East Coast Trip: Days 3 - 6

I have been trying to cram a lot of things in during this trip and haven't had the chance to sit down and write a blog post on anything stadium experiences. The east coast trip really took off on day number 3 of the expedition. The plan was to leave Boston mid-morning on make my way down to Greenwich, CT where I would meet up with my friend David and head into New York City. I decided to make a pit stop in Newport, RI and write a blog post or two to kill some time and enjoy the scenery. By the time, I had written the blog post on exploring Boston, I checked my phone and I was 3 hours from Greenwich but the plan was to meet David in Greenwich in 90 minutes. Luckily it was not a big deal that I showed up about 2 hours later than planned. I left my car at David's mom's house in Greenwich and we took the train into New York City, We walked around Central Park for a while and ate dinner at a restaurant where we watched the Red Wings try to close out the Blackhawks in Game 6 of the Western Conference Finals.

The next three days were filled with sight-seeing. On Tuesday I saw Wall Street and Federal Hall, walked to Battery Park, stopped at the African Burial Grounds National Monument, and walked through Chinatown and Little Italy on my way to the lower east side. At the lower east side on watched a video at the Tenement Museum. When I was on the lower east side, it started raining pretty heavily. My main concern was that the game at Citi Field would be rained out - it was the last Mets home game for about 2 weeks. I tried to make the most of the rain situation and headed on over to the 9/11 Memorial which was very crowded earlier when it was nice out. Due to the rain, the line was very short and I walked right in. The memorial itself is pretty powerful as a two giant pools now occupy the footprint of the the two World Trade Center towers. I then headed over to Citi Field for the Mets game where David met me later. I have already written about my experience at Citi Field under the ballparks tag.

On Wednesday, I started off the day by walking east to west across Manhattan from David's apartment to the U. S. Grant National Memorial. Unfortunately, the Grant National Memorial was closed on Wednesday. I then walked north into Harlem to see the Alexander Hamilton Grange National Memorial. It was interesting that Alexander Hamilton's country house in 1800 is now in the middle of a densely populated area. I continued with the national parks by hopping on the subway and visiting the Theodore Roosevelt boyhood home. I was the only one there so I got a private tour from the park ranger. He was a self-proclaimed "Ted Head" and knew the most obscure facts about "T. R.". I had a pastrami sandwich at a Jewish sandwich shop and finished up the day by going to the Highline, a floral walkway on a set of elevated abandoned railroad tracks. I then took the subway to Yankee Stadium where once again I met up with David at the game. At the Yankee game, we met up with David's former fraternity brother Doug who is now an intern in the Yankees baseball operations department. He is by far the biggest sabermetrician I personally know. 

On Thursday, I rode the subway down to Times Square district. I walked through Macy's, by many theaters in Times Square, around Madison Square Garden, and around the Empire State Building. One thing I noticed was that Madison Square Garden (MSG) is very ugly from the outside and it is the mystique that makes it "The World's Most Famous Arena". I also got the see a (so-called) celebrity outside MSG: Snookie from Jersey Shore. I then took the subway back up to the General Grant National Memorial so I could stamp by National Parks Passport Book. I find that these national park (monument, historical sites, etc) are pretty interesting and explain some history of the region. This National Parks Passport Book provides a place for cancellation stamps for many of the sites in the National Park system. Maybe I will write a post on this later. I finished off the afternoon by walking through the upper west side and back to David's apartment. On the upper west side I saw the restaurant front that was used in the TV show Seinfeld. I finished off the day by eating dinner down in Chinatown with David and another friend, Athrey, who now lives in New York City.

Most of my planning has gone into the baseball games and I only has a vague plan as far as what I was going to do each day.  If my goal was primarily to take a vacation to New York, I would have done a lot more planning and organization. As a consequence of my limited planning, I spent a lot of time just walking around but I have found that walking around is a descent way to experience a city.