Fifth day in New York City!

Started off the day going from our hotel at south of Central Park (the Warwick) to one at Midtown, the Hilton Garden Inn Midtown. Stayed in this area before in 2019 when Ben lived in NYC. Great area. Clean, close to many eateries, it’s new, close to midtown.

After switching hotels, grabbed food at this bagel place near by:

http://food.johnmatienzo.com/2021/11/26/zuckers-bagels/

Then, took the subway to Battery Park to check out the Statue of Liberty. The Subway system is actually pretty easy to navigate if using Apple Maps. Also, the iPhone let’s you “tap in” very easily (ie you don’t need a metro card). For the subway system, seems that circles mean regular trains, and a Diamond means express. You also want to make sure you check if the direction is “uptown” or “downtown” (at least for north and south trains). Usually taking a train along Park Avenue it is the (green) 4 or 5 train. One thing I haven’t figured out is the difference between numbers and letters for the train names (ie we took an A train when going south on a street near Broadway).

For the Statue of Liberty, we got the tickets ahead of time. I did make a mistake of getting a fairy ride from New Jersey instead if New York, but fortunately they were not busy and accepted the tickets (fyi tickets also had a “time”, and they do airport security style checks).

The first stop of the ferry ride is Liberty Island. There is a great view of Manhattan from the island. Apparently the statue is 2 pennies thick.

The second stop is Ellis island. Having my citizenship and going through the museum there was pretty cool. They have the 100 questions listed on a wall of the citizenship test. They also restored the place where they process new immigrants in the 1900s (although they didn’t really emphasize the 240000 (out of 12 million) people rejected and sent back to their home countries (they only mentioned people who committed crimes and sneaked in illegally were sent back). Also below is a map where people from different countries live in the US (not sure if it is just permanent residents and citizens).

After Statue of Liberty, checked out Midtown West for dinner and drinks. Wanted to go to Jin Ramen, but they were completely full (so next time!). We ended up going to a place called Jing Fong, which was an excellent dim sum place:

http://food.johnmatienzo.com/2021/11/25/jing-fong/

Midtown West nightlife is basically in Amsterdam avenue (above 75st, and below 100st). We checked out 2 bars there (which also had dance floors, and also met up with a friend and checked out a wine bar:l. Overall Amsterdam street reminded me of Polk street in San Francisco

-Jake’s Dilemma

-(one I don’t remember)

-Sur Vingt Wine Bar

Ended the night at a bar called Industry (at Hell’s Kitchen, where a bunch of nightclubs and bars are at also), and had an awesome night :).