DUMBO lovin', bulls balls and sad french people

This is a pretty tough call, but day three was probably the best day I had in New York... though you may wonder why after reading the title of this post haha. Let me break it down for you. WARNING: May be a lot of photos (so hard to chose out of my millions).

So - DUMBO. No, not the cartoon elephant and no, I'm not trying to insult you, my wonderful readers. DUMBO stands for Down Under (the) Manhattan Bridge Overpass, and is a suburb in Brooklyn. When I decided to come to NY I did think about visiting Brooklyn but didn't want to do it on my own since I figured I'd probably get lost and before I visited I thought Brooklyn was quite far away from Manhattan. It's not really... but as luck would have it, my hotel was doing a walking tour of Brooklyn so I was on it like a car bonnet. The first amazing part of the day was when the guide announced we'd be taking the subway. I was a bit clueless as how to use it so was so glad I'd have someone to show me/was so excited that I'd get to ride the subway like a real New Yorker. I'd read that you must avoid all eye contact and look unimpressed at all times so I was ready with "bitchy resting face".

Subway time!

The subway was so much fun, I'm such a loser. I was so stoked and "bitchy resting face" went right out the window as soon as I got on. I never thought I'd get that much joy from a train ride, I had to stand too so felt extra cool hahaha. Anyway, moving on - we arrived in Brooklyn and had a walk around DUMBO and - OMG I LOVE BROOKLYN. I just love it. I want to live there. It's so cool, like so different to Manhattan. Shops don't open til like 10am cuz people are just so chilled out there. Yeah it's known as a "hipster" place and I can tell you I am so damn sick of hipsters after living in Wellington but DUMBO is less hipster than Williamsburg (which I didn't get to but I was told it's hipster central). DUMBO has a really interesting history, it's full of old factories that have been turned into apartments and lofts etc. In the 60's or whatever (man I'd be a good tour guide huh?!) there were artists living in the lofts and things and then all of sudden rich people got wind of how there were lofts with amazing views of Manhattan and wanted to buy the buildings. The artists were scared of losing their lofts and so when people came to look they decided they would call the area Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass (DUMBO) because they thought no-one would want to buy property in area called DUMBO. They were wrong...it happened haha. So now it's one of the most expensive areas in Brooklyn. Anne Hathaway lives in one of the buildings just near the bridge (there's a pic below) and the penthouse of that building is worth around $18 million. That's cheap in Manhattan terms but you can see how Brooklyn has become property gold, and I'm sold. I freaking love it! In fact, next time I visit NY (hopefully it's sooner rather than later) I'm definitely staying in Brooklyn.

Of one the cute little plazas in DUMBO

The money shot. ESB through the Manhattan Bridge.

Looking like a dumbo in DUMBO

One of the many old factory spaces in Brooklyn

This piece of "street art" has made a guy a millionaire. He sued Victoria's Secret for using LOVE because it's his street mark. Pretty amazing!

Anne Hathaway lives here, this is the penthouse that's worth $18 mil.

I do!

Brooklyn is full of street art

The house where Truman Capote wrote Breakfast at Tiffany's

 

 

Getting close!!

We explored Brooklyn heights (so pretty and I want to live there!) and the area around the bridge and then our guide left us. I met an Australian couple and two Canadian girls on the tour so we hung around in Brooklyn for a bit and got pizza from a place called Juilana's which was a tip off from our guide. In the Brooklyn pizza wars, Juliana's and Grimaldi's are the main parties. Grimaldi's is in all the tour guides but has recently moved to a larger shop to accommodate this popularity...when it moved shops it left behind its coal pizza oven and it's new home has the new regulations on ovens so it's lost the authenticity. Juliana's has moved into the old Grimaldi's shop so they now have the secret weapon (the coal oven) - cue pizza wars. The battle is fought on the sidewalk and it's pretty entertaining.

This was just on the boundary where Juliana's ends and the pavement begins.

Juliana's response

We took our pizza over to the water and sat and looked out over the bridge and Manhattan and it was just perfection.

Amazing.

So happy!

After filling up on pizza and amazing fresh pineapple, watermelon and lemonade drinks we set off over the Brooklyn Bridge, woohoo!

I've decided I'm retiring this singlet because it makes me look fat!! ON THE BRIDGE!

It was so hard to get a picture with no one else in it!

This is not rope, this is a steel cable. AMAZING!

Incredible feat of engineering!

Once we were over the bridge, even though it was stinking hot and I'd already been walking for three hours, I decided to explore the Financial District and lower Manhattan, home of Wall Street and the World Trade Center. I didn't really know what to expect from this area, as yes it's been 13 years since 9/11 but you know, it was a big deal. But I actually adored this area, it was the only part of NY where I experienced the whole "canyons of steel" feeling. In Midtown there are lots of high rises and a few skyscrapers but the streets are quite wide and you don't feel eclipsed by them, but downtown is a whole other story. The streets are shaded and buildings tower over you, it's incredible. I've heard people say this makes them feel a bit claustrophobic and I thought, coming from the wide open spaces of NZ, I would feel the same but it was the opposite. I would love to spend more time there. I didn't go to the 9/11 memorial partly because I couldn't really find it, and also it all seemed a bit depressing and I wanted to remember NY in a positive light and not dwell on the sad parts. Is that insensitive? Next time I'll stay for longer and then I definitely will try to visit. The biggest of the new world trade centre buildings is pretty incredible, it mirrors the sky and blends in so it's almost invisible at times. Apparently they are building 7 world trade centres to replace the 7 buildings that were destroyed in 9/11. In the next few years the top of the most recent one will have an observation deck which I bet will be such an incredible place to visit, as it's currently the tallest building in the Western hemisphere!

The newest world trade center

Trinity Church was an amazing place to see too, it was the only buidling in the vicinity that survived 9/11 relatively unscathed. A lot of people took shelter here and the only thing that was damaged was a tree in the churchyard. It's always the old buildings that stand the test of time, they don't make em like they used to! Sadly, I couldn't explore the inside as there was some kind of graduation ceremony going on but it was nice to just wander around the graveyard. It's a surreal experience being in this churchyard that feels like it should be sitting in an old English village somewhere, yet it's surrounded by gigantic buildings. From here I walked down to Wall Street which is where the bulls balls can be explained haha. There's a charging bull sculpture on Wall Street which is supposed to represent the power of the American people, which is weird cuz I associate bulls with Spain, not the USA haha. But anyway it's a pretty popular spot for a photo, there were people everywhere! The front of the bull was really hard to get to...but there was one area which was a little less populated and I'd heard touching this part brought good luck, so I went ahead and instead of "grabbing the bull by the horns" as they say, I grabbed the bull by the balls!

Looking far too happy here!

Trinity Church

Wall Street, didn't see any wolves

Chilling with George and the moron who climbed up there and ruined my photo hahaha

Trinity church peeking out from the tiny gaps

I got the subway back (yay!) from Wall Street to the hotel, just so I could freshen up (I averaged about 3 showers a day in NY, it was so hot!) and then I headed out to Broadway to go see sad french people singing a.k.a Les Miserables!!! AHHHHHHH amazing, I got 50% off at the TKTS booth and the guy got me a sweeeet ticket, 13th row from the front! I was sat amongst the people who'd paid $140 for their tickets and I got it for half that, so stoked! It was such an incredible show, I've seen live DVDs of Les Miz but never the live show and omg, I had goosebumps the whole way through and almost cried about a dozen times (admitting this isn't gonna do anything for my street cred hahah). Two women in front of me found out the main part of Jean Valjean was being played by the understudy that night and they proceeded to have a conversation about whether or not they should just walk out and how pissed off they were. They stayed, but when everyone else was giving the cast a standing ovation, they just walked out. I can't stand people like that, there are people in the world who have so much less than them and their whole night is ruined because they have to watch someone they didn't expect on stage - get over yourselves!! Ok, rant over hahaha.

So close to the stage!

LES MIZ!

After the show I took a walk to Times Square. I was expecting it to be super touristy, and it was, but I did think it was really cool. It was actually a "wow" moment. I don't think it would be that impressive in the day but the lights are amazing. One moment you're bathed in bright light, then the next moment it's "dark" and the billboards are HUGE. Also the main reason I loved it was cuz there was an NYPD station with neon lights on it and that's pretty much just perfection to me hahah.

I LOVE IT!

On the way back I kind of got lost (Mum: Stop reading here hahah). It was like 11:30pm and I started walking and then realised that the street numbers were going down instead of up...also I was on the West side, but didn't know how far West. So I kind of had a mini freak out, but there were TONS of people around and I just asked someone and I was back on the right track. But the thing is, I was walking around alone at midnight in New York City and I felt totally safe, there were people everywhere and one thing about NY is that there are police everywhere too. I guess NY used to be quite a dangerous place but then again I could just be lucky/I wasn't in a dodgy area. Mum you can start reading again hahaha. Once I saw Radio City Music Hall I got a massive feeling of relief because I knew I was almost home, I really love the lights on that place, so pretty!

And then I got home and realised I was insanely sunburnt...with fantastic tanlines...awesome.

Wow that was a lot... Obviously my favourite day!! haha