# New York, New York -- Day 2

Source: https://sumnerevans.com/posts/travel/2016-new-england-trip/2016-05-17-new-york-2/
Published: 2016-05-17
Travel, New England Trip, Bike, Bus Tour, Central Park, Intrepid Museum, New York, Rockefeller Center, Top of the Rock

Although it's the 18th, I'll be writing this as if it were yesterday.

**TL;DR** today we rode the Big Bus tour bus around Lower Manhattan.  Then we
walked to the Intrepid Museum. After that we went biked around in Central Park
and went to the Rockefeller Complex.

### Big Bus Tour {#bigbustour}

We started our day by getting on the Big Bus tour, the tour we got tickets for
yesterday morning. The bus stopped right outside our hotel which was nice.
Unfortunately we had no idea the exact location it would stop so we wandered
around asking people. We managed to find the correct spot and board the bus.
There was a guide who gave information about the sights we were seeing from the
bus. He was a New York Native who grew up somewhere near Central Park. We drove
past a bunch of interesting sites in downtown New York. Everything from museums
and monuments to Wall Street and Broadway. I would elaborate on what we learned,
but that would be a lot of writing so I won't. Besides, judging by the dismal
number of views I’m getting on my posts, you probably don’t care anyway.

I will mention one more thing: the best quote from the guide:

> Choice, seems to be a thing these days, you can choose anything.
>
>   *~ the Tour Guide*

### The Intrepid Museum {#theintrepidmuseum}

We got off the bus and walked over to the Intrepid Museum. The Intrepid was an
aircraft carrier which served during WWII and Vietnam.

The first thing we did was watch a film about the carrier. The film featured
veterans of the ship from the two conflicts it was in.  Interestingly, John
McCain served on the Intrepid during the Vietnam conflict. The film also
featured a Mercury astronaut and a Japanese Imperial Air Force member.

During WWII, the Intrepid took part in many battles including the Battle for the
Philippines. It was struck by four Kamikaze strikes but never sank (obviously).
The Intrepid was also used during the Space Race. It was the vessel that the
Mercury capsules were hoisted onto after making their water landings. During the
Vietnam war, pilots from the Intrepid took part in strategic bomb strikes in
North Vietnam. The Intrepid was called back into service after 9/11 and acted as
the FBI headquarters for a time. (I'm pretty sure it was FBI, it might have been
some other agency.)

------------------------------------------------------------------------

After viewing the film and learning about the history of the ship we walked
around the hangar deck (the deck right beneath the flight deck (the top deck))
and looked around that the displays. It's called the hangar deck because that’s
where they store the planes before they go up to the flight deck. We then went
up to the flight deck and looked at more planes up there. Then we went up to the
bridge. The Intrepid was the flagship for one of the task groups in the task
force for the Battle of the Philippines. We saw the admirals cabin and the room
where he conducted the movements of the entire task group. He didn't actually
have control over the ship, that was the ship's captain's responsibility. The
admiral was also only a part of a larger task force.

Next we went into the captain's quarters and to the room where the boat was
steered. The captain didn't actually steer the ship, he only told the person
which way and how fast to go. In fact, the navigator was the one who actually
determined what course needed to be taken.

![The Bridge of the Intrepid](images/intrepid.jpg)

### Failing Remedial Bus 057 {#failingremedialbus057}

The next thing we wanted to do was go bike around in Central Park. We elected to
ride the bus up to Central Park so we waited at the bus stop for the correct
bus. It came and pulled over and we were very proud of ourselves for being in
the right place. Then it took back off into traffic. The driver totally left us
behind. I guess we were supposed to wave him down or something. Anyway, we
didn't even have a chance to try Bus 101, we flunked out at Bus 057: Remedial
Getting On Bus class.

### No Soup For You! {#nosoupforyou}

Because of our epic failure to get on the bus, we had to walk to Central Park.
On our way, we came across The Soup Man of Seinfeld fame. Look it up. I got
jambalaya and I even got bread and an apple with it. We thought it might have
been funny if we made him mad and see if he'd actually say "No Soup for You!"
but we didn't. We walked into Central Park and ate our soup. It was really good.
(I'm pretty sure everything would have seemed good at that point, I don’t even
remember what we'd eaten for breakfast that morning.)

### Biking Central Park {#bikingcentralpark}

After lunch we rented bikes using our New York Pass and rode around in Central
Park. Central Park was full of activity. There kids practicing for track and
soccer and playing baseball. We saw families with children playing on the
playgrounds. There were also people running and biking (and passing us
slowpokes). People from all socioeconomic levels were in Central Park. Everyone
from the mentally ill homeless person to the affluent family biking home from a
grocery store run were in the same park sharing the same space. It seemed like a
very unifying space. The bike ride was very relaxing and I can understand the
appeal it has to the many residents of New York.

### Top of the Rock {#topoftherock}

We returned our bikes and walked over to the Rockefeller Center, a complex that
takes up multiple city blocks and includes the offices and studios for NBC
(including MSNBC) and FOX. (I know, the media arch rivals have offices within a
few hundred metres of each other. We began by joining a guided tour of the
center (also on the New York Pass). The guide explained some of the history of
the building and of the Rockefeller family. I'll summarize it here,

Essentially John D. Rockefeller got really rich on oil with the Standard Oil
Company. The government forced him to split his company because at that point he
controlled vast portions of the oil industry in the United States. The companies
that broke off became big in their own right (Exon and Chevron). Rockefeller had
stock in all of the break-off companies and he died with a net worth of
something to the order of $300 billion of today’s dollars. Rockefeller was the
richest person in US history.  His son, John D. Rockefeller Jr. (Junior)
inherited the entirety of his fathers fortune. It was Junior who built the
Rockefeller Center. He began the project in the 1930s as a joint project with
someone, but then the stock market crashed and the other party ran out of
funding. So he funded the entire thing out of pocket. His wife inspired much of
the art in the Rockefeller Center because she was a modern art admirer.

Anyway, we walked around as he explained some of the art and architecture of the
Center. At this point, it was getting late and we wanted to go to the top of the
Rockefeller Center before it got dark so we left the tour after half an hour. On
the way up to the Rockefeller Center observation deck, we passed through a whole
bunch of queues that would have been awful to stand in during high tourism
season. It did take a while to get to the top, but it wasn't nearly as bad as it
could have been.

The reason we wanted to come up to the top of the Rockefeller Center at this
time was to get a view of New York in the daytime. One neat thing about the
Rockefeller Center's observation deck is that you can see the Empire State
Building from the observation deck.

![Views from the Top of the Rockefeller Building. Originally posted on Instagram.](images/nyc4.jpg)

### Business, Dinner and Bed {#businessdinnerandbed}

We went from the Rockefeller Center back to our hotel room because I had to do a
webinar thing for Colorado School of Mines. After that, we went to get some
dinner (we were both starving) and then I finished my blog and went to bed.