Carousel – RDZ Photography

New York City – August 2019 – Circling Manhattan

Architecture, History, Nature, Transportation

With a trip for work to New York City I had little time for sightseeing, but my wife didn’t! This is her photo blog of a 4 hour New York Architectural Society (almost) circumnavigation of Manhattan. I say almost, since there was a bridge on the Harlem River in a down position so they had to backtrack back around.

They set sail from a pier in Chelsea.

And headed for the harbor…

Passing by Jersey City…

The trip was actually offered for college credit, so there was an instructor on board whom reportedly spoke ‘constantly’. The trip took them past Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty, which I wouldn’t think would need any dialog to explain.

It was time to head up the East River…

This carousel in a park in Brooklyn came from a defunct amusement park in my hometown of Youngstown, Ohio.

Nearby was a jet ski school!

As you make you way up the East River you go past many areas that are undergoing gentrification.

An interesting view of Roosevelt Island, and the 59th Street (Queensboro) Bridge.

The United Nations Building

Roosevelt Island was once home to a Tuberculosis Hospital, but now is home to thousands in new apartment buildings.

A great view of the bridge and the Roosevelt Island Tram.

A series of bridges on the far end of the East River, where they ended up turning around.

If you have plenty of money ($850 one way for a 30 minute plane ride) you can get from Manhattan to the Hamptons in a hurry on a seaplane.

Or a helicopter…

The cruise continued back down the East River

The late afternoon sun made a interesting view of the Staten Island Ferry with the statue in the background.

The World Trade Center from the Hudson River

One of the many New York Waterway ferries.

Finally some interesting new architecture along the Hudson.

I think you will agree her photos were great – I am so jealous I had to work, it looks like it was a great cruise 🙂

New York – April 2016 – Another Week in the City

Architecture, Transportation

Back to Jersey City – with evenings to wander. This time though I went up early on Sunday to check out some sights. First stop was Liberty State Park, which as the name suggests is directly behind the Statue of Liberty. This area, as well as much of the waterfront of Jersey City, used to be industrial area, but has been revitalized. The park itself is nice, but the views are great of lower Manhattan and the statue. I was amazed to find that there is a bridge to Ellis Island, although it is not for use by tourists, only the workers.

Having spent Saturday night in the area I was up and in the city very early on a Sunday morning, finding 5th Avenue total void of people and cars, so much for the city that never sleeps, on Sunday morning they were sleeping in. Continuing over to the Garment District, where a street was closed for some filming complete with a block full of 1970s cars

Heading to Brooklyn, I spent a couple of hours at the New York Transit Museum, located in a decommissioned Court Street subway station in Downtown Brooklyn. The museum includes subway, bus, railway, bridge and tunnel memorabilia. As you move along through the station you find numerous vintage signs, models and other small items.

The lower level is by far the best part of the museum, with two rows of subway cars, beautifully preserved. The museum has a great collection, but on this day it was filled with hipster moms and dads and their hipster kids screaming as all kids do. Still worth it though.

Continuing on with a walk over to the Brooklyn Bridge, or more specifically, under, where Jane’s Carousel is located along the river between the bridges (Manhattan Bridge being the other). This carousel was located at Idora Park in Youngstown until the park closed in 1984, where a couple purchased it and moved it to Brooklyn. After spending 25 years restoring it, it is now proudly spinning with a million dollar view of lower Manhattan.

The following day after work I made my way back to Brooklyn, to the Barclays Center for some hockey. Home of the New York Islanders since 2015, the game that night was against the Tampa Bay Lightning, with a ‘crowd’ of about 4000 people, despite the fact both teams were headed for the upcoming playoffs. The arena is a bit quirky for hockey, with some obstructed view seats and one entire end of the bowl void of any seats at all. But since I had my choice of 12,000 empty seats, multiple views for photography were had.

The following day found me in Queens for work, where my route took me through the grounds of the 1964 World’s Fair. This area still has some evidence of the fair, primarily the Unisphere, a large globe, as well as the Observation Tower prominently featured in the movie Men in Black. My route that day also took me past Citi Field, and a nearby subway rail yard.

I spent my last evening there trying to find all the Roadside (Sidewalkside?) America sites I could find in Manhattan. These included a Giant Globe in the Daily News Building, Metal Rats running up a support cable at Grand Central, a Giant Chess Board on the side of a building, and a few others before ending up back downtown at the Occulus at the World Trade Center.

Cleveland – January 2016 – Motorcycles, Cars, Planes and Harvey Pekar

Nature, Transportation

The International Exposition Center in Cleveland, better known as the IX Center is a 1 million square foot exhibition hall. Originally built in 1942 as a GM factory building bombers for World War II, it served for many years after that as a tank plant. When the tank plant closed it was eventually repurposed into the convention hall, complete with a 125′ tall ferris wheel that is enclosed in a glass atrium rising above the main roof.

We have attended numerous events at this location including car shows, boat shows, RV shows, home shows and others. This day we were there for the Progressive International Motorcycle Show. Ohio, despite the cold winter weather, has one of the highest per capita motorcycle rider population in the country.

This show featured the world’s leading manufacturers including BMW, Ducati, Harley Davidsosn, Honda, Indian, Kawasaki, Suzuki, Triumph, Yamaha and others.

In addition to the new bike displays, there were numerous vendors with accessories. The highlight of the show was a collection of helmets painted by local tattoo artists. While we were there two of them were working on their latest creation. Another area had a collection of custom ‘artistic’ bikes.

After the motorcycle show we headed across town to the Crawford Auto Aviation Museum, located at the Western Reserve Historical Society in University Circle on the east side of Cleveland. The Crawford was recently remodeled and I wanted to check it out.

Cleveland has a long history of auto manufacturing and it is celebrated here. Founded in 1965 it’s collection of vehicles include antique carriages, early Harley Davidson’s, a P51 Mustang Airplane hanging from the ceiling that was used in the famed Cleveland National Air Races of the 1920s and 1930s.

It is most known for it’s collection of cars over 100 years old, as well as the aforementioned Cleveland based automobiles, including a 1932 aluminum bodied Peerless.

A recent addition is the refurbished carousel from Euclid Beach Park, an amusement park that was located along the lakeshore that closed in the late 1960s.

It is just a short distance from here to the Cleveland Heights Library where they have a small display on Harvey Pekar. Harvey is sometimes referred to as the Poet Laureate of Cleveland, going through life with a cynical attitude and skill in writing and illustrating underground comics. He is most known nationally for his series of combative guest appearance on the David Letterman show. If you haven’t seen one try this…

He will likely either amuse you or offend you, but not both. But he is ‘true Cleveland’

So Harvey was a loyal supporter of the Cleveland Heights library, and in reward after his death they had a small statuette made for him. We had to make the pilgrimage to see Harvey’s statue.

Having completed our pilgrimage we made our way home, stopping by the frozen Brandywine Falls on the way. After passing the ‘closed trail’ sign with everyone else, we had a magnificent up close view of the ice covered waterfalls.

Another great day road trip was now complete.