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Reminder Assistant Editor When I finally reach the exit for the West Side Highway I know I'm almost home. You see I've got to be the luckiest 23-year-old I know. I've visited five continents, 19 countries and sailed around the world on a 100-day Semester at Sea voyage that changed my life, but nothing feels more like home to me than New York City. As I pull off of the West Side Highway and take a left onto 42nd Street I can hear the hustle and bustle already. The honking of the yellow taxicabs, the roar of the subways and the constant shuffle of New Yorkers clicking their latest fashionable heels on the sidewalks as they rush to make it to work on time. I quickly park my car in a reasonably priced $25-per-day-lot-reasonable for New York you must remember-on 42nd Street in order to avoid the traffic. That's one thing you never want to do if you can help it and that's drive into New York City. Sure, I don't mind, I used to do it all of the time when I lived in New York but riding the subways and walking the streets without the worry of your parking fees is always liberating. I take a right onto 7th Avenue and walk towards Penn Station, also Madison Square Garden to wait for my friend's train to arrive. As I sit on the steps of The Garden I people-watch. It's one of the best things to do in New York City. You'll see people of all shapes, sizes and ethnicities sporting their latest urban and 5th Avenue fashions, while they speak in all manor of languages on their cell phones. It's quite the enlightening experience. When my friend finally arrives we begin to walk around the city hitting many of the famous landmarks. Over the course of the day we walked over 100 blocks and that's the most fun thing for me, or any first-time visitor to do, just walk. We walked up to 42nd Street via 7th Avenue, past the 20-story Macy's, which is always amusing to get lost in on a cold day in Manhattan. The location takes up an entire city block and is home to the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, a lively and entertaining event to attend during a year with mild weather. Next, we walk to Times Square, a place that will make any first-time visitor wide-eyed with amazement, as there is just so much for the eyes to see. There's screaming fans on the street as they wait to catch a glimpse of their favorite celebrities in the Total Request Live (TRL) MTV Studios. The larger-than-life Toys R Us, a location that still thrills me to this day. A place where every floor has multiple themes like Candy Land, Jurassic Park with a life size animatronic T-Rex, and a Barbie Dream House. And let's not forget about the Ferris wheel inside. For $8 per person you can ride the Ferris wheel and I personally like to ride in the "Toy Story" car. Times Square is also the home of the Virgin Megastore, Hershey's, and the ESPN Zone, the latter of which you can watch live tapings from street level. And you can't forget about theater in New York City. The first Broadway musical my parents ever took me to was "Showboat" and I was hooked. The lights, the music, the dancing, it's an amazing spectacle that keeps you truly on the edge of your seat. Even musicals like "Beauty and the Beast" and "The Lion King" are great because they are entertaining for kids and adults. In Times Square you can also pick up a New York sightseeing bus, which I highly recommend for first-time visitors. Depending on the day and, which representative you talk to, for $40 per person you are bussed to all of the tourist highlights such as the Empire State Building, where you can see so many of the great sights on a clear day, to Central Park, the Theater District, the site of the World Trade Center and the Liberty Harbor Cruise, just to name a few. While walking towards Central Park from Times Square a thunderstorm hit. Luckily my friend and I were able to make it up to the Shops at Columbus Circle before getting too soaked. Here you can see the Trump International Hotel and Towers and one of the many gateways to Central Park. This park is quite frankly the only real green space in the city, with over 250 acres of mowed lawns. It's always relaxing on a warm afternoon to put out a blanket and read or take a stroll on the many walkways throughout the park. The next day, I met up with two more of my college friends, one of whom works for the Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met) for a day of visiting museums. They are both amazing and talented artists and true students of their craft. I highly recommend visiting museums with friends who have such a vast knowledge of the subject because when they took me to West 53rd Street to visit the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), I needed some explanations. We went to see the Richard Serra sculpture exhibition before it closes on Sept. 10. The exhibit is a retrospective of 40 years of his work and the pieces were astonishing. Many of the featured pieces were steel sculptures over 13 feet high, located on three different levels of the museum. My favorite piece was called "Sequence," which Serra created in 2006. This sculpture is over 12 feet high, and over 40 feet long. From above it looks like two sculptures of the letter "S" intertwined. I felt like a mouse in a labyrinth walking through this sculpture because it when you walked out you weren't sure if you had exited and entered through the same avenue. The MoMAs permanent collection was something that I found even more astounding than the enormity of Serra's sculptures. To stand in front of several of Picasso's works like "Demoiselles d'Avignon" and "Starry Night" by Vincent van Gough is certainly an emotional experience for me. Their works are raw with emotion and Picasso's use of violent brush strokes make the women he illustrated that much more extraordinary. The permanent collection was well worth the museum admission fee of $20. Next, we were off to Fifth Avenue to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This is my favorite museum that I have ever visited in the world, not only because of the artwork but also because of the extraordinary number of artifacts. We went to see the new multimillion dollar state-of-the-art Greek and Roman galleries that opened in April 2007. They're astonishing. Not just the pieces themselves but also the actual galleries. At the threshold to the new gallery is an Iconic marble column from 300 B.C. that greets the museum-goers. The new gallery is lined with columns giving the illusion that you are in a Greek temple. The upstairs gallery is complete with touch screens archiving 3,500 artifacts providing the viewer with more in-depth information about each piece. But what makes my $20 donation at The Met there is no official fee to enter the museum, only a suggested donation to the museum worth it is my favorite wing, the Egyptian Art. This is a wing with the most incredible artifacts like sarcophagi and even a temple. The Temple of Dendur was built in 15 B.C., along the Nile River and is a remarkable feet of ancient artistry as museum-goers are free to walk around the temple and even inside of it to get a better view of the hieroglyphics. Needless to say it would take weeks to walk through the Met but it is well worth a visit to any wing of the museum's permanent collection, which includes Arms and Armor, American Decorative Arts, Islamic Art, the Costume Institute, and Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas. Regardless of your time constraints you'll always find something that peaks your interest in New York. Whether it's museums, theater, taking in a Yankees game, climbing the Statue of Liberty, bartering in China Town or going to eat some of my favorite Italian food on Mulberry Street in Little Italy. No matter what age you're sure to have more fun than you can imagine in the Big Apple. For more information on New York City tourism go to www.nyctourist.com or www.nycvisit.com. To find more information about MoMA go to www.moma.org, or for more on the Metropolitan Museum of Art go to www.metmuseum.org. | ||||||
