How things happen

The Crowne Plaza gives us lots of entertainment. Their windows provide us with great views of the Hudson River, sunsets and other buildings. Sometimes views of patrons we weren't anticipating but at the moment they have been entertaining us with their renovations. They started at the top and ware working their way down through the building three floors at time. In early April we couldn't work out what was happening as the lights are left on all the time and we could see the upper floor lights on but couldn't work out what was happening. Over the months they have worked down to floors below our floor level. Each morning on 48th Street there are major deliveries and removal of junk.
About a month ago they blocked off the drive through part for equipment and are now renovating that part too.
Walking back from our night out last night we passed all these mattresses stacked in the walk through from 49th to 48th Streets. A truck was there ready to take them away. Barry asked a guy mooching around them where they were going and he said that he worked for some company that collected them from one hotel and moved them on "down the chain". So some poor person in a lower order hotel chain is going to get the Crowne Plaza's rejected mattresses. At least they get used again. As you can see there are hundreds of them.

We spent the day on another little adventure. I decided to take Anne Marie and Barry to Artie's diner on Broadway at 82nd Street. I'd been there with Helen (just happened upon it). It is a great place for lunch if you are hungry. Knowing the size of serves generally throughout the US I knew to order something small so I had a lovely bagel and cream cheese and smoked salmon ( nothing else- I made sure they didn't give me all the trimmings), Anne Marie ordered a burger which was large enough and Barry ordered the Jewish salad. This salad had enough sliced meat on it for a family for a week and enough lettuce for a full sized family salad, a few eggs and olives and so we were bringing the left overs home! We joked about him taking it on the road trip (they head for Route 66 tomorrow).







These photos are from when I took Helen there the pickles and coleslaw are what everyone is given and the sandwich was Helen's of which she only ate half.

Having staggered out of Artie's we walked across Broadway to Harry's Shoes- Anne Marie being a shoe freak enjoyed looking but by now was quite shopped out- no mean feat on my part. Then in to a few more shops including looking in Zabars at the wonderful array of cheeses and other food (needless to say we didn't buy any as we were so full). As we were crossing the road the truck was coming along to water the road plantations ( and the road too). I hadn't seen them doing this before and was taken by it as I had only been thinking the other day as I rode on the bus about how green the plantations were and how did they get and stay that way. This prompted me to check out the NYC plans and low and behold I did know just had forgotten. Greenstreets is a part of Mayor Bloomberg's plans for a "green" city. While I was crossing the road I stopped and photographed the guy watering the plantations on Broadway. You can't see it but he smiled for the photo. He also had to wait and kept tooting until a woman,who was resting on a seat near the plantation, moved. He could have just gone around the corner and sprayed her - perhaps her walking frame prevented him from just bowling right along although he seemed to be considerate of pedestrians and traffic.




We were crossing the road with a purpose other than photographing the watering truck- we were headed to Circuit City where Barry finally bought a GPS to use on their road trip. We didn't find it all that helpful on our trip other than to get us to the airport but I'm sure he'll love playing with it unless Anne Marie tosses it out the window in frustration.
They went to see Jersey Boys and then we met up for dinner (very late for dinner but I survived). Barry hadn't realized it was about The Four Seasons so was pleasantly surprised by it and knew all the music. In all I think their time in New York was up to their expectations including the humidity and heat.