We were up early, well early for a holiday: 8.30. We are meeting Bob at Grand Central. He is hosting an Untapped New York tour of the terminal. He invited us to join his small tour group.
We catch the shuttle subway from Times Square to Grand Central and meet Bob near track 29 in the cavernous main concourse area. It’s a gorgeously restored space abuzz with people. The hard surfaces all around act as an echo chamber for the footfalls of the thousands of travellers. Foot steps echo around us and are the baseline track for the overture of the din of conversation amongst travellers, with the chorus being the very clear public announcements regarding train movements, safety and other such information.
We meet Bob and join the tour. Bob is a native New Yorker and has been a licensed tour guide for almost 20 years. We met Bob 11 years ago on a food tour he hosted. Since that time we’ve become good friends and always catch up with him and his wife Cathy when we visit.
His knowledge of Grand Central is second to none as he walks us around describing its inception and the role the Vanderbilts played in the development of the rail network. He shows us the hidden indoor tennis courts, the passageways that join buildings and workspace on either ride of the terminal and a host of other seldom see nooks and crannies.
After the tour we have lunch with Bob and chat about guiding and touring. He leaves us for a private tour with a family and we head home for a break. We are planning to go to Weehawken. Specifically the Weehawken duelling grounds: where Alexander Hamilton met his untimely death.
We rest for about an hour before heading out. As we emerge from the hotel, Julio, one of the regular doormen says it’s raining. We stand at the awning with him for a few minutes considering our options. The forecast is for some heavy rain moving in. Weehawken is all outdoors.
We pivot and decide to go to the Met. The Metropolitan Museum of Art is located on 80th and 5th Avenue. The gilded age residents of 5th Avenue didn’t want the annoying noise of a subway as they populated the area, so we catch a subway to 79th street on the west side. We then use one of the Central Park transverse streets to cross the park to get over to 5th Avenue. The rain isn’t too bad, but it’s cold and windy. The transverse is mostly below street level so we avoid the wind.
We get to the museum and the forecourt is heaving with people. It seems everyone has the same idea. When it rains everyone goes to a museum. Plus it’s a holiday week with Thanksgiving only two days away.
We are members, so avoid the crowd and enter through the members entrances and find ourselves inside in a couple of minutes. We enter the main hall and find a corner to sit down for a few minutes, taking off our coats.
We find the cafe and sit for a while with a drink before looking at the Ancient Greek and Egyptian exhibits. They are captivating. Ornate carvings paint a picture of a world 2000 to 3000 years ago. Intricate figurines show the Egyptians fascination with cats while intricate carvings on sarcophaguses tell a story of the forever entombed.
Mardi sits for a rest, while I wander. There is a lot here and as members we can visit whenever we want. Once I’ve had enough wandering we decide to head home. It’s dark, wet and wild outside. We catch a bus down 5th Avenue from 79th to 44th; traffic is heavy and the 35 block trip takes around 40 minutes.
We decide to eat in, it’s horrible outside, so we order Uber eats when we get home.
