This Monday, I finally got around to taking the long exposures around Columbia University that had been on my to-do list.  I'm so glad that I didn't put this off any longer.

We had an entire day tour scheduled for Monday, but it was rainy.

The Guggenheim Museum in NYC is open to donation of choice (we each paid $1) on Saturdays after 5 PM.  The line wraps all the way around the street corner.  There's strictly no photography inside the museum designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, which is a bit of a bummer, but understandable.

We had the day off for Independence Day.  Our only real plan was to watch the Macy's Fireworks over the Hudson River, but we didn't really know how to go about doing that.  The Macy's website listed where the barges would be and where to view from, but we didn't know how early it was necessary to be there to reserve spots.  We also didn't know if we'd be allowed to bring coolers, chairs, and the like for holding spots after reading mixed reviews online.  I decided it was worth it to try to bring my travel tripod.

We got off the subway at 34th Street, and after talking to our friends who were ahead of us getting there, we knew that we needed to start moving south.  We ended up finding a location at 30th and 10th, right by the High Line.  Because of the construction, it wasn't the prettiest view.

I think by the time we finally got settled, it was 7:50 PM.  We thought fireworks started at 8:30 PM, but they ended up starting at 9.

I guess my reward for getting my work done Sunday afternoon was that I was free to go to the Empire State Building with a friend that night.  It was his last night in NYC, and he really wanted to go to the top of the Empire State Building.  Being one of the only ones finished, I got to go with him.

The Empire State Building is open until 2AM.  We arrived on Sunday around 11PM.  Luckily for us, the skies had finally cleared (there was zero visibility from the top earlier that day).



There was absolutely no line for tickets.  We walked right in.  Tickets to the 86th floor are $25, and you can pay an extra $17 to go to a higher viewing platform.  We stuck with the $25 ticket.  They also advertised $50 passes which let you skip the lines, but there were no lines for us to skip.  We walked right through.

This past week, we had a friend in architecture from Germany visit us in New York City.  He's been here for 11 months and on his last hoorah before he heads back to Munich in a week.  So I took the opportunity to tag along as he visited the must-sees on his NYC list.



This is also when we got scammed by the street performers.

On Saturday, we were headed to check out the Freedom Tower at the World Trade Center when a crowd of people caught our eye.  When we got closer, we realized it was a street show.  There were 5-6 young black males with ripped out bodies who were very clever and entertaining when describing their show.  My initial thoughts were, "Okay, this is going to be cool."  Which is why I was slightly caught off guard but not put off when they requested that we pay in advance, explaining that normally for a show like this, they'd perform, and we'd all leave (understandable, I thought).  So they came around with bags to collect money, and the three of us each got out a dollar to donate.  As the performers circled the crowd, collecting money, they'd yell, "Stop the show!  Someone just donated $10.  A black guy!"  "Stop the show!  Another person just donated $10.... another black guy!  If the black guys are donating $10, shouldn't the white guys be donating $20, $50?"  Then they kept doing this thing with the last person to donate - "The last person to donate is from Australia... going once... going twice..." and did that three times until they pried money out of three more people.  The three of us looked to each other, complaining that this had gone on way too long.  Finally, it was time to start the show.

Cupcakes are very popular in New York City. And Magnolia Bakery is the shop that perhaps started the cupcake craze in the mid-90s (there is a very informative Wikipedia Article on Magnolia Bakery).  We passed it while walking down Bleecker Street and couldn't resist the temptation to get cupcakes.

It's very crowded and unorganized inside.  The cupcakes are serve-yourself and located on the left side of the bakery as you enter.  There are signs saying that if you touched it, you bought it.  However, there is no one there to monitor that.  So it's not surprising to me that the famous bakery was briefly closed by the New York Department of Health in 2007 due to health code violations.



The bakery has gotten a lot of airtime.  It was featured in the 2005 Lonely Island "Lazy Sunday" digital short on SNL, as well as Sex in the City.

I didn't really know what I was in for when I joined my friends for lunch in Chinatown last weekend.  I had never been to a Dim Sum restaurant before, and I had no idea what it was.  Mary is of Chinese heritage, and she found the restaurant, Jing Fong, online.  It's located off of Canal Street and not far from the subway station.

Wednesday, we took the subway to the Financial District.

The only other time I've been to New York City, I remember spending a good amount of time on Times Square.  Our hotel, the Westin, was adjacent to Times Square (we were supposed to stay at the Marriott Marquis, but there was some mix-up with the reservations... which ended up being fine because the Westin was super nice with Heavenly beds), and we rode the Ferris Wheel at Toys R' Us.  Anyway, when I think about New York, I think about Times Square.  Which is why it was incredibly weird for me to have been in NYC for five days, having yet visited Times Square (though I did see the Westin we stayed at when catching a cab one night).  So today when I had some free time, I decided that it was time to make a visit to Times Square so that I'd perhaps be able to better wrap my mind around the fact that I'm in New York City.



Okay, okay.... the real reason I was dying to go to Times Square is because since I last visited New York City, Disney has opened a store there.

On our first day of studio in New York City yesterday, we visited NYC's High Line Park.  I was familiar with the High Line after watching the documentary Urbanized (2011, Gary Hustwit).  The project is a really creative, innovative answer to both restoration and preserving history, as well as creating green space in an urban environment.  New York City's High Line is an elevated railway track above Manhattan's West Side which had become overgrown after decades of being unused.  In 1999, Friends of the High Line was founded as a community group to preserve the historic structure.  The High Line (first phase opened in 2009, second in 2011, and third currently under construction) is now a community park with landscaping designed by architects, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, and landscape architecture firm, Field Operations.  The High Line serves as not only a place of gathering, but a connection between surrounding buildings.  It's a really unique concept, and I quite enjoyed the execution of it.