A Few New York City Sights

We decided to check out a couple of places we haven't seen on previous visits to New York City as we celebrated the first day of Standard Time.

Getting from our JFK Hilton Garden Inn into downtown Manhattan takes some time but is quite doable, and reasonably cost-effective. First you grab a shuttle to the Air Train station and travel one stop to the subway station. From there it's a subway ride downtown. We managed the entire trip in less than 90 minutes.

We got off at the Rockefeller Center stop and strolled up the Avenue of The Americas as far as the edge of Central Park. The world's largest marathon race, the New York City Marathon, happened to be taking place, so after snapping a couple of photos we strolled back toward Rockefeller Center.



Fifth Avenue on a Sunday afternoon was relatively quiet.



We arrived at Rockefeller Plaza and of course had to take a couple of photos. We'd seen 30 Rock but who would have guessed you could look at the exterior set?



Funny how the ice skating rink doesn't look quite as large in real life - and it could have used a Zamboni today.





Then it was time to splurge on a trip to the Top of The Rock, all 67 stories of it. No lineups whatsoever, although they're set up for long queues, and we breezed up and wandered around without delays or crowds - what could be better? Maybe if we'd spotted King Kong climbing the Empire State Building...



Lots of views in all directions from separate levels at the top of the building...



Central Park looks splendid in fall colors.



You can spot the giant Times Square screen if you look closely. What a sight in all directions...



We could even see Ellis Island out at the mouth of the Hudson River in New York Harbor. There appears to be some sort of large statue on it...



A couple of friendly New Yorkers saw us checking our tourist map on the subway and suggested we take a free ride on the Staten Island Ferry. We're glad we did. We rode over, walked around the immediate area for 20 minutes, and caught another ferry back, catching great views in both directions.





There's that statue again, a little closer...



The closer we got to the Manhattan dock, the more magnificent the skyline looked, complete with the Empire State Building tower just visible behind the other buildings.



Tomorrow morning we're off to Chicago via Washington-Dulles (JFK-IAD-ORD), an overnight stay and an informal get together with some other FlyerTalkers at an airport restaurant called Giordano's that brags about its Chicago stuffed pizza, before being hosted by United Airlines early Tuesday morning as our Flyer Talk Mega DO formally begins.