Avenue of the Americas in New York City

15 November 2022 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  9 minutes

Historic Ladies' Mile shopping district © Beyond My Ken/cc-by-sa-4.0

Historic Ladies’ Mile shopping district © Beyond My Ken/cc-by-sa-4.0

Sixth Avenue – also known as Avenue of the Americas, although this name is seldom used by New Yorkers – is a major thoroughfare in New York City‘s borough of Manhattan, on which traffic runs northbound, or “uptown”. It is commercial for much of its length. Sixth Avenue begins four blocks below Canal Street, at Franklin Street in TriBeCa, where the northbound Church Street divides into Sixth Avenue to the left and the local continuation of Church Street to the right, which then ends at Canal Street. From this beginning, Sixth Avenue traverses SoHo and Greenwich Village, roughly divides Chelsea from the Flatiron District and NoMad, passes through the Garment District and skirts the edge of the Theater District while passing through Midtown Manhattan. Sixth Avenue’s northern end is at Central Park South, adjacent to the Artists’ Gate entrance to Central Park via Center Drive. Historically, Sixth Avenue was also the name of the road that continued north of Central Park, but that segment was renamed Lenox Avenue in 1887 and co-named Malcolm X Boulevard in 1987.   read more…

Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City

9 November 2022 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Museums, Exhibitions Reading Time:  9 minutes

Entrance © flickr.com - Shaggy Paul/cc-by-2.0

Entrance © flickr.com – Shaggy Paul/cc-by-2.0

The Museum of Jewish Heritage, located in Battery Park City in Manhattan, New York City, is a living memorial to those murdered in the Holocaust. The museum has received more than 2 million visitors since opening in 1997. The mission statement of the museum is “to educate people of all ages and backgrounds about the broad tapestry of Jewish life in the 20th and 21st centuries — before, during, and after the Holocaust.” The museum’s building includes two wings: a six-sided building with a pyramid-shaped roof designed to evoke the memory of the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust, and the Robert M. Morgenthau Wing. The six-sided building, opened in 1997, contains the museum’s core exhibition galleries. The Morgenthau Wing, opened in 2003, contains the museum’s offices, theater, and classrooms, as well as the Irving Schneider and Family exhibition gallery. Both wings were designed by designed by Roche-Dinkeloo. The museum’s collection contains more than 30,000 objects relating to Jewish history and the Holocaust. These objects are used in a variety of exhibitions and installations.   read more…

Theater District in Manhattan

31 October 2022 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, New York City, Opera Houses, Theaters, Libraries Reading Time:  9 minutes

© Peter James Zielinski/cc-by-3.0

© Peter James Zielinski/cc-by-3.0

New York City‘s Theater District (sometimes spelled Theatre District, and officially zoned as the “Theater Subdistrict”) is an area and neighborhood in Midtown Manhattan where most Broadway theaters are located, as well as many other theaters, movie theaters, restaurants, hotels, and other places of entertainment. It is bounded by West 40th Street on the south, West 54th Street on the north, Sixth Avenue on the east and Eighth Avenue on the west, and includes Times Square. The Great White Way is the name given to the section of Broadway which runs through the Theater District. It also contains recording studios, record label offices, theatrical agencies, television studios, restaurants, movie theaters, Duffy Square, Shubert Alley, the Brill Building, and Madame Tussauds New York.   read more…

Hudson Valley in New York

19 October 2022 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, New York City Reading Time:  12 minutes

Empire State Plaza in Albany © UpstateNYer/cc-by-sa-3.0

Empire State Plaza in Albany © UpstateNYer/cc-by-sa-3.0

The Hudson Valley comprises the valley of the Hudson River and its adjacent communities in the U.S. state of New York. The region stretches from the Capital District including Albany and Troy south to Yonkers in Westchester County, bordering New York City. In the early 19th century, popularized by the stories of Washington Irving, the Hudson Valley gained a reputation as a somewhat gothic region characterized by remnants of the early days of the Dutch colonization of New York (“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow“). The area is also associated with the Hudson River School, a group of American Romantic painters who worked from about 1830 to 1870. Following the building of the Erie Canal, the area became an important industrial center. The canal opened the Hudson Valley and New York City to commerce with the Midwest and Great Lakes regions. However, in the mid 20th century, many of the industrial towns went into decline.   read more…

Yankee Stadium in New York City

6 October 2022 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, New York City, Sport Reading Time:  6 minutes

© flickr.com - Matt Boulton/cc-by-sa-2.0

© flickr.com – Matt Boulton/cc-by-sa-2.0

The current Yankee Stadium is a baseball stadium located in the Bronx, New York City. It is the home field for Major League Baseball‘s New York Yankees and Major League Soccer‘s New York City FC. The $2.3 billion stadium, built with $1.2 billion in public subsidies, replaced the original Yankee Stadium in 2009 and is the third-largest stadium in MLB by seating capacity. It is located one block north of the original, on the 24-acre (9.7 ha) former site of Macombs Dam Park; the 8-acre (3.2 ha) site of the original stadium is now a public park called Heritage Field.   read more…

Titanic Memorial in New York City

17 August 2022 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, New York City Reading Time:  6 minutes

© Luiz Eduardo Bettega/cc-by-sa-4.0

© Luiz Eduardo Bettega/cc-by-sa-4.0

The Titanic Memorial is a 60-foot-tall (18 m) lighthouse at Fulton and Pearl Streets in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It was built, due in part to the instigation of Margaret Brown, to remember the people who died on the RMS Titanic on April 15, 1912. Its design incorporates the use of a time ball.   read more…

Lipstick Building in New York City

5 August 2022 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, New York City Reading Time:  5 minutes

© flickr.com - Filip Maljković/cc-by-sa-2.0

© flickr.com – Filip Maljković/cc-by-sa-2.0

The Lipstick Building, also known as 885 Third Avenue and 53rd at Third, is a 453-foot (138 meter) tall skyscraper at Third Avenue between 53rd Street and 54th Street in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. It was completed in 1986 and has 34 floors. The building was designed by John Burgee and Philip Johnson for Hines Interests and was developer Gerald D. Hines‘s first project in New York City. The building’s nickname is derived from its shape and color, which resembles a tube of lipstick (lipstick index). The 17th floor was the office of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities.   read more…

Tudor City in New York

30 July 2022 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Living, Working, Building, New York City Reading Time:  17 minutes

U.N. Secretariat Building and Dag Hammarskjoeld Library behind Prospect and Tudor Towers © April Anderson/cc-by-sa-4.0

U.N. Secretariat Building and Dag Hammarskjoeld Library behind Prospect and Tudor Towers
© April Anderson/cc-by-sa-4.0

Tudor City is an apartment complex located on the southern edge of Turtle Bay on the East Side of Manhattan in New York City, near Turtle Bay’s border with Murray Hill. It lies on a low cliff, which is east of Second Avenue between 40th and 43rd Streets and overlooks First Avenue. Construction commenced in 1926, making it the first residential skyscraper complex in the world. Tudor City was one of the first, largest, and most important examples of a planned middle-class residential community in New York City. It is named for its Tudor Revival architecture.   read more…

Smorgasburg in New York City

27 April 2022 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Bon appétit, New York City, Shopping Reading Time:  4 minutes

Dumbo © flickr.com - dumbonyc/cc-by-sa-2.0

Dumbo © flickr.com – dumbonyc/cc-by-sa-2.0

Smorgasburg is an open-air food market that originated in Williamsburg, Brooklyn next to the East River. It takes place every Saturday in an empty lot. The name Smorgasburg is a portmanteau of “Smörgåsbord” and “Williamsburg”. Dozens of vendors sell their food and wares. It initially was started in 2011, by Jonathan Butler and Eric Demby as an offshoot of Brooklyn Flea.   read more…

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