New York Christmas

ROCKEFELLER CENTER, FIFTH AVENUE

Happy Chanukah, Merry Christmas and a healthy and happy New Year!

Lots of foot traffic outdoors here at Rockefeller Center: walking around NYC, skating (one hour wait for access to ice), strolling and shopping. We could barely take a step without apologizing for bumping into someone or stepping between camera and subject.

Where's that pedometer? Time to check for today's 10,000 steps.

SAKS FIFTH AVENUE

Walking outdoors is healthy fun in NYC, even after dark, among the electic stars and angels.

Stars on Saks...

Broadway: Walk from Central Park to Herald Square

What's the Statue of Liberty doing in Central Park?

Song: Stand by Me
Song: Love and Marriage

Joan Miro's Bull Facing the Plaza Hotel

Song: New York, New York, It's a Wonderful Town

Love the mirrored images in the glass!
Albert Einstein Poster near Times Square

song: M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E

Minnie greets and meets sale shoppers.

Click map for enlarged view. We walked North along Broadway from 34th Street thru the Theater District to 59th Street, then into Central Park where we saw the Statue of Liberty mime.

Halloween Decorations: Englewood Cliffs and New York

Go back with us to 1973 for a song:

Have you heard about the canine costume contest
over at the Time Warner Center?
Who let the dog out of the bag?


Stuck for a costume idea? Feel free to use ours.

Central Park's Bathesda Fountain and Terrace Arcade:Inside Story of the Restauration

A walk in from the east at 72nd Street. Follow around to the right until you can see this: a look back at the remote-control-boat basin...

Then make a left to cross the street.
 Follow the Hanson cabs...

and voila: Bethesda Fountain at dusk

:

Bethesda Terrace Arcade Gets a Makeover

.... one of Central Park's true jewels, the Bethesda Terrace Arcade, just yards away. This lavishly decorated underground part of Bethesda Terrace reopened in early March, 2007, after a $7 million restoration by the Central Park Conservancy.

The sun was setting, and the arcade area was too dark for good photos. She decided to return the following day, at an earlier hour, which she did--and took the three gorgeous photo below.

Shown here in all its glory is the main focus of the restoration: the preservation and reinstallation of the Arcade’s Minton tile ceiling.

Karma Chameleon in Garrison, NY via Metro North RR

Click this chameleon for song from Culture Club:
Today, while en route to Garrison on the 9:50 Poughkeepsie bound, we chatted about the benefits of hiking.

You see lots of green ...

and blue ...

and other hikers whom you'd met months or years before ...

but today's paydirt was the chameleon, so delicate, so fleeting, so evocative of metaphor ... the list of which we leave to you.

And oh, the exercise ...

After lunch, this leader rewards all with Hopjes, coffee candies from Holland.

Fortified, we resume the ascent.

Always tell the sweep when you stop along the way to adjust footwear.

We take in the upward and outward views as we begin the descent.

Memorize the play of light deep in the woods.

That's it; we're out.

A look back, and ...

there's West Point just across the Hudson from the Garrison Station.