Happy Thanksgiving to everyone living in the U.S. and Happy Thursday to those of you living somewhere else in the world.
As has become my tradition I’m visiting family in New York for the holidays and as usual we spent yesterday walking through Manhattan with me stopping to take pictures along the way.
We had another overcast day and a cold one at that, but we walked the fifty of so blocks from Penn Station to The Metropolitan Museum of Art and then through Central Park before grabbing a bit to eat and then heading to the subway and back to Penn Station.
Travel Day
My flight in was last week and while it was a beautiful day in Colorado it was anything but in New York. My flight was delayed due to bad weather in New York that turned out to be worse than many expected.
Somehow I survived a very long day and night and eventually arrived at my Mom’s house, had a bite to eat, and soon went to sleep. Fortunately, the rough start to my vacation hasn’t put a damper on the entire week.
Window Displays
One of the things we look forward to each year is seeing all the holiday window displays. This year wasn’t quite as good as others. I think it was partly due to Thanksgiving falling early this year and I suspect not all the displays are complete yet. The windows at Macy’s along 34th street are still the same as the ones from last year, though the Broadway windows had been updated.
It was cold out and we walked inside the store and I thought it would be a good opportunity to take some pictures inside.
The displays had a wintery animal theme this year. The last picture is one from my brother David and it turned out much better than the similar picture I tried to capture so I went with his image.
Unfortunately, the Lord & Taylor in Manhattan is closing, meaning one less set of window displays this year and in the future.
Fortunately, Saks 5th Avenue had most of their windows ready, which isn’t always a guarantee before Thanksgiving. The only theme I could discern was the color as each window was built around a single predominant color. My image of the “blue” window didn’t turn out well, but here are red, green, and pink.
The Yankee Store
My Yankee baseball cap is trashed after being worn and washed too many times and I needed a new one so we stopped into the store on 5th avenue.
I had a large selection from which to choose and I’ll congratulate you can guess, which hat I bought, especially since I’m having a hard time picking it out myself in the image.
A few years ago I discovered I could get a good reflection shot right out front of the store and I’ve taken quite a few similar shots over the years. I’ve probably posted one or two before. That’s David in the foreground and my Mom and Aunt are in the group walking just ahead.
Rockefeller Center
Right across the street from Saks is The Christmas tree and skating rink at Rockefeller Center. The tree isn’t decorated yet. They do that next week, though it looks like the star is on top, which you can see in the second image behind the statue. The first image shows how the area is decorated in general.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Our main even this year was a Delacroix exhibit at The Met. We walked through the impressionists and post impressionists on our way to the exhibit and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to capture one of Van Gogh’s self portraits that’s always on display.
I didn’t take pictures of the exhibit itself as I walked through. I’m not as familiar with Delacroix’s work as I am other painters and I was too engrossed in learning about him and enjoying his work. If you’re in the are, it’s a great exhibit and there was a focus on showing Delacroix’s creative process and how he seemed to change as an artist every decade.
Here’s the info from the start along with a photograph of Delacroix.
I did take a few images of the museum itself and also some of the fountain in front of the museum.
Crossing Central Park
It’s getting harder to find new subjects in Central Park as we tend to walk the same path each year. I framed a few buildings between the trees and thought these two turned out well enough to post.
Once we make it across the park we have something to eat at Patsy’s Pizzeria on 74th street. This was the view from our table.
We used to watch the floats get blown up for the parade, but the last few years it’s become a madhouse with security funneling everyone in and out of what is now an event to rival the parade itself. We saw it all more than enough times over the years and all agree we can skip it now that it’s become an event and we just take the subway back to Penn Station after eating.
Happy Thanksgiving
I’ll leave you this year with a few random pictures I made while walking. The first was a bit of dumb luck. I wanted to capture the bus, but had no idea when I took the picture how the acrobat painted on the side would line up so well with the traffic going by.
And of course, no photo tour of New York is complete without at least one picture of the Empire State Building. This one is courtesy of David. My image turned out a little darker. Maybe I need a new phone with a better camera.
Once again, have a Happy Thanksgiving or the best Thursday you can have. If you’re in the states and celebrating with family today, go easy on seconds and thirds and everyone living somewhere other than the U.S. feel free to make fun of us gluttonous Americans celebrating a day with family by overeating and watching football.
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