New York City Vacation, Day 3

We started the day with a walk to Russ & Daughters Cafe for bagels and lox and then to the Black Fox for coffee.

We were well-fueled for a day of museums: the Guggenheim in the morning and the Museum of Broadway in the afternoon.

The latter is in Times Square, which is just where we needed to be for our supper reservation at Carmine's Italian restaurant. From there, it was a short walk to the James Earl Jones Theater, where we saw the musical Real Women Have Curves.

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The fun building design of the Guggenheim from the ground floor looking up ...

... and from the top floor looking down.

Most floors of the Guggenheim featured works by artist Rashid Johnson, who created paintings, sculptures, videos, and three-dimensional pieces like this one for the museum's current exhibition.

In addition, the Guggenheim has galleries for its permanent collection, such as this oil painting ("Le Palais Ducal vu de Saint-Georges Majeur") by French artist Claude Monet. We saw paintings by other famous artists, too, including Picasso, Chagall, Kandinsky, Manet, Degas, Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec, Van Gogh, and Gaugin.

The Museum of Broadway takes visitors through a timeline of Broadway's history, starting in 1732. Along the way are displays of costumes from notable productions, set pieces, historical documents, photographs, videos, and anecdotes and quotations from people who have shaped the theatre scene in New York City.

Carmine's serves dishes "family-style," big portions that are meant to be passed around the table and shared like at home. We had a salad followed by lasagna, meatballs, eggplant parmigiana, and linguine with clam sauce.

Real Women Have Curves is a new musical based on a play that in 2002 was made into a movie. Its protagonist is a young Latina struggling to balance her dreams for the future with her responsibilities to her immigrant family in Los Angeles in 1987. One of the leads is Justina Machado, who is nominated for a Tony Award for her role. You might know her from the TV shows Six Feet Under, Ugly Betty, and One Day at a Time.

New York City Vacation, Day 2

We started our day with visits to the Tenement Museum, St. Paul's Chapel, and the 9/11 Memorial. At noon we ate bagels and lox out on the terrace of Brookfield Place along the Hudson River.

We spent the afternoon exploring the 9/11 Museum and then went to the One World Observatory for 360° views of Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Jersey City. In the evening we went to Yankee Stadium for a game between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox (the Yankees won 9 to 6).

We were joined in the evening by Jacob, Suzanna's fiancé, who flew up from Nashville for the weekend; and by Ryan, Abigail's boyfriend, who is from Long Island. After the baseball game, we all had drinks and appetizers at the Beer Authority, a craft beer pub not far from our hotel.

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One World Trade Center is the main building of the rebuilt World Trade Center complex. It is the tallest building in the USA (and in the Western hemisphere).

Skyscrapers surrounding the World Trade Center complex.

At the site of each of the Twin Towers (from the original World Trade Center complex), there is now a memorial pool, an acre in size, that sits within the footprint of the tower that once stood there. The names of those killed in the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, are inscribed in metal surrounding each pool. Water cascades down from four walls of waterfalls just beneath the people's names.

Another view of one of the pools surrounded by skyscrapers in the neighborhood.

From the top of the highest building in the city (and country) (and hemisphere), One World Observatory offers views in all directions from 102 stories up. In the distance, can you spy the Statue of Liberty on Liberty Island at the mouth of the Hudson River?

We took the subway to Yankee Stadium in the Bronx. It was packed! Nobody was deterred by the rain, least of all us: we had seats in the upper deck under the roof!

Our view of the field.

Back row: Jacob and Suzanna

Front row: Ryan and Abigail, Susan and me, and Hillary

New York City Vacation, Day 1

Susan and I and our three daughters have not been all together since Christmas 2023, so we have been looking forward to this long weekend vacation in New York City. One of our friends (and Susan's coworker) arranges educational tours for student groups and occasionally schedules one just for adults; so Susan, Suzanna, Hillary, and I all signed up for the tour and made plans to involve Abigail--who currently is living in Brooklyn--in as many of our activities as her schedule would allow. (Abigail is in medical school and is doing clinical rotations at a hospital in the Bronx right now.)

Today Susan and I flew with the tour group from Bismarck, ND, into Newark, NJ, and then traveled by bus to our hotel in Manhattan. Suzanna and Hillary flew directly from Nashville, TN, to New York City. Abigail met them, and the three of them went out for food and cocktails while waiting for their parentals to arrive. There was much squealing and hugging when Susan and I saw them waiting for us when we arrived at the restaurant for supper!

After eating, we walked around Times Square a little bit before returning to the hotel to get some rest before tomorrow's adventures.

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Hillary and Suzanna departing Nashville.

Susan and I departing Bismarck.

(Pardon the blurs -- I'm protecting the privacy of others who were in the photo.)

Reunited! We posed for a selfie in Times Square.

And check out this brief video of what we saw while looking around Times Square.