Autumn and Hallowe'en Pics (October-November 2014)

On our way to the Smorgasburg outdoor food market we passed through a really picturesque part of Brooklyn.

The market is on every Sunday in season. Some Filipino treats:

Hallowe'en is a big event in the US. What better way to celebrate it than to make the trip out of the city to Sleepy Hollow...home of the headless horseman!

We started off in Tarrytown which is the town next to Sleep Hollow for a day-time historic tour of the area. A real Van Tassel - the old Dutch family to which one of the story's protagonists, Katrina Van Tassel, belongs - joined us on our tour!

The surrounding area was really pretty.

This is the Lyndhurst mansion and grounds. It's not particularly famous. We tried to visit Sunnyside (home of Washington Irving, author of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow) however tickets were sold out.

The view over the Hudson and the Tappan Zee bridge.

In the evening we spent a couple of hours on a lantern-lit ghost tour of the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery.

In addition to Washington Irving, other famous interments include Walter Chrysler (created Chrysler automobile company) and William Rockefeller (founded Standard Oil with brother John D.)

This is inside one of the crypts.

Back in New York this fruit was pretty scary. It is called Buddha's Hand. It is a citrus fruit...basically a lemon.

For my birthday we went to Delmonico's (conveniently located about 100 feet away from our apartment!). Delmonico's was the first dining establishment in the US to have a printed menu, tablecloths, guests eating at their own tables, and first location in America to be called by its French name, "Restaurant".

Home of the famous Delmonico's steak. It is a boneless ribeye that is said to have originated from Delmonico's around 1830.

Another culinary treat created by Delmonico's is the Baked Alaska, said to have been created by the restaurant's chef to celebrate the United States' purchase of Alaska from Russia. It was pretty good!

We visited the New York Transit Museum in Brooklyn. The best part was the collection of old subway cars that you could walk through.

We bought tickets to a pre-season NY Knicks vs Milwaukee Bucks basket ball match at Madison Square Gardens. It is an amazing stadium!

That's all, see you soon!

Fall in NYC and Carol & Dave's first visit (October 2014)

The weather was not on our side when we booked our Oktoberfest cruise to Bear Mountain. It was dreary and wet, meaning for most of the outbound journey everybody was huddled inside the boat for the full three hours!

The weather cleared up on the way back. You can make out the Little Red Lighthouse at the bottom of the bridge.  It was made famous by the 1942 children's book The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge. When the Coast Guard proposed dismantling the lighthouse due to it becoming obsolete, there was a public outcry by fans of the book. The lighthouse is now managed by the New York City Department of Parks and is officially a New York City Landmark.

We spent a day exploring the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum on the west side of Manhattan. The retired warship is permanently moored at Pier 86 and houses a fantastic array of military, scientific and commercial craft...

...including the Concorde. This particular plane (G-BOAD) holds the record for the fastest Atlantic crossing by a Concorde, clocking in at 2:52:59. We joined the special tour that had exclusive access to the interior.

Below is the USS Growler, one of only three submarines built to carry the Regulus II nuclear guided missile.

The lower deck of the ship houses the Space center, including NASA's first (and prototype) space shuttle orbiter, the Enterprise. Enterprise was built to perform test flights in the atmosphere, piggy-backing a Boeing 747. It had neither the engines or functional heat shield to enable it to carry out a spaceflight.

Dave and Carol arrived for a visit mid-October. On the Brooklyn Bridge:

Coffee in Dumbo:

Pizza in Juliana's, next-door to the famous Grimaldi's in Dumbo. We preferred the pizza at Juliana's.

We took the subway down to Coney Island for day. First stop - Nathan's Famous Hot Dogs!

Check out the menu :-o

Walking along the boardwalk.

Then onto the rides.  

The Cyclone is a famous old wooden rollercoaster - always the best. Only the old ones give you whiplash!

Maybe next year we'll come back for the Hot Dog eating contest. See if we can beat Joey Chestnut's current record of 69 hot dogs (plus the buns!) in 10 minutes.

Back in Manhattan, a quick drink at Grand Central.

We can't have anyone visit without taking them to Eataly in Flatiron for a hot prime-rib sandwich!

Chelsea Market, Central Park, Natural History Museum, Guggenheim Museum, Russ & Daughters deli, crack pie from Momofuku Milk Bar and one of NYC's famous salted-pretzels from a street vendor:

Lunch at 2nd Ave Deli; one of our favorite Jewish spots. This is matzo ball soup.

Spinach knish:

Cheese-filled blintzes with apple sauce.

Carol and Dave outside of Delmonico's where they went for their wedding gift dinner:

On our last day we had a chilly walk around Pier 25 and the marina:

The weekend following Carol and Dave's departure, we attended Leo's 1st birthday party way out in the sticks in New Jersey. Playing a bit of wiffleball here. Gemma was hitting them out of the park!

They brought Leo a 'smash cake'...but he was too polite to smash it!