The view into LaGuardia

I flew into LaGuardia Airport in Queens when I arrived back from Europe this time around. The view at night as we circled Manhattan is amazing -- it was like you could pick up the Empire State Building if you could just reach out the window!

Seeing Mahattan and Queens like that (where I could pick out the Unisphere) and watching the entire airplane look in awe at the same view makes me so happy to live in somewhere as stunning and full of possibility as New York City.

It makes me not even care that we arrived so late! It was worth it!

March's donation: The Bowery Mission

As I am off on vacation for the rest of this month starting tomorrow (Turkey and England), I sent this month's donation to The Bowery Mission, keeping it local to NYC.

www.bowery.org

To the Top of the Rock!

Rockefeller Center, that is! On a recent beautiful day when I had a break at midday, I went to this little-known tourist attraction located at 51st and 5th Avenue http://www.topoftherocknyc.com/

There is NO line (on a Monday anyway) because everyone is headed over to the Empire State Building for the aerial view -- except at the Top of the Rock, you see all the same stuff AND the Empire State Building to boot!

There are 2 observatory decks (on the 69th and 70th floors) as well as a little museum on the bottom floor. It cost about $15 (a promoter was giving out $2 discounts on the street below, and they are in the visitors section at Penn Station, which is where I first got the idea to go.)

The elevator ride to the 69th floor features a montage of historic events throughout the 20th Century (JFK, Vietnam, etc etc) projected onto the ceiling.

Above are some stellar photos I took!

Good luck in New York (a retrospective post)

In March 2004, I was still living in Boston but knew I was moving to NYC because I had already been offered a job by the NYC Dept of Environmental Protection. Therefore, I made an appointment with a realtor whose name I had found in the NY Times to come down for a day and look at apartments.

The realtor gave me an address that as on Broadway. That day, I set off to Broadway. Not being from New York, I had assumed that there was only one Broadway, the one where all the famous shows are.

Imagine my surprise when I go to that address and find nothing but an Anthropologie store.

I call the realtor up and she tells me it's Broadway in Astoria.

I quickly hail a cab and we drive out to Astoria from the Village (where I had mistakenly ended up). On the way, I told him where I was moving from, I was looking for an apartment and that I was a personal trainer. He told me his fiancee was also a trainer.

He dropped me at the realtor's address and I paid the fare. I turned to leave when he said "Hey!"

I turned back around.

He smiled and said "Good luck in New York!"

I have always been grateful to that cabbie for saying that.