Headed out last Tuesday afternoon to jump on a direct flight to New York for some site seeing, running, and New York Yankee baseball watching. Everything went awesome except my third day of running when I got caught in a rain storm and of course it was the day I was also planning on getting to Coney Island. Other then that some good pictures, a few laps around Central park, 2 long runs up the Hudson River, and a few good stories to tell.
First Day in we didn’t get in til late so just ate and went to bed… so first thing Wednesday morning after some coffee and bagel, I headed to Central Park. Our apartment was only 15 minutes walk to get there so it was perfect. I had an hour to get a run in before our 6 and half hour tour of the city. So I did a quick rip to the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir and went around once and headed back in just under an hour. It nice to go for a run when your not the only one on a lonely country road putting in the time.
The 6 and a half hour tour was pretty good, but since UN was in session the whole east-side of town was grid lock, so we ended up sitting in traffic for awhile. Got a few boat rides in, saw the 9/11 site and memorial, and all the popular buildings.
Day 3 started out with another run to Central Park, but this time I was going to go all the way around. After doing some shitty research of a back of a running magazine, I though it was going to be a 14 mile run. Well after going around once in 45 minutes, I did it again. Two loops and some pretty fun sites. Bike riders crashing, weirdos running, walkers walking into bikes, and horsees. It was a great first loop, but the humidity was crazy the whole week, so the second loop was in slow motion.
Day 4 was going to be a bit rough, after having no rain the first three days, it rolled right in. I was hoping to hit a few new spots that I missed from the last time I went but it was raining so hard it made it pointless. At around 11 am I had to get out and do something. So I went straight east down w48th street to the Hudson. The last time I went to New York we walked all along the Hudson from about Canal Street and headed into Wall st. So this time I would head in the opposite direction towards the George Washington Bridge.
The first 40 minutes was awesome, a bit of rain to cool me down from the muggy heat, but once I was within a mile of the bridge it started to drop pails of water. Once I got to the bridge I was a running in rivers. Took a few looks around, then turned around and headed back. I was the only one with 6 miles on the way back. Not a single soul out, not even the homeless Mexicans that were drinking on the way out. Of course my legs were starting to feel the 20 plus kms I did yesterday and made it for a not so enjoyable rip home.
After some relaxing and wondering around in the rain, the next day started of great. A walk along the Brooklyn Bridge, then another run along the Hudson but towards Wall Street. Then the day finished off with a trip Down to the Bronx, to watch the Yankees put the boots to the Red Sox.
::the sky at the end of the game was..well pretty amazing. This was shot in 35mm film.::
Great trip with some good solid running and more photos to follow…
The long awaited trip to New York with my Grandfather and Fam has finally come. What was suppose to be a trip to Boston to run the Boston Marathon in April, has turned into another trip to New York. Thanks to an 8 hour sell out of the Boston Marathon, I get to enjoy a trip and don’t have to run a marathon so……… i’m not complaining. (new rules for Boston just came out actually…)
:: Probably one of my favorite shots in Time Square. This is on Artprojectonline ::
I am really looking forward to my week away to see a few more spots then I did when I went a few years back. A friend and I had an amazing time and packed a ridiculous amount of things in just a long weekend. Yankees game in the old Yank stadium, Time Square, Empire State building, Grand Central Station, Wall Street, a Central Park Run, Pretty good hike along the river and Broadway, and of course a few pub stops.
:: This was back in 2008, for sale on artprojectonline ::
One thing we didn’t do was run around the whole Central Park, all 14 miles of it. You know you like to run, when one of your highlights is going to be running around a park. I found a map of park and all the different areas that you can enjoy, as well as a site that has city running tours. Ill just be doing my usual lace up and see how it goes, but we are staying a pretty reasonable distance to the park and will be doing a number of runs there to get me ready for my half marathon coming up in Victoria.
::Victoria last year, be my four time runnin::
Of Course another Yankee game verus Red Sox will be the real reason why I am excited to head back. Hopefully the Red Soxs hang in there for their Saturday game, so all the big boys will be out playing. Be jumping on a plane this afternoon and coming back Sunday night. I’ll be packing my camera as well as shooting some 35m film if I can find it!
Since I’ve been so busy lately getting things ready for this upcoming art show, and working -I don’t have much to say or show but to let you know what I’ve been reading to keep me on the sane side of things…
I found this really interesting article in the local rag out here, I love creative projects that actually get completed instead of just being talked about. New York has some of the best creative people working on everything from cloths to city projects. This amazing project just opened on the 8th of June and is costing the city a few bucks, but the buzz this park is creating is second to none.
The project was created from an old rail line (the High Line) from the 1930′s that transported meat, and dairy down the line from the warehouse district of the west side of Manhattan. The line was closed in the 1980′s and was slatted to get demoed shortly after by old Rudy. But as the story goes, someone or some two, notice some flowers growing 20 feet above the street on the railway line. The great idea was to turn this old line into an Urban park.
It connects three different Manhattan neighborhoods at a length of about 2.4 kms at a cost of over 152 million of state, federal and private money. Only the first stage of the park opened on the 8th but the rest is to be opened in 2010. One more thing that makes me want to head back down to NY!
This weekend I’m spending my Easter long weekend in the USA. We drove by Safeco field in Seattle, one of my favorite ballparks. I usually take in a few games a year and want to take in a few more this year. This is the opening month for baseball and the big event of this year is the opening of the new Yankee Stadium. Its replacing the old stadium that was built 1923, with the new stadium being built right across the street. This stadium is second most expensive stadium at 1.5 billion dollars behind England’s Wembley Stadium at 798 000 pounds. April 3rd hosted the very first game against the Chicago Cubs, with the first regular season game on 16th of April against the Cleveland Indians.
Last year I was lucky enough to get to the old stadium before it wasn’t around anymore. We caught a Mets vs.Yankees game and was one of the coolest experiences. Yankees lost the game but it didn’t seem to matter because there was a lot of Mets fans.
How did we get tickets? 2 months before on Craiglist in New York. We did a little research and figured we got a good deal for 250. We asked around when we sat down at a pub in Mid-town New York (after the game) and the locals confirmed we did pretty well. We were a little hesitant to buy off the net, but we did all the steps to make sure it was not a scam. We had them mailed out once the seller had them printed, so we got them about a month before we headed to New York. It all ended up working out and now I need to make plans to check out the new stadium.
A cool little side story has to deal with Mariano Rivera and Monument Park. He wanted to move the team’s bullpen, as well as to have access to the park directly from the bullpen so the relievers can access it . They added the door and moved the bullpen at his request, he’s got some pull.
Safeco seating at peak 54,ooo
Old Yankee stadium sat just under 58,000, new stadium just over 52,000
Broke ground for new Yankee stadium August 16, 2006
The exterior of new Yankee Stadium was made from 11,000 pieces of limestone.
Kentucky Blue grass surface, same a previous Yankee Stadium.
Total of 227 miles of Ethernet cable that wraps the New Stadium.
Demolition of Old Yankee began in March 2009
The “new” Wembley stadium is the largest covered stadium in the world.
As this week quick comes close to the end, so is the interior work on the house. I’ve been clean and getting most of the dust out of everthing. I have a small list and will hopefully have it done by the end of the weekend. I’ve been going a lot of computer work, hense no house updates. But here are some of the things I’ve been looking at in down times.
Redbull has some crazy events. One that went on on the 5th of this month. A giant jump in New York. Looks crazy, but I havent seen any footage of the actual event. You tube has 200 plus video just from them alone.
