New York, New York: Part 3

Tuesday

We started Tuesday with a big breakfast at the Tick Tock Diner, next to our hotel, which kept us going until 5pm! We then went our separate ways, Tim on a one hour tour of Madison Square Garden, Megan some more shopping!

Madison Square Garden was brilliant. It is the home to the New York Knicks basketball team and the New York Rangers ice hockey team, but it has also hosted some of boxing's biggest fights, including the "fight of the century" Ali v Frazier in 1971 and their re-match in 1973, and concerts by anyone who is anyone (Elvis, Queen, U2, the Rolling Stones, Elton John, Billy Joel, Led Zeppelin, Frank Sinatra, etc and so on).

Interestingly, MSG is unique throughout the world in that all four of the Beatles have played there, but never together as a group, all as individuals. John Lennon appeared at the Garden along with Elton John in what was to be his last ever performance before he was shot dead. Elton John holds the record for the most number of individual concerts performed at the Garden with 60 and Billy Joel holds the record for the most consecutive performances, with 13 in 13 straight days.

The Garden has also been used for political conferences, dog shows, religious ceremonies (including a visit from Pope John Paul), musicals, and athletics. Carl Lewis broke his own world indoor long jump record by a staggering 9 inches at MSG, with a jump of around 28 feet (that's 9 metres!!!).

Tim visited the locker rooms of the NY Knicks and the NY Rangers and got a look inside a corporate suite, but the highlight of the tour was going courtside of the main arena (capacity 20,000), where all of the sport and concerts take place. It was pretty amazing to be standing in the arena where so many massive names in sport (Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky, Carl Lewis, Muhammed Ali, Joe Frazier, George Foreman) as well as all of the artists named above, have performed.

They explained how they make the ice for the ice hockey matches (which involves five layers of water vapour and a special paint that freezes well) and how they then lay the individual wooden planks for the basketball court on top of the ice like a jigsaw puzzle when the Knicks are playing. Sometimes they have to convert the arena from an ice rink to a basketball court in a matter of 2-3 hours when matches fall on the same day.

Megan gave her credit card another hiding at Macys and several other stores before we met up and headed for Grand Central Station. The station really was beautiful (see photos below). We walked up some more of 5th Avenue on our way to the Rockerfellar Centre. The Rockerfellar Centre was a bit of a mystery to us, we had heard it was one of the attractions, but we didn't know what it was! There is an observation deck at the top of a very tall building, which we by-passed, as we had already done the Empire State building. However, there is a beautiful little garden / courtyard area, which during winter is converted to an ice rink! However what we found was the summer version: bars and cafes. We sat down for a beer and watched the crazy NY world go by. We also checked out the collection of shops and the food court under the Rockerfellar building. Very nice.

On our way back to the hotel, we wandered down 7th Avenue and stumbled across Hershey's World and M&M World. Both such fanciful lands! We bought some mini peanut butter cups and Hershey's Kisses at Hershey's World and then checked out M&M World, where Megan met a new friend (see below)!

We got changed for the baseball and caught a train out to the Bronx early, so we could visit Yankee Tavern, a couple of blocks from the stadium. Yankee Tavern was great, and we would recommend anyone going to a game at the stadium, to go to the tavern first. We had a couple of beers and some dinner there (buffalo wings and cheeseburgers), which was all very cheap. We also had a great waitress who just thought our accents were the funniest thing ever. So we were generous with our tips there! Once at the stadium, we visited the official Yankees store, where Tim bought a Derek Jeter bobblehead figurine. We got some photos outside the main entrance and then headed in.

The New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox share one of the greatest rivalries in sport, stretching back around 90 years. This season the Red Sox hold a pretty solid lead in the American League east division, so this game was important for the Yankees to win, to close the gap. The stadium was pretty much sold out, with around 60,000 fans. The atmosphere was great, plenty of chanting, and the match was really tough, with the Yankees eventually winning 5-3. The highlights were Derek Jeter hitting a home run (he doesn't hit a lot of home runs, so it was pretty special to see one live!) and when the Yankees closing pitcher, Mariano Rivera came on in the final innings and completely shut out the Red Sox, with 2 strike outs, to ensure the win. Once again we were amongst celebrities, with both Cameron Diaz and Tiger Woods in the crowd.
After another beer at the Yankees Tavern, which our waitress gave us for free, we headed back to Manhattan and stopped in at the Tick Tock Diner for a late night ice cream sundae. The perfect end to our holiday!






Madison Square
Garden










Main arena
in MSG











Grand Central
Station



















Rockerfellar
Building















Rockerfellar
Centre













Megan and
friend











M&M World














Yankee
Stadium










































60,000 odd
fans
























Derek
Jeter











Closing
pitcher
Mariano
Rivera












Final score
Yankees 5-3