N.Y.C. Day Three

Once again on Saturday morning, I could not sleep in.  I woke up around 6:30, very excited for our last full day in New York.  The only thing we had on the agenda was admission to the World Trade Center Memorial at 11:00.  So, I decided I may as well go on a jog (which was one of the things I really wanted to do, but didn't think I would get a chance).

The run was so. much.  fun.  In fact, it probably was one of my top 3 three things I did during the whole trip.  It was just so surreal to run down 5th Ave. by all of the designer shop windows (the song running through my head was from Easter Parade: "On the Avenue, 5th Avenue . . .").

I also ran through a little bit of Central Park.  It was a drizzly morning, but not too bad and as you can see there were still a lot people out enjoying the park.

I couldn't believe how many runners there were in Central Park (so of course I creepily took pictures of some, haha)  Like literally, it was almost like a freeway of runners, with people passing on the left and continuous 2 way lanes occupied- crazy!

I really had no desire to go into the high end designer shops, but it is fun to see the artistry in their window displays.

So after getting ready, we navigated the subway (and made a couple of rookie mistakes) to get to the memorial site. What an experience this was!  I wasn't expecting to be so overcome with grief, but as soon as we stepped onto the site I just felt devastated with the tragedy and all of the innocent lives that were lost.

The site where the buildings once stood are now two reflecting pools with the names of every victim etched on the sides.  A big museum is currently being built (pic below), but right now they just have a little one that was quite moving with continuous film reels of several victim's and survivor's stories.

Oh man the several names that I saw that said "so and so and her unborn child" just cut right through me.  There truly is not an end to the depth of sadness from that day.

I thought it was pretty cool that one of the first names I noticed was Todd Beamer's.  I remember his heroic story from flight 93 and his awesome widow Lisa that wrote a book about him.

I guess I'll include the smeared-mascara picture :)

Inside the little museum, they had a few artifacts that people have made using the scrap metal from the buildings.  I think it's really cool the different positive ways that people have grieved 9/11. 

Oh I should mention too that at the gift shop portion of the museum, we picked out Wyatt's souvenir, a little New York firefighter play set.  I liked that all of the proceeds go to toward the memorial and Wyatt love playing with it :)

After the memorial, both Erik and I were pretty hungry.  On my "Food of New York Bucket List" was authentic NY pizza from Brooklyn and really good cheesecake.  So, once again I relied on google and zagat to steer us to the very best pizza Brooklyn has to offer.  After finding the very best reviewed and rated pizza shop, we studied the subway map to figure out the fastest way to get there.  Well, once again we kept making mistakes.  It's surprising how confusing that whole system is, when you have to make different connections and some lines were out due to construction.  

Basically we ended taking the wrong Subway line that dropped us off more than 2 miles from where we wanted to be in Brooklyn.  And the morning's drizzle had turned to a full on rain.  Luckily, I wasn't in heels but we were both very hungry (I had only eaten a granola bar in the morning and Erik hadn't eaten at all!) and quite wet.  On the bright side though, it was pretty cool to walk through some quintessential Brooklyn neighborhoods with Hebrew writing on the school buses, Hebrew letters on every house front, and every man wearing payot (or payots?) and a yamaka.

We finally got there!!!!

So this place is called DiFara's pizza and it was the smallest hole in the wall ever.  I'm actually glad we got there so late for lunch (about 2:30) because even at such a random time, there was no where to sit and a long line to get our pie made.  There were just two guys, one who took the orders and the owner who made it all.  He's had the place for over 50 years and makes each one super fresh.  He even grows his basil to put on top!

It was so good!  The crust was just perfection, the sauce delicious, and each pizza pie has over 1 lb. of a perfected ratio of fresh mozzarella and aged cheese- yowza!

It was cool to see articles from pretty much every  national food publication on the walls, featuring this tiny pizza parlor.

With our bellies nice and full, we decided to get over to Times Square and get in the Broadway discount ticket line.  Our intention all along was just to see the two shows, but part of what woke me that Saturday morning was thinking of seeing one more show and looking up how we could get some tickets for cheap.  Erik was good with the plan, so in the pouring rain we stood in about a 40 minute line to allow us to see one more Broadway show :)  The line was pretty entertaining though because of course, there is so much to look at in Times Square!

Hmm, this picture is actually from Friday  night, but I don't feel like going back and putting in the previous post :)

The tickets we bought was for a new show called Nice Work If You Can Get It.  It stars Matthew Broderick and the music is all Gershwin tunes, so I knew it would be fun.  However what really sold me was the female lead is Kelli O'Hara.  I first saw her being interviewed on Charlie Rose a few years ago, talking about the revival of South Pacific she was starring in. I bought the album of that musical and just fell in love with her voice.  She has won two or three Tonys and I was just so excited to see her in person!  There were also several other Tony winners in the cast.  Oh and Gwyneth Paltrow's mother, Blythe Danner was in the cast as well.

The show really was cute.  Everyone played their parts really well.  There was some really cute 20s style choreography, beautiful songs and orchestrations.  However, I was bugged that they had to add so many dumb sex jokes.  Especially in the first half.  Erik thinks I'm a bit harsh, and there wasn't too much.  I just feel like if we are going to pay a good amount of money to see something, it should be perfect!  As I've been listening to the cast recording though, I've started to love it more again :)

Oh one funny thing about the show was seeing the difference in ages of the audience members from Friday night.  At Newsies, the majority of the audience were teenage girls and young adult couples.  At Nice Work, the majority were couples that were a bit more . . . mature :)

After the show we went to Juniors, which is another classic Broadway establishment.  The food was OK.  I got a pastrami sandwich and Erik got a burger.  But the thing I really wanted was their famous cheesecake.

Oh my gosh, this cheesecake did not disappoint!  It was heads and shoulders above Cheesecake Factory (the best one I could compare it with). The texture was absolutely heavenly, so incredibly creamy and smooth.  Mmm, I wish I had a piece right now actually!