New York Field Trip - Time Travel, Casual Art, Friendly Folks NYC Move How To Notes

I got to go along to New York, to help my daughter move there for graduate school. Good thing this worked out, as just before leaving she developed a stress fracture in her foot. So we learned about accessible transportation* in New York as well!

We spent two weeks at a budget hotel in Queens, waiting for Rosalinda’s Upper East Side Manhattan apartment to open up. Luckily we found it on the first day - we used a broker, which is common Saw a number that would have worked. Hers is a little more old style/classic first Manhattan apartment than others we saw. Little less costly than the others, but similar rents to those around here in San Francisco Bay Area.  Ikea guys came first evening with bed and table and chairs!

Front of Rosalinda’s building. Pre-war construction. High ceilings.

She has a “fifth floor walkup”. That means no elevator and you schlepp your groceries and stuff mailed from home up, up, up. It took me 2.5 hours to move up the stuff from boxes at home. With Rosalinda’s busted foot, she stayed below with box cutter, repacking in our essential Target handled bins. and had them ready for me upon return trips. Highest humidity day. I had to stop and rest from heat both top and bottom!! I sure appreciate my health in a situation like this. Good to know I can do a hard thing.

Great family scene in Queens - where we stayed in hotel. East Indian (Punjabi and Gujarti speakers), Latino and African American neighborhoods side by side. Lots of languages to hear. People sit on their stoops at night and visit. Very friendly and I could always say ‘hi’ when taking my after supper walk. Practiced my Spanish nearly every day on my trip- walking, on subway, and with one of guys assembling bed (who spoke no English). Interesting to see Italian and Indian heritage workers speaking excellent Spanish with coworkers. I didn’t know before that 25% of people there are Spanish speaking. On bus Rosalinda observed that my Spanish was much improved. Starts to flow naturally when I use it casually like that.

Bodegas about every two blocks in Queens. Really good produce and meat. Lots of high quality produce all along streets too. Also all-fruit smoothie carts. Often fruit in carts better price than in stores. And good.

Queensboro Bridge from the hotel window, I watched the commute traffic morning and evening. They definitely go into work later. Traffic moves pretty well still at 7:30 a.m.

Kinda Christmas’y look in the evenings.

We DID get tired of the hotel - refrigerator and microwave,  but only one chair and a desk other than bed. Rosalinda elevated her foot and ate on the bed often two meals a day. It was so great to have a table and chairs when we moved to apartment.

Might have been worth paying 40$ to have somebody else ‘pick’ the Ikae furniture. We had two carts like this. It meant Rosalinda did things with her foot she shouldn’t have to avoid having me get knocked to floor by boxes.You have to go TO Ikea to get delivery date you want. Otherwise it takes 2-3 weeks if you online order.

Moving to Manhattan with an incomplete foot is challenging - but there are a lot of payoffs. The East River is a five to ten minute walk from Rosalinda’s new apartment. There is a walkway and a park with a dog area BUSTLING with cute little dogs, sunbathing and benches all along the river. It’s a real neighborhood scene both day and night.

Central Park is very accessible from Rosalinda’s place too. Six and a half blocks. Easy walk or, when you are minimizing walking, - as Rosalinda is working to do now - you take a cross town bus and can keep the walking to about a half a mile to see Central Park scenes like this. You can rent these wind powered boats, or bring your own. You can also rent a sloop in the boathouse to keep your own boat. This is the “Conservatory Water”. The Alice and Wonderland statue is at one end. Also the Hans Christian Anderson statue, where there are weekly H.C.A. readings. I had a nice talk in Spanish with a man from Argentina (his home language is Italian but he was happy to speak Spanish) about H.C. Anderson when we were both photo’ing there.

Lot of great tile art in the subways.While Rosalinda in class,  I got off at 23’rd street station returning on the R Line (back from the free Staten Island Ferry) to photo many hats at the 23’rd street station.

There are many excellent opportunities for time travel at The Cloisters and next door Fort Tyron.

I’ve always wanted to see the Unicorn Tapestries. But I had no idea what a wonderful museum they live in. I went back to “The Cloisters” for a second visit on one of the days Rosalinda was in Orientation all day. Fort Tyron Park next to the Cloisters is right on The Hudson - gorgeous gardens, benches and views. I ate my lunch there on my second visit before heading into Cloisters. The museum itself is a fantasy of an Abbey, created from pieces of monastical buidlings from all over Europe, transformed into the sense of one building. Beautiful secret enclosed gardens too.

Plus I got to fully enjoy the Unicorn Tapestries collection.

It’s part of the Metropoliton Museum of Art and I used my Met ticket from another day, to get in. Both museums have a ‘recommended’ price, so you can offer less and they take it with a smile. Same with Natural History Museum and City of New York Museum - both of which I squeezed int when Rosalinda was resting foot in the afternoons.

Museum Record for Unicorn in Captivity tapestry - http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/467642
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*To locate accessible Bus and Subway info - use the MTA trip planner and check the Accessible box. Currently about 25% of subways are accessible - but we found that rerouting and maintenance can alter that. Busses worked best for foot injury for my daughter. Pleasant riding busses too and it helped us learn the geography of the city better.
http://tripplanner.mta.info/MyTrip/ui_web/customplanner/TripPlanner.aspx

Still Holding a Torch for You (New York - Field Trip)

Remember folks, The Bronx is Up and the Battery's Down

I've been on a prolonged visit to New York City, helping my beloved daughter, Rosalinda, move into her new apartment on the East Side of Manhattan.  Rosie's come to take a bite out of the big apple and pursue a graduate degree. I've come along for the ride. As much as I'm looking forward to returning to my California home, I've been savoring this ultimate big city experience.

One of my favorite discoveries was learning that we got an excellent view of  that celebrated Old Lady - a.k.a. The Statue of Liberty - from the cafeteria window at Ikea! Hey, don't you think the Old Gal must be getting tired of holding that torch up for everybody by now?

 ~ ~ ~ How to Acquire Apartment Furniture in NYC ~ ~ ~

Many of us are familiar with that new-apartment dwellers-shopping utopia, Ikea. Back home in California, we use our own car to load up our purchases. Over here in the land of 8.8 million people, it works a little differently for those without a car - which seems to be the majority.

Here's how my daughter acquired an assembled bed, compact eating table with two chairs, and a desk.

-  We called ahead to get advice on ordering on-web versus going to store. Nice man told us that if we ordered on-line, it would take two or three weeks, but that by visiting the store we could get a delivery date of our choice. Not wanting to sleep on the floor in Rosie's new apartment, we went to the store. - Give yourself a solid day. We went late morning Tuesday and it took us about four hours - though we did eat lunch first in the cafeteria. Yes, my daughter had already identified the names and product numbers for the furniture she wanted. Thank goodness.
-  Locate the various free Ikea shuttle stops in (our case) lower Manhattan. You can take a bus or subway to those. The MTA website might help you find them. There is also a water taxi which, I believe, leaves from Wall Street. Sounds fun but we were too exhausted to locate it after we heard this fun fact in the Home Delivery line.
- You might want to pay to have your items pulled from the shelves in the self serve warehouse area. We did not. The mattresses were really shoved in tight and I was glad I'd had a nourishing lunch, as I slammed my body repeatedly against one to make way for another to come out. Other bed pieces were pretty durn heavy. Between the two of us we just managed it - oh and my daughter had a stress fracture on her foot. Normally here, I work on being her feet, but there we were - us and those big heavy cartons that had to get into the carts. I do not recommend moving in this temporarily disabled condition. Given that fracture, we should have paid the forty bucks to have somebody else pick the furniture.
- Once Rose paid for the furniture boxes we'd struggled to load into and onto two carts, we thought we were all set. 

Har de har har.

It took an hour and a half to get through the Home Delivery line. Funny, it didn't look that long. But we moved at a snail's pace. It was like a Disneyland queue were they forgot to keep folks going.
- Rosalinda got the date and delivery window of her choice. The two men that came, schlepped the stuff up her five flights of stairs, assembled the furniture, and carted the boxes back down to her recycling area, were really nice. I practiced my Spanish with one of them. The other, who spoke English as his first language, communicated effortlessly with his non-English speaking helper. He looked to be of Italian ancestry. I've noticed many, many non-Latino folks in the area speak excellent Spanish. No, I didn't know before that 25% of people in the area are of Hispanic ancestry.
- Flat delivery fee at this time was $99. What a deal! Rosie also paid for the assembly - I think it's calculated based on weight. I've seen my husband assemble Ikea beds before and knew it was a big job, so I was really glad we didn't have to deal with it on our first day in.