Day 3: Empire State Building, Intrepid Museum and Top of the Rock
Empire State Building Lobby
I was up at 6.00am the following morning thanks to the time difference and travelling. I dragged Aidan out of bed around 8.00am, as I wanted to get to the Empire State Building as soon as possible, as I’d read it can get busy later in the day.
We were out of the hotel and walking towards the Empire State Building by 8.20am. One thing that I liked about the New York streets is that once you’ve got your head around the street and avenue numbering system, it’s very easy to find your way around.
We arrived at the Empire State Building around 8.40am, and went straight in. We found that most attractions in New York had security checkpoints, and this was no different, so we went through the x-ray machine and metal detector and there was no wait at all for the lifts, so we were straight up to the 86th floor and out onto the viewing deck.
Before we went up to the viewing deck, there was an interesting exhibition of the history of the building, which we spent a good few minutes looking at.
Luckily, today was another fine day with clear blue skies, so we had a great view of everything for miles around. When we first got up there and wanted to take photos, we were a bit worried about holding our cameras through the fencing in case we dropped them but we soon got over that and were snapping away.
It was really amazing the view from up there, you could see the whole of Manhattan, looking south right down to the Financial district and the Statue of Liberty, and looking north, right up Harlem in the north.
We spent a good 1 ½ hours up there, just taking in the view and taking lots and lots of pictures, it helped that it was a nice day, with very little breeze, so it was very comfortable up there.
I had bought a souvenir map which unfolded and showed a lot of the points of interest to the north / east / south /west, which came in useful.
Anyhow, after these 1 ½ hours, we decided it was time to move on, so we made our way down, stopping at the gift shop to buy a couple of presents for the family at home.
