NYE in NYC

We started the day with a walk across the Brooklyn Bridge.  Very cold but quite a sight:

We plan to spend the day in Brooklyn tomorrow before the NBA game between the Brooklyn Nets and the Orlando Magic.  (Gosia is super excited about it....)

It got busy in the afternoon, and before we got organised, we couldn't find anywhere to eat prior to our pre-booked NYE party near Times Square.  Everything seemed to be a fight and just too hard.  Nowhere to sit, nowhere to eat or even have a drink.  We had a few hours to spare before the doors to our bar opened, and everywhere else was booked out or needed a prior reservation.  We managed to fight our way through a small sandwich place to grab a slice of pizza and sat outside on a rooftop of a bar (the only tables available) for a drop of Captain Morgan to kill the time and do some people watching from above.  Finally, when the time came to make our way to the venue, we strolled down 8th Ave.  The striking thing was the number of fully armed NYPD officers and vehicles blocking literally every corner.  They were hanging around in groups in the subways.  Google tells us there were 7000 police in Times Square alone that night.  Every 'trash can' was sealed shut (including all in the subway stations), so rubbish was collecting everywhere.

We joined the line to await entry to our venue, which was also a line within a line for security check. After a thorough pat-down and weapons check, we were permitted to join the real line which was for the coat-check. Almost a miracle followed, in that the next line had drinks at the end of it, which was a blessing as waiting in the food line was thirsty work. 

Okay..... you get the picture.

On a more positive note, the club (and it was a true nightclub environment) was pumping and full of interesting characters from older hispanic tourists to wannabe gangster rappers and their Kim Kardashian-impersonator girlfriends/escorts. Much twerking and fake bling. Not our scene, but entertaining nonetheless. 

As everybody says, the party in Times Square itself wraps up very quickly after midnight. It was around 1.30am when we wandered down there and the place was basically empty except for a few thousand cops, street sweepers and a jot of junk and confetti. Over a million people had cleared one city-block sized area in less than 90 minutes.

We finished the night with a rueben sandwich and a black and white cookie.

The day before New Year's Eve we did the obligatory 9/11 memorial. In summary, it is a must-see and a good memorial (as in the building itself and the artefacts), but you can't escape the national slant & rhetoric on the historic facts and complexities of the issues. Worth the visit but a few eye-rolls in there, along with some genuinely interesting stuff. Naturally, there was a super long line to enter, but thankfully some snow provided entertainment to all.  We got really lucky and skipped one queue, because some generous people gave us their tickets as they ran out of time to enter themselves.

This is the new One World Trade Centre in place of the two that went down:

 The moving memorial:

Whilst in the area, we also checked out Wall Street:

There wasn't a lot to see, but it was good to stroll around the mecca of Corporate Greed (Jacob was almost moved here). No photo with the Bull's Balls - too long a line :).....

On the left of the Christmas tree behind Gosia is the NY Stock Exchange.

The evening activities were held at the New York Beer Company bar in midtown watching UFC (again, Gosia couldn't contain her excitement).  Fun night, great fights and good beers.

Today, nursing only a mild hangover, we took the subway to the High Line Park.  It is recently created linear park (2009), on the old unused railway tracks.  We thought it was pretty cool.  Lots of interesting architecture and the warm sun made it a really nice day out.

The East Village was next on our itinerary.  This part of town felt totally different to the rest, even though it's just across Manhattan and a little north from the Trade Centre / Wall Street area.  Many cool little bars and places to eat and hang out, even a dog park (you would love it TomTom).

Staying in Harlem for dinner tonight and hopefully enjoy a few more jazz tunes before bed.