Off Topic: That Was the Week It Was - November 8, 2015

I'm SO late with this week's off television topic reflection of the past week in both words and photos I've taken along the way! But, I did way too much walking around (and standing around) yesterday. I overslept and I'm a bit on the lame side today. Okay, I know some people consider me usually lame ... but I mean physically! Sheesh!

I took so many photos yesterday when I went to see 'Misery on Broadway' with Bruce Willis and Laurie Metcalf that I'll have to post some Plainfield area photos and some of the NYC ones next week, too.

Here's the week in rough --

• Four day work week as I requested Saturday as a vacation day to go see the show. Yay!
• I also have a four day work week next week as I've requested Saturday as a personal day for the Plainfield Public Library Photo Competition. I have my doubts about winning first place again as the theme wasn't a great one for me.
• I left early yesterday to go into Manhattan. I had to pick up my tickets at the box office before the 2pm matinee show. I got to town around 10am, got my ticket, ate a late breakfast and roamed around Times Square until about 1:30.
• I will post a full review of the show and theatre later tonight.
• It's very weird, but three of the people I talked to during the day were from Los Angeles. One was a 20-something woman who put a cling on a pole I was leaning against in Times Square. I looked to see what it read and she said, "I'm taking it down. I just need to get a photo of it with Times Square in the background." I didn't care if she left it there. It turned out that her fiance had designed the cling, was killed in an automobile accident and they had dreamed of coming to Times Square together. Aww. She and I talked for about fifteen minutes. Sad story, very nice young woman.
• The other two were a lesbian couple outside the Port Authority Bus Terminal. Fun people! We mocked some of the people passing by and counter-intimidated a surly bum who approached us for money. We talked East Coast vs. West Coast and really had a pleasant conversation as we stayed out of the lane of pedestrians by standing up against the building.
• The show ended late (started late, too) and I ended up taking the 6pm bus home. Oh. The 6pm bus was late, too.
• While I had a seat alone heading into the city, I shared a seat with a young man from the Ukraine here to go to college. He was interesting. He's been in the USA for only two months and didn't know any English before he came here. While he has to hesitate at times, his English is much better than many!

Onto the gazillion photos for this week. Clicking on an image will bring it up in a larger window.

West 44th Street

Although it's technically NOT Broadway, this block is the home of many Broadway shows. The expensive Sardi's restaurant is across the street from the Broadhurst Theatre where I saw 'Misery on Broadway' but that was way out of my budget. I ate a late breakfast at the Evergreen Restaurant over on West 47th Street and a not really lunch at Ben and Jerry's which is past the bowling alley in this photo. I ate dinner at home.

SO cool ghost sign!

They're doing construction on West 47th Street and this is now exposed -- a ghost sign for the Hotel Longacre, Rooms $1.00 a day, Rooms with bath $1.50. Lunch is 40 cents, dinner is 65 cents and, I assume, the "Club Breakfast" comes with the room. I wonder how many years back it dates.

Who wants lunch?

A sign I saw in the window of Pete's Fish Market on East Second Street in Plainfield this week.

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Off Topic: That Was the Week It Was - December 30, 2012

It's the last Sunday of 2012! Why, that must mean it's time for my last off television topic photo post of the year. Woohoo! Of course, I haven't really been posting about television lately as everything is in repeats for the holidays. I did watch the Kennedy Center honors show this week and enjoyed it immensely. The ballet dancer seemed a bit out of her element, but I found the rest of the folks being honored people who have indeed played roles in my own life to a certain extent -- Dustin Hoffman, David Letterman, Buddy Guy and Led Zeppelin. I'm just not a big ballet fan albeit I find it beautiful when I do watch.

Last week I had a dearth of photos. This week, probably too many. You just might want to grab a big mug of coffee and some snacks before getting too involved in this. Not only did I find some things of interest in a bit better weather week locally to photograph, but I went into Manhattan on a whim on Christmas Day. 

Since I actually (for a change) had two days off -- Christmas and the day after -- with no real plans other than a quiet holiday at home with Vincent the Cat ... I decided to hop a bus into town. That means I walk about one minute to the bus stop and soon I'm dumped in Midtown. A storm was due Wednesday, but Christmas day was nice. Overcast, but I prefer that for taking photos anyway.

So, after I talked to my brother in California on the phone for a while, I was on my way. I thought it might be a bit quieter with all the big stores closed. Um. No. All the people just mobbed the Christmas Tree at Rockefeller Center instead of shopping! Oy. I will say that it wasn't as bad with the crowding as was the Chinese New Year parade in the city last year. I was concerned I might have a rib broken in the crowd crush for that.

I walked from the Port Authority Bus Terminal, through Times Square, over to Fifth Avenue, up to Rockefeller Center, back over by Saint Patrick's Cathedral (which had huge crowds, but scaffolding all about as they rehab the exterior), back down Madison Avenue to escape the crowds and breathe, back through Times Square, then back home. Yeah, that was one sentence. Want to make something of it? Uh-oh. I was in my travel in crowds in Manhattan persona. Oops!

The knees held up just fine. I only sat for a few minutes on a chair in Bryant Park. (Oh yeah, I went there, too.) For some reason, five different people stopped me to ask directions to five different places. Hey, just because I'm walking alone in the city doesn't necessarily mean I know where everything is! Thankfully, they all asked for places I do happen to know like Grand Central Station, Rockefeller Center and such. So I guess I was a good one to ask. I couldn't answer the folks who asked me a bus question, though. I have never been on a New York City bus. Subways, taxis and on foot, yes. Bus, no. 

Three separate groups of people -- an older white couple, a group of five black hip-hop garbed teenagers, and a family who seemed to speak either Russian or Polish -- handed me their iPhones and asked me to take photos of them. Don't they know that Mayor Bloomberg claims the rise in the robbery rate is due to iPhone and iPad thefts? Do I NOT look dangerous and thuggish? Sheesh. Yeah, I took their photos for them and handed them back their expensive playtoys. I figured I could probably only outrun the elderly couple.

Other than the trip into the city, it was a quiet week. Some real icky weather at times, but quiet for me. How was your week?

Onto the MANY photos -- clicking on an image will open it in a new Photobucket window, clicking again will make it larger. To return here, just close out the Photobucket window.

Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree

The holiday light show at Saks Fifth Avenue ...

Empire State Building

The lights are even better now! They replaced the old lighting system with new LED lights and can actually do "light shows." Before, every time they wanted to change colors, they had to physically remove a huge colored lens from each light. Now, it's computerized. Since the colors atop the building change per event, celebration, whatever ... this is going to be fantastic now!

Bryant Park tree and skaters

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