New York City > Columbus

I had left the Coney Island trip in Dave’s hands - He had looked about a month ago and had seen that it was open on weekends and starting on April 12th it would open daily.

Saturday, after I had gone to work, he spoke to our new friend, Omar, and got all the info on the best subways/trains to get there.

Last night before going to bed, I had him look again to see what time they opened. That is when there was MAJOR trauma!

When he had done his initial research, he didn’t notice that it said, “Open daily the week of April 12th” – NYC Spring Break. What he “saw” was “Open daily starting April 12th”

So we debated still going just to see it and have a Nathans Hot Dog, even though we couldn’t ride the Cyclone. Nope, he didn’t want to go.

Hmm… what are we going to do then?
Our NYC Passes expired, so any attraction we went to would cost full price.

He mentioned wanting to go on an actual train (to this point we had only been on subways) and he wouldn’t mind going to see Yankee Stadium.

So I got online and after numerous tries with the terrible Yankees website, I was able to get us tickets to the Yankee Stadium Tour.

Okay, flash forward to this morning…

Here are some pics of our view:

We had our free breakfast downstairs, then came back up to pack.

Left our bags with Omar and set out on our final day in the city.

Took the 4 up to the Bronx.

We had over an hour before the tour started, so we walked around a bit. Mainly to look at old Yankee Stadium.

After talking to a guy also taking in the sights, we had just missed a section of it coming down. It was imploded about 10 minutes prior to us arriving.





Dave really enjoyed looking at the ruins of the stadium. His years of hating the Yankees were set aside to take in the nostalgia.

Me… well anyone who knows me, knows how I feel about major league baseball. But I will admit it was pretty cool to have the old stadium to the left and the new one to the right. I might hate the MLB, but I do appreciate what I was fortunate enough to see in person.

So out with the old and in with the new!

We still had some time to kill so we walked around the outside of the stadium. Figured out where the TV trucks parked and geeky stuff like that.

Then we came across this sign on the parking garage that is attached to the stadium

Wow! That is confidence in your team!

The parking rates for playoffs and World Series are on their permanent signage!

We had a good laugh about that one. After years of living with losing teams, it’s just unimaginable to us to have signs like that.




Our tour was really cool! Really cool.

One of the first stops was the Yankee museum. Which had tons of memorabilia. From seats and tickets over the years, to signed balls and just a few trophies.

Then we went to Monument Park that is in the outfield.

The view from there was awesome!

We made various other stops around the park. And then we went into the Yankee dugout.

Another great view!

Dave hanging out like a player

And his dislike for the team

Ok, now that’s better

Next we got to see the indoor bullpen and the Clubhouse.

However, no photos were allowed. They even made us put all cell phones and cameras in our pockets. The second someone got out a phone, they were told to put it away.

The Clubhouse was pretty cool!

After the tour we sat outside the stadium on the plaza and just soaked it all in.

Next, we decided to ride the 4 to end of the line. Dave wanted to see some ghetto.

While waiting for the train, I got this shot of Dave on the platform with the old stadium in the background.

And new stadium

Well what we saw was scary enough for us, but we knew it was not really the ghetto!

And I proceeded to fall asleep on the ride.

On the way back, I am pretty sure I was not the only one that nodded off.

We switched trains like absolute pros and headed back to Grand Central Station.

Our day was coming to a close. We would soon have to head back to the Hilton and then on to the airport.

But we spent our last moments taking in the sights of Grand Central Station.

It took a while for me to decide where to get lunch from. Shocking, but true.

I did find one little piece of gold… a perfect way to end our trip.

A black and white cookie!







We ventured back to the hotel to retrieve our bags and wait for the car service.

Before we knew it we were back at LaGuardia, thru security and in the Delta SkyClub.

Flight home was just fine.

Exhausting couple of days, but we sure packed a lot in!

New York City

Our day started with breakfast downstairs at the hotel. We had free vouchers thanks to my Hilton Diamond VIP status. Yes, there are better places in NYC to have b’fast, however, this one was FREE!

Today was a big day – Dave was going to ride on the subway for the first time!

And he got the full NYC Subway show!



A man played the violin on our first trip.  Later in the day there was a panhandler begging.





We were headed to the Upper West Side to Tom’s Diner. Which is the “coffee shop” that is in almost every episode of Seinfeld. Well the exterior of Tom’s Diner is featured. And considering Seinfeld is something we have discussed and watched since the day we met – this was big for us!

And guess what we found?

A bunch of other people taking photos of the diner!

We are experts at taking our signature pose self portrait, but I think the excitement had us a little off today. We took about 20 pics before we got it right!

We sat at the counter and had some coffee.

There were some pieces of memorabilia…

I went to the bathroom and was beside myself! There was not a “square to spare”!
How perfect was that?!

More pics…

While on the Upper West Side, we looked for the following but never found:

H&H Bagels (where Kramer worked), the Kosher Bakery (chocolate babka and the black & white cookie) and Champaign Video (Rochelle, Rochelle and where Elaine’s 15 year old beau worked)

Next we headed down W. 72nd St to Central Park. Just before we crossed Central Park West, there was this amazing building on our left had side. Very ornate.

We entered Central Park and sat down in Strawberry Fields to people watch.

And did we ever see some sights!

One of our favorites was a homeless person completely flip out because a man and his little boy sat on “his bench”. Wow – did the expletives fly!

It was while we were sitting there, that it hit Dave – DUH! That fancy building we had just passed was The Dakota! Where John Lennon lived and died.

We strolled thru the park – which was full of activity since it was a nice spring Sunday morning.

Next we picked up the Subway and headed to Grand Central Station.

From there we took “The 6” down to the Brooklyn Bridge.

Then we headed over to the Financial District to check out Wall Street.

Today, we took the Subway as much as possible. Our bodies were hurtin’ big time!

We went over to the site of the World Trade Center and stopped in the Memorial office where there lots of photos and pieces from the day. Also models of what the memorial will look like.

Now off to SoHo and Little Italy.

Just as we were entering Little Italy, we saw this foot rub place.

We stood on the sidewalk debating… I don’t remember the price, but it was like $12 or something for a 10 minute foot rub. I didn’t care if we did it or not, but I know how much Dave LOVES to get his feet rubbed. He didn’t want to do it alone, so I agreed to get it done too.

Meanwhile, the Asian ladies inside had come out and began to give us cheaper prices to entice us inside.



Once inside, it was a whirlwind! We were whisked into this back room and we were both a little panicked. What have we gotten ourselves in to?

They took us to the last beds in this dark room and told us to lay down.

A lady rubbed Dave’s feet. She even took his socks off and used oil.

An old man did mine with my socks on and it hurt like hell!




Those 15 minutes where likely the highlight of the entire trip for Dave. He loved it!

Feeling a bit refreshed, we walked thru Little Italy.

We decided to have an appetizer since it was late afternoon and we never had lunch.

Terrible service, excellent food!






On our Subway ride back to Times Square we were finally able to get a pic of a guy falling asleep.

And believe me, it is SO easy to fall asleep on the Subway!!!






Once back at the hotel, Dave filled our hot tub up for me to soak my piggies while sipping wine. Ahhh… this is vacation!

It felt so good that I actually broke my rule and got IN the hot tub. (I never ever sit in a hotel tub)

After resting we decided to go to dinner. I had a surprise in mind. I had seen a Shula’s a few blocks away. It is my second favorite behind Morton’s. So we headed over.

Closed for a private party!
Seriously!???
I was so pissed!

We wandered around grumbling and ended up at some chain-like micro brewery. We were both so exhausted that it didn’t really matter.

Afterwards we went back to the hotel to do final research on our quest for tomorrow - Dave wants to go to Coney Island and ride the Cyclone!

New York City

Jordan Brand Classic - ESPN

This morning we went down for breakfast and then I got ready for work.

After I left for work, Dave headed over to the Paley Center for Media.

It’s a cool TV museum of sorts – basically I love it because they have a ton of old TV shows – pretty much any show you can think of – you sit down in your own cubicle and watch old TV shows.







From there he went over to ESPN Zone to watch the Cavs game.

Meanwhile, my day was going great! I was working with Alex, so that always means it’s a good day!

That evening, Dave headed over to Madison Square Garden to pick up the game ticket and media credential I had waiting for him.

Dave had an awesome time at the game and exploring MSG with his credential.
He was like a kid a candy store!

After the game, we ventured over to the Empire State Building.
The photos didn’t turn out very well.

We walked back to the hotel to drop off my work bag and then headed out for “a slice”. However, we never found a good place. We had some cardboard with cheez on it and then went back to the hotel.

We watched a bit of Saturday Night Live so we could see the sets we had seen on the NBC Tour. But fell asleep almost immediately.