New York City: Carter's Very First Trip With Just Mom & Dad

10.10.2018

Day 1 in New York City - The flight in, Times Square, New York Pizza, Walking downtown, Blue Man Group, Korea Town, Empire State Building & Times Square at Midnight

We took an 8AM direct flight into JFK, Sunday morning and landed around 1PM New York time. Getting an UBER and taking the ride into the city was easy and exhilarating, even with all the traffic. Our driver was dropping us off in the literal center of Times Square before we knew it. We opened the doors and looked up and there was the Naked Cowboy that I recall seeing 22 years ago on my 8th grade trip. Wow.... we couldn't have had a more appropriate New York welcoming!

We immediately checked in, dropped our bags and set out to find some delicious New York pizza. It happened to be the exact same place Blake and I had found 7 or 8 years ago when we had come together. Carte was filled with millions of questions and was taking everything in. He was surprised to see a 4 level rotating parking garage contraption directly next door to the pizza place and started right away noticing the differences in New York City.

We were quickly off to explore Manhattan south of us and walk to the Blue Man Group Show at Astor Theater in NoHo. We never would have thought that we would walk 11 miles over the next 10 hours! WE explored Union Square and the Flatiron Building, the famous triangular building on 5th Avenue. My team at Lilly had surprised the 3 of us with tickets to Blue Man Group and I seriously could not asked for a better first "show" experience for Carter and really all 3 of us. It was such a fun and memorable show and one we will remember forever.

Walking by the Empire State Building during the day.

After Blue Man Group Show, we decided to forgo the Subway and take a leisurely walk towards the Empire State Building. It was only 7:30PM and I had read the lines at the Empire were absolutely insane until 10PM, so we killed some time by stopping for dinner at a Poke Bowl restaurant and then desert in the heart of Korea Town where we all agreed that Korean Shaved Mango Ice, is our new favorite thing! Around 9:30PM, Carter and I embarked up the Empire State Building and Blake opted to stay on solid ground below. The lines were long but totally doable with Carter, yet another reason we were so glad this was just a Carter trip. We ended up climbing the 6 stories from 80 to 86 to go to the outside viewing deck. This brought back memories of coming in 8th grade and definitely took my breath away, being so high on that chilly early October night. It was the first time we got to clearly see the One World Trade Center Building due south of us in the amazing skyline.

We walked home near midnight to Times Square and just the Monday midnight crowds at in. We were surprised to see our hotel room was light as day, when we walked in.

Carter's favorite memory of the day:

"My favorite part or memory of the day was the Empire State Building and the Blue Man Group."

Day 2 in New York City - Private tour of the entire city, from Central Park to Ground 0 and the 9/11 Museum Tour.

Carter woke up spoiled to be an only child again for another day and was practicing his Blue Man Group eyes. We had a full 12 day of New York City tours ahead of us and we were so excited. We had signed up for a group tour with Real New York Tours from 1)AM-4:30PM. When we met Nathan near Times Square, it was only the three of us on that cloudy Columbus Day Monday morning so we had a private tour guide for 6.5 hours. We told him where we had gone the night before and where we were headed tonight and tomorrow and we pretty much did everything else possible for the next several hours with him. It was an unbelievably awesome experience to have a real New Yorker, Nathan, a 34 year aspiring actor and writer that had lived there for 15 years with his wife and 18 month old son, to take us around the city he loves so much. I loved how Carter was attached to him as we walked the 14 miles on foot (not including all the Subway rides we took) though the city that day. Carter's biggest goal was to experience and master the Subway by the end of the day and that he did!

We started off learning about Times Square and how about not the many locals really go there, unless they work there. Carter was shocked to see how small the New Years Eve Ball was and Nathan shared all kinds of insider information about the camera angle they use and how the crowd that night isn't really as big as they make it seem, again, he said it's 100% tourists in Times Square that night. We headed over to Rockefeller Center where we saw the Today Show was live and the famous ice skating rink had just opened up that very morning for the holiday season. We walked north, along the famous Fifth Avenue north towards Central Park, passing Trump Tower and all the ritzy places on the Upper East Side.

Once we we got into the south east end of the wonderful Central Park, we turned around to see the super high sky scrappers so tall, they weren't even visible this particular day in the clouds. Besides the Subway, the super sky scrappers where another one of Carter's main focuses' on his first visit to New York City at 11.5 years old. As an adult, even though, this is my 5th or so trip to New York City, my own focuses on the city continue to evolve.  At 14 years old on my first visit for 8th grade trip, it was probably the "Street shopping and knock-off's we could score," but at 38 is was the forethought of the people in the 1840's & 1850's to set aside 750 acres of a green space in the middle of the largest city in the nation. In those 10 years, the city's population are from 300K to 600K and then VERY quickly 1,000,000 in the 1860's. What great timing they had. We spent about an hour wondering through the south third of the park and ultimately came out on the southwest part at Strawberry Fields, the famous area built for John Lennon shortly after he was shot  just across the street at his front door of his sky rise apartment. Our guide, Nathan, pointed out how this park was a collaboration of hundreds of nations across the world that came together on behalf of what John Lennon and the Beatles did with their music. It is quite possibly the last time you have seen Afghanistan on a plaque working with Americans for the same cause.

Then it was finally time for Carter to get to experience the Subway! He listening intently to Nathan's instructions and knowledge about the intricate subway system underground. I saw example after example of why they gave "subway tile," the name. Nathan shared a ton about how proud of the water New Yorkers are. We even learned how buildings above 6 floors high, had to have water tanks on them, including his own building he lives in.

Chinatown was incredible sight to see and experience. We walked in fish market after fish market and couldn't believe what we were seeing on the busting streets and how low prices were for seafood.

Then, we arrived at the on the north side of the Financial District and the Court Area. It was crazy how many gigantic courthouses and Supreme Court's were in this one circular location. We learned to look at bright colored signs on street posts showing when and where big TV shows were going to be filming soon. We learned about the history of Brooklyn Bridge, which, by far, the longest suspension bridge in the world. At least 20 people died in the 1860's and 1870's while it was being built, including the designer of the bridge. I loved the part of the history where when the chief engineer died during the building process and his wife stepped in as the "first woman field engineer" and over saw the completion of the Brooklyn Bridge in 1882-1883.

Then, we quickly came to the farthest south part of the Manhattan and where the area once called "Ground 0" began. This is St. Paul's Chapel, the brown church that became famous just being a couple blocks north of the twin towers, to serve as the initial headquarters and place for rest for the thousands of volunteers in those early days. It miraculously suffered no physical damage from the fall of the twin towers behind it. One World Trade Center, is now the tallest building in New York city, standing at 1776 feet high. We couldn't even see the top with the clouds. It was completed just 4 years ago in 2014. Knowing that we had a separate tour inside the museum at 5PM that same afternoon, Nathan gave us a tour around the outside Memorial Grounds including the new World Trade Center Transportation Hub Oculus white  "eye-last" building that we would much later go shop inside and find our subway back to Times Square.

The outdoor part of the memorial was beautifully done and the thought and meaning that was put into it was tear jerking. Carter had a very high level idea of what had happened 5 years before he was born but I don't think any explanation from me or Blake or a video, while siting in San Antonio, Texas could ever resonate like him seeing it for himself at nearly 12 years old. 

We learned the Memorial’s twin reflecting pools are each nearly an acre in size and feature the largest manmade waterfalls in North America. The pools sit within the footprints where the Twin Towers once stood. The names of every person who died in the 2001 and 1993 attacks are inscribed into bronze panels edging the Memorial pools, a powerful reminder of the largest loss of life resulting from a foreign attack on American soil and the greatest single loss of rescue personnel in American history.

I feel like this entire trip one on one with Carter at this exact age, could not have been better. Many times, Blake and I commented that we were so glad it was a one-on-one trip to this gigantic city with Carter at his age. I don't really see wanting to bring Addison or Delaney here until they are 12 or 13 years old, at the youngest.

Nathan shared with us the story of the "Survivor Tree," a gallery pear tree that was discovered at Ground Zero severely damaged. It was removed  from the rubble and rehabilitated and later returned to the Memorial site in 2010. It is thriving now which is amazing considering this kind of pear tree is considered extremely delicate. We then walked towards the Financial District and Wall Street. This area, later along with the Court house District", could be a tour day all in itself. We definitely only had time to scrap the surface

We only had about 30 minutes to get back to the the 9-11 Museum for our tour, so we so we said goodbye to Nathan and flew by the crowded Charging Bull, only to stop at one of the famous New York Bagel shops for a delicious variety of gigantic New York Bagel sandwiches. Wow. This is one of the many reasons they brag that New York City water is the best, it is shown in how only bagels taste this good because of the water that only New York City has!

There are no words to explain the next 3 hours of our lives, inside the September 11 Museum. The first hour was spent on a high level tour about the events of the that day and the clear up process in the days and years following. The museum is actually 30 feet below street level underneath where the twin towers stood. What is so remarkable about the outstanding design it that when we started the tour, you could physically see and touch where the exact corner of World Trade Center Tower 1 and 2 actually were. The last picture in this section is where their individual steel beams were cemented into the ground. This museum was literally underneath where these towers once stood. This tour was the ideal set up for all of us to really understand what happened that day but it was the following 2 hours in a photography free part of the museum that really left us breathless. 

It was in this Historical Exhibiton, located within the original footprint of the North Tower, the historical exhibition tells the story of 9/11 using artifacts, images, first-person testimony and archival audio and video recordings. The exhibition was made up of three sequential parts: the Events of the Day, Before 9/11, and After 9/11. Hearing the vocal recordings of the people that were actually there was one of the most emotional things I have ever experienced.

We went back out to the Memorial to experience it at night.

They had to all but chase us at out 8PM closing that Monday night and it was time for Carter to use everything he had learned to get us home to Times Square, on the Subway.

Carter's most memorial thing about the 9/11 Museum? "Probably, the people in the plane that called their families, telling them that they had been hijacked."

 Day 3 in New York City - Mom attended the Working Mother WorkBeyond Summit and the Boys Visited the Statue of Liberty & The Hudson River.

Carter journaled, "I learned the entire history of the Statute of Liberty including how it was built and given to us from France. I even learned about the entire story of how the pedistool was built and constructed." My favorite fact about the Statue of Liberty and Ellis island: They told the designer to make the face uglier because it looked to good so he copied his mothers face."

That evening we all attended the Awards Gala and celebrated my awards afterwards with the best little gelato place close by called Amerino Gelato. That night, Carter wrote, "My favorite fun memories from this evening was being "John Patton" and my first Shirley Temple." My other favorites were either when I almost set the napkin on fire but mom was like “I think I smell something burning” and when my mom walked out to get her big award."

 Day 4 in New York City - We took an Uber at 6AM to Newark New Jersey for our 8AM direct flight home.

It had truly been such a fabulous and easy trip. I literally had not scheduled anything until about 5 days before we flew out. I think 2.5 FULL days/3 nights was absolutely a great amount of time to see a large part of the city for the first time. What a special and memorable trip it was!

Notes if/when we ever take girls: This short amount of time was good with young kids. Think about the Rocketts, get tickets a year in advance for crown of Statue of Liberty, boat tour I found, night court, go early to Today show, musical, M&M store, Carriage ride (maybe), bicycle cart ride, ice skating (maybe).

6 words Carter Would Describe New York City:
Giant
Tall
Subway
The city that never sleeps
Always day light
Island

And Carter brought back his 3 sister's these $4.00 famous NYC t-shirts.