For about a year, we talked about visiting New York City with our good friends Bob and Diane. Lynn and Diane were longing for the big city — culture, shows, fine dining, museums, shopping and miles of daily walks.
Bob made it happen – he gave Diane tickets to see Hamilton on Broadway for their anniversary so we were all in for taking a bite out of the Big Apple.
Broadway Shows
Hamilton on Broadway
The impetus for our visit was to see Hamilton on Broadway. Bob researched the musical, listened to the soundtrack and educated us about the show before we even left for our trip.
The musical is about the life of Alexander Hamilton — one of the founding fathers of the United States. Hamilton was the founder of the nation’s financial system and the first secretary of the Treasury. But his life was full of interesting happenings and was ended tragically in a duel.
What makes the show iconic is that it’s not an ordinary musical. No operatic singing — all songs are rapped bringing a hipness to stage that is unique, interesting and incredibly cool.
If you haven’t seen Hamilton — see it! I promise you won’t be disappointed.
Bruce Springsteen on Broadway
About a year ago, I read the auto-biography of Bruce Springsteen (Born to Run) and became an even bigger fan of his music as I listened to older albums that I hadn’t known about before.
I really got wrapped up in his music and it became one of the top artists on my personal playlist.When we decided to go to NY, I knew we had to see the Bruce Springsteen musical. It’s been on Broadway for almost 2 years and will be ending at the end of 2018.
Imagine having Bruce Springsteen over for dinner, sitting in your living room and telling you his life story. How he started out, the struggles he faced, the rejections, the depression, the meteoric rise to stardom, and the relationships he made along the way. And as he starts telling you his story, he belts out songs you know and love that represent that time in his life.
That’s what the show was like. Set in a small intimate venue, there were no pyrotechnics, no props, and no backup singers. Just Bruce, his story, and his incredible gift of music shared with you.
Wicked on Broadway
We also saw Wicked on Broadway. This is a musical about the Wizard of Oz but told from the story of the Wicked Witch of the West. We saw this before seeing Hamilton and Bruce Springsteen and thought it was one of the best musicals we had seen. Then we saw Hamilton — even better! Then we saw Bruce — the best!
Fine Dining
New York City offers pretty much any cuisine you desire and on almost every block.
We even found the famous restaurant that was on the Jerry Seinfeld show — you remember the Soup Nazi, right? Here is the restaurant from that episode. I had soup there — it’s actually very good!
Museums
There are so many great museums in New York. We started by visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art (called the MET).
It’s hard to take in The Met in a day — it is the largest museum in the USA and gets over 7 million visitors a year. It boasts art from America, Europe, Egypt, Greece and Islam.
Diane being creative
We also visited the Museum of Modern Art, it has a great collection as well. It houses the iconic Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh — you know – the guy that cut off his ear and mailed it to his lover to show her how much he loved her.
Starry Night prompted Don McLean to write a song about it (Starry Starry Night), listen to it here. Van Gogh also had a similar painting that I like even better:
We also visited the American Museum of Natural History. Similar to The Met — you could spend all day here. It had the biggest dinosaur bones I’ve ever seen. I wish we had more time to experience it all.
Finally, we visited the 9/11 Museum at One World Trade Center. The new One World Trade Center is beautifully designed and inspiring.
Local graffiti artists painted this building
Before entering the museum, you see a memorial called Reflecting Absence that honors the victims of the September 11 attacks and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
The memorial, designed by Peter Walker and Israeli-American architect Michael Arad, consists of a field of trees interrupted by the footprints of the twin towers. It contains the names of everyone that tragically died that day.
You can spend hours in the museum and learn all about the backstories of heartbreak and experience stories of people that suffered that day. You also learn about the heroes of the day. Below is a firetruck that was devastated from falling debris.
If you get a chance to visit the museum, please do. It is sad yet empowering — highlighting the resilience of Americans.
Shopping
Shopping in New York is like no other place, they have just about anything you need. Lynn and Diane had a field day visiting all the shops and I enjoyed the 24 hour Apple store.
Miles of Walking
We stayed in Manhattan and took advantage of Central Park. You can walk or cycle it. Citibank offers low cost bicycles you can use all day long for $12.
Here are a few pictures from our walking adventures around town.
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