Food & Maritime Trades High School at 208 West 13th Street since 1984. In 2006, the Village was the scene of an assault involving seven lesbians and a straight man that sparked much media attention.

Because of the extraordinarily high housing costs in the neighborhood at the current time, artists and local historians mourn that the bohemian days of Greenwich Village are long gone and therefore, many artists have fled first to SoHo then to TriBeCa and finally Williamsburg and Bushwick in Brooklyn, Long Island City, and DUMBO. Current residents of Greenwich Village still possess the strong historic community identity and are proud of their neighborhood's unique history and fame, and its well-known liberal "live-and-let-live "attitudes.

Greenwich Village is home to some celebrities, including many actresses/actors such as Emma Stone, Julianne Moore, Uma Thurman, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Edward Norton, and Barbara Pierce Bush, the daughter of former U.S. President George W. Bush; Thurman and Bush both live on West Ninth Street. American designer Marc Jacobs and current TV-talk show host Anderson Cooper live in the neighborhood.

The historic Washington Square Park is the center and heart of the neighborhood, but the Village has several other, smaller parks: Father Fagan, Minetta Triangle, Petrosino Square, Little Red Square, and Time Landscape.

Greenwich Village is home to New York University, which owns large sections of the area and most of the buildings around Washington Square Park.
   

Casey's Flower Studio: Although nothing historic about this place, I had to capture a picture of it (1) because of it's name and (2) because I loved all the shops that we passed by that were encompassed by the flowers and plants.

 

Electric Lady Studio:  Electric Lady Studio:  Electric Lady Studios, (see picture below, left) located at 52 West 8th Street, in Greenwich Village, is a recording studio originally built by Jimi Hendrix in 1970. Hendrix spent only four weeks recording here, most of which took place while the final phases of construction were still ongoing. An opening party was held on August 26, 1970, the same day 26 American troops were killed in a Chinook helicopter crash in Vietnam. The following day Hendrix created his last ever studio recording: known only as "Slow Blues." He then boarded an Air India flight for London to perform at the Isle of Wight Festival, and died less than three weeks later.

MacDougal Street:  MacDougal Street is the street where the Comedy Cellar is located (which we went to) and which attracts many notable comedians. (See picture at right).  On the corner of West 8th Street/MacDougal at 32 West 8th Street is the former location of 8th Street Books, where Bob Dylan and Allen Ginsberg first met. Jackson Pollock lived in Apt #9 in MacDougal Alley.  At the corner of MacDougal -Washington Square North at 27 is the former residence of Matthew Broderick. Eleanor Roosevelt lived on the corner of MacDougal - Washington Square North at 29 after the death of president Franklin D. Roosevelt. The southwest corner of Washington Square Park, which flanks one side of MacDougal Street, is the site of many historic chess games as well as the film Searching for Bobby Fischer. Caffe Reggio, at 119 MacDougal Street, a coffeehouse since 1927, has been featured in many movies, including Godfather II. Many celebrities have been spotted or photographed in this location. In 1959, John F. Kennedy, at that time a presidential hopeful, made a speech outside the coffee shop. At 116 MacDougal Street used to be the The Gaslight Cafe, where Bob Dylan, Allen Ginsberg, and many others would read poetry. Bob Dylan lived there for a time.

Nika and I:  The rain was coming down in little mists and it was just enough that Nika and I finally donned our scarves.  Nika is real good at being able to capture the pictures of ourselves at just the right angle on the first try.  Me--when I tried I could usually only get part of our faces.  Haha!

Well, today's tour is by no means over with yet, but I bet you are starting to wane a little from another jolt of information overload.  So I will stop here for the moment.  But, believe me, our day is not over yet, as we are only a little way into our big adventure for the day.  Next up, on the Gray Line tour, we finish out our downtown bus tour by heading towards Wall Street, Battery Park, South Street Seaport, Occupy Wall Street and more.  Then we get off and go to MoMA (Modern Museum of Art) and start our tour of the Museum of Natural History.  Plus, we still have a big night ahead as we are heading to Greenwich Village for a late night at the Comedy Cellar. 

So, for now, rest up those tired eyes -- we've got lots more to see.