New York Top Twelve (5B450)

My much anticipated trip to New York did not disappoint. The city was every bit as surprising, diverse and fascinating as I thought it would be. I was on my own and had a packed itinerary for myself, visiting about four interesting places each day over the six days I was there. Although I enjoyed everywhere I visited, these are my top twelve NYC highlights.

1. Central Park
Beautiful in autumn, vast, so I only saw bits of it. I enjoyed Strawberry Fields, Alice in Wonderland, the boating lake and a pumpkin muffin and earl grey tea in Le Pain Quotidien.

2. Brooklyn Bridge
A most unexpected bridge with the walk way in the middle of its famous intricate structure. Quite a walk with breathtaking views all round.

3. Lincoln Center
It was nearly sunset when I visited and the center was at its most glittering. All the theatres in the center looked lovely and inviting. The most spectacular was the Metropolitan Opera House. Unfortunately I didn't have the opportunity to see an opera, but I did visit the gift shop and bought a postcard.

4. Grand Central Terminal
The most beautiful railway station I've ever seen. The zodiac ceiling is exquisite and the polished surfaces, grand staircases and sparkling main hall are all quite mesmerising. I lingered a while and drank iced tea in the downstairs food hall.

5. Metropolitan Museum of Art
I thought it would be good, but it turned out to be even better. The building itself was spectacular and beautiful and likewise the exhibits within. My favourite of all was the recreation of a Frank Lloyd Wright drawing room, but there was so much more, the recreation of rooms from French palaces and an Egyptian tomb were also further highlights.

6. New York Public Library
I have never before encountered such a beautiful public library as the one on 42nd Street New York. The entrance reminded me of the Paris Opera House. The reading rooms were grand, gorgeous and open to anyone. A very inspiring space.

7. Staten Island Ferry
I didn't want to do anything too touristy on my holiday and someone suggested that viewing the Statue of Liberty from the Staten Island Ferry was a good alternative to an organised tour of Liberty Island. They were right, it was good enough for me and Staten Island is also an interesting place to visit if you have time to linger a little while.

8. Poe Cottage
Being a big Edgar Allan Poe fan I felt I couldn't leave New York without visiting Poe's Cottage and visitors' centre located in Poe Park, the Bronx. It was an unexpected pleasure to enjoy the personal talk, brief tour and film about the last three years of Poe's life, looking after his dieing wife and finally making that last fateful trip to Baltimore, all from this tiny home. It was all very sad, sobering and poignant, not to mention thought provoking.

9. The Highline
A disused railway line turned into a beautiful park; the idea itself is wonderful. I walked all along the High Line back and forth and enjoyed all of it. Amongst the autumnal leaves and flowers were weird, modern art sculptures every so often and some of the most comfortable street furniture I've had the pleasure to sit on.

10. Coney Island
I could not have gone to New York and not visited Coney Island. I did not know what to expect, October is most definitely out of season. What I received was unexpected and intriguing. The strong Atlantic winds blew across the promenade, which was eerie and nearly deserted except for a few stragglers. All was shut, including Nathans, except for one lone retro beach shop. I'm glad I got there.

11. 9/11 memorial
Like all great cities New York has had its fair share of rough and smooth, good and bad. I found the 9/11 memorial a particularly touching commemoration of this, most possibly, darkest episode in the life of this beautiful city.

12. Top of the rock
I felt I couldn't leave New York without getting high up and looking down at the city from a great height. I chose the 70th floor of the Rockefeller Center for this particular experience. It cost a bit of time and money to do it, but I think the views speak for themselves.

These are merely my highlights, the list could go on but for now I will stop there.

The Abandoned Baby

Amy came up with this sweet, but sad picture story a few years ago now. I have since put it together into a nine picture cartoon strip.

Book club adventures (5B450)

When I was running my SubVerse Poetry Group in the early noughties, two other tempting ideas were popular which I didn't have the opportunity to explore at the time. One was reading groups and the other was blogging. I finally started blogging in 2013 and joining a book club became my fourth 5B450 goal for 2017.

My first foray into reading groups was a complete disaster. There was a breakdown in communication, there was no room in the group, I left the library dejected. I ended up in the local pub, drowning my sorrows over half a pint of Guinness.

My second attempt to join a book club was even more of a disaster. The time listed on the meeting page was in total conflict with reality. The book club was meant to meet at 7 pm, when the library was in fact closed.

For my third attempt at joining a book club I turned away from the library avenue towards the modern Meetup internet avenue. Here I found Ruislip Readers who meet monthly in an unassuming pub in Ruislip.



It was October when I joined and they were in a Halloween mood. In this month we were reviewing Stephen King's 'The Shining', a book I had already read, although had not reviewed on Good Reads.

   

The Ruislip Book-to-Film Club did not disappoint. The company, chat and accompanying craft beer were all quite wonderful. I had to rake through my memory for choice nuggets about The Shining, both the book and the film were mild obsessions of mine about twenty years ago. While the first hour was full of Stephen King chat, the second was mostly preoccupied with what we were going to read and watch next. I put in a bid for Daphne Du Maurier and Alfred Hitchcock's 'Rebecca'. I left satisfied with the proceedings and the upcoming prospect of reading and watching Agatha Christie's 'Murder on the Orient Express' ready for the next meetup in November.

The Shining - Review by LJ Finnigan (read at Christmas, 1995)

I don't read many Stephen King books as I find them so scary. This one I found to be particularly so. There is a bit of background story about the father's job situation and his son's specially sensitive nature, 'the shining', before we arrive in the main setting of the story. The Overlook Hotel is a huge, hollow place in the middle of nowhere and is a fully blown character in itself. In this desolate building, the father, Jack, his vulnerable wife, Wendy, and special little boy, Danny, arrive as guardians for the off-season. Winter deepens, the hotel gets snowed in, the family gets more isolated and the nightmares become more real, in particular the father becomes even more scary than the ghosts, that inhabit the hotel. The father was very vividly brought to life, in Stanley Kubrick's film, by Jack Nicholson, for me the most stand out performance of his career. The endings of the book and the film are quite different, I preferred the book's ending. That said, I think the book and the film are both great.

The Antique Junk Shop

        

I wrote this poem as a teenager, it was somewhat inspired by 'From beyond the grave' an old Amicus portmanteau horror movie starring Peter Cushing. I drew the old man who runs the shop and owns the cat based on Peter Cushing. You can find the poem on my WattPad adolescent poetry page and as a small montage movie on YouTube.

52nd Book Review on GoodReads

I recently finished reading the book Room by Emma Donoghue and enjoyed it so much it has now become my 52nd Book Review on GoodReads. Below are images of the book's cover and my review which is now on my GoodReads page.

Room by Emma Donoghue

I was a bit wary of watching the film, let alone reading the book, considering its distressing subject matter. Having now read the book and watched the film I would say they are both strangely heart-warming, life-affirming and quite inspirational. To five year old Jack, Room and Ma are the whole world. There are dark secrets lurking and an escape is planned, but because of Ma's great mothering skills Jack finds the outside world a much scarier prospect than life with Ma in their cell-like room. I won't give too much away, but I would reccommend both the book and the film, they are thought provoking and could provide some strength and encouragement to those in difficult situations, trying to find a way to both cope, with how life is, and to escape, to something better.