January 2022

NYC – New York City, the big city, the place where they say if you can make it there you can make it anywhere. It’s not a city for the timid. It’s a concrete jungle, it’s cold, it’s callous, it’s beautiful.

New York has a great history, it’s a cornucopia of cultures, a true melting pot of people that have arrived there from all around the world.

That’s what makes New York cool, so many different people of all walks of life.

And the foods, it’s the motherload of the best of the best of authentic cuisines from all over the world. Then there’s the pizza too.

Took a lot of photos, my favorites are below… read on.

Worked in the city for a few days helping a customer do a system move from one location to a new one about 2 miles away.

Here’s a short video of what it looks like moving a heavy data rack from the 16th floor of a building then down out to the street to a moving truck, helluva an effort. Hats off to the move crew that did such a great job!

The weather was good for the first couple of days but then it dropped into the low teens and hovered between 10 and 20 degrees the rest of the time there.

That’s pretty darn cold no matter how many layers you’re wearing.

Finished my work early Saturday afternoon, went and took a walk from my hotel out to 5th Street to stroll around a while and see all the sites and history that were to be found around the area.

As I walked down 5th Ave, I headed to The Morgan Library & Museum first.

It was very cold out, so I figured I’d check out some cool old buildings to try and warm up a bit inside in between walking around town freezing.

This was J.P. Morgan’s big megabucks book collection

What a spectacular collection of books, bibles, and music that was hundreds of years old from early writing and printing history.

The library has a large collection of bibles too, dating back to the 1400’s with three copies of the Gutenberg Bible valued around 30 million each.

The collection was fascinating, lots of extremely rare books and a few sculptures in a building that resembled something out of Hearst’s castle.

These aristocrats really knew how to live, and read good books (which was a major entertainment source at the time).

The Morgan Library and Museum
225 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10016
(212) 685-0008
https://www.themorgan.org/

After touring the library I headed up 5th Avenue to Rockefeller Center, which is New York City’s most famous iconic building and plaza.

This is the New York that so many visitors imagine before they visit. The skyscrapers, the famous Christmas tree and ice rink and so much more.

Rockefeller Center
30 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, NY 10112
Enter on 50th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues
212.698.2000
https://www.rockefellercenter.com/

After walking all around Rockefeller center I headed across the street to the grand old church St Patrick’s Cathedral

From Wikipedia:

St. Patrick’s Cathedral is a Catholic cathedral in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City

The cathedral was constructed starting in 1858 to accommodate the growing Archdiocese of New York and to replace St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral.

Work was halted in the early 1860s during the American Civil War; the cathedral was completed in 1878 and dedicated on May 25, 1879.

St. Patrick’s Cathedral
5th Avenue between 50th/51st Streets
New York, NY
https://www.saintpatrickscathedral.org/

Couple of photos of the pigeons that were huddle and hanging out on the wall of the cathedral outside on a side of the church that was out of the wind. It was 10 degrees out and they were probably just as cold as the rest of us. Have to note, there are some very healthy sized pigeons in NYC.

On the way back to the hotel I stopped outside the iconic department store Sak’s 5th Avenue.

Saks & Company 5th Avenue
611 Fifth Ave
New York, NY
http://www.thedepartmentstoremuseum.org/2010/11/saks-fifth-avenue-new-york-city-new.html

Saks Fifth Avenue remains to this day one of the best and most remarkable retail structures and has uniquely retained some of the atmosphere of the golden days of department store retailing.

View from the place I was working

Thanks for reading my story and checking out my photos.

Cheers!