MY FINAL THOUGHTS...

        In the beginning of the class I was afraid on what to expect since it was on a Friday for seven hours. However, this class completely changed my mind of New York City, as not only did I learn new things but also got to experience them. I love how we got to interact constantly with the professors and the classmates, instead of just sitting in classroom learning about New York City. I am happy to say that my classmates and I had two great professors Mike and Meritta that really added to our experience of New York. I also created wonderful friendships with our classmates that I hope to continue keeping in contact with. Our New York Experience class made me realize the wonderful aspects of New York City and how privileged am I to live in such a great city. I can truly say I learned through experience about the wonderful city of New York and didn’t just read it from a book or study it for a class. I can see why New York City is one of the major attraction locations from people around the world. New York has so much to offer, everything from a melting pot of cultures, to it's history. I can truly say I am proud to be a New Yorker!

        Coming into the class I had zero knowledge on all the other boroughs of the city of New York. I was surprised that living in New York for 21 years I would know a good amount of information about this city, but the class proved me wrong. I can now truly say I experienced aspects of New York I have never learned or been to before and I left this class with wonderful memories. I definitely recommend this class to future students, since this class is important that we learn about the wonderful city we live in New York. Also, if it wasn’t for this class we wouldn’t of actually experience the Occupy Wall Street protest, and get to actually talk to protesters on their motivations for protesting. One of the experiences I will never forget is walking over the Brooklyn Bridge by foot and not by car, which I have never done before because of my fear of bridges but I am glad I accomplished it because it was such a beautiful and great experience. My favorite part of the class was being able to walk through the beautiful Central Park while viewing a spectacular sunset, and exploring Strawberry Fields and the passionate fans of John Lennon. I also loved our adventures around Chelsea, since Chelsea had so many places we could visit. I have never been to an actual gallery and I am glad I go to experience that because I love art. In addition, the museums brought me a great amount of information on art and having Don a talented artist and professor explain the different artworks we got to view.

        If it wasn’t for this class I wouldn’t have tried all the different cultural foods. I am a very picky eater and since I was in the city learning new things I thought hey why not try new food as well. I have never tried Thai food and I am not very big with Chinese food, but in the end it was extremely delicious food and I was glad I tried it out. I also learned a tremendous amount of information on different cultures and how some cities like Harlem have gone through gentrification and are not as bad as they use to be in the past. We also learned and experienced how immigrants lived in horrible conditions of the tenements in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Furthermore, I took this class because it brought my attention and sounded different from all the other courses in that we weren’t just sitting in a classroom. We explored a good amount of places and I never imagined learning so much information in such a small time frame of 7 weeks. I feel like I could now teach other students on the wonderful things and locations of New York City. I will try my best to continue exploring New York and enhance my knowledge about such a great city that I have been living in for the past 21 years.

DAY #7: LAST ADVENTURE AROUND IMMIGRANT NYC

        It was our last adventurous class, and we got to explore the different immigrant parts of the city. Our first stop was at the Essex Street Market, where we got to explore for a bit inside. As I walked around I saw all the different types of food and ingredients from a variety of different cultures, which really brought my attention. The Essex Street Market was built in 1940 to house pushcarts peddlers whom Mayor Fiorello La Guardia legislated off the streets, the market offers for all tastes, such as Latino, Jewish, and upscale urbanite (BG, 123). In addition, in the early years the Essex Street Market’s identity was shaped by the Lower East Side’s Jewish and Italian immigrants, who served as both the merchants and the customers.

        We later made our way to the Tenement Museum. I thought the Tenement Museum was the best part of the day because I learned so much about how early immigrants lived. The Tenement Museum preserves and interprets the history of immigration through the personal experiences of the generation of newcomers who settled in and built lives on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, known as the immigrant neighborhood. The Lower East Side of the city had the largest German community and different speaking languages in America. In addition, the museum was a former tenement that was founded in 1988, honoring the million of immigrants (BG, 122). Five apartments in the six-story Italianate brownstone have been restored to their 19th century appearance to recreate the experiences of the families who lived there (BG, 122). We got separated from other classmates and half of our classmates, including myself were in the Blue team. We headed with our tour instructor to 97 Orchard Street.

No. 97 is five short stories with basement, and designed to house 20 families, and was one of three adjoining tenements erected on the site of the former Orchard Street Church. I learned that 97 Orchard Street was build in 1863-1864 by Lucas Glockner, a German born tailor, and 97 Orchard Street is earliest form of tenement house constructed in New York. Also, the tenement was the first to be individually listed on the National of Historic Places by the United States Department of the Interior. As I listened to our tour guide explain about the tenements, I was shocked that tenements weren’t provided with light, heat, or plumbing, toilets, showers and the neighborhood did not have a sanitation system. I was also shocked at the fact that up to 3 families of 12 to 14 individuals lived in one single apartment in horrible conditions. Tenements were built to exploit all available space and maximize the return for the landlord, were one of the horrors of immigrant life (BG, 122).

Furthermore, we got to learn a little bit of information on the Moore Family, one of the families that lived in the tenements. Joseph and Bridget Moore were a family that migrated from Ireland from the years of 1869 to 1870. Almost every year, they moved to a different apartment on the Lower East Side, as their fortunes fell, rose, and fell again. Within two years of arriving in New York, they were living at 65 Mott Street in Five Points, among Irish, African-American, Chinese and other cultures. The Moore’s lived in horrible conditions, where they experienced the death of their daughter Agnes who dies of marasmus, the first of many losses the Moores would endure during their lives in New York.

        We later headed to the Tom and Jerry’s bar, where we learned about the NYC bar life while having a drink by an extremely talented girl named Ruby.

I admire how Ruby does a little bit of everything from dancing to a bartender at the Tom and Jerry’s bar. It was interesting to learn how she interacts with the customers and creates strong bonds with them; however at the end of their visit she has to charge them their bills. I thought the name Tom and Jerry was an association with my favorite cartoon, but it was named after the drink. After an interesting talk with Ruby and the NYC bar life, we headed to have our last class lunch together at the Congee Village. After filling our stomachs we headed on a tour around the areas of old and new Chinatown for an hour and a half.

Chinatown grew only slowly for centuries and although the China trade brought sailors and merchants from the Far East in the late 18th century, only about 150 Chinese had established residence a hundred years later (BG, 108). In addition, Andrew our guide explained how Chinatown had push carts that were horse drawn, which lead to horse manure and there were no street cleaners to clean the neighborhoods. Also, in 1882 the Chinese exclusion was passed and China became a bachelor’s society with 40 men to every 1 women. The Chinese Exclusion Act was passed by Congress and signed by President Chester A. Arthur. This act provided a 10 year suspension on Chinese labor immigration.

Also, the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad in 1869 brought a significant increase in Chinese population (BG, 108). We also got to explore the tongs of Chinatown. Chinatown’s tongs were neighborhood and business associations that were formed at the turn of the 20th century as immigrant aid societies (BG, 109). Our tour guide explained how tours of the neighborhood were given to high class rich people in order for them to learn the culture. We finally ended around five points and Canal Street, which was extremely sad that 7 weeks had all come to an end at this location. My classmates and I later headed to Red Lion on Bleecker Street were some of us celebrated our accomplishments. My classmates and I became so close throughout the class and I am we created these friendships and I hope to continue speaking to them in the future. I am extremely happy I took this class because I learned so much about New York City and explored places I have never been to in my 21 years of life.

DAY #6: LOWER MANHATTAN & CHELSEA

        As I headed to Penn Station I was a bit nervous and I didn’t know what to expect since Mike said we were headed to the Wall Street Protest. Before heading to Wall Street, we made a stop to Trinity Church.

Trinity Church is probably New York’s most famous house of worship, because of its dramatic setting (BG, 65). The first Trinity Church building consisted of a modest rectangular structure with a gambrel roof and small porch that was constructed in 1968. Also, the church is 79ft wide and 166ft long; its tower including the spire stands 281ft above the ground and for many years it was the highest point in Lower Manhattan (BG, 65). In front of Trinity Church was the root of a tree sculpture created by the falling towers of 9/11.
The tree itself was ripped out of the ground. The artist made a sculpture of the tree and made a large sculpture called Trinity Root to stand as a testament to life, humanity and the positive response to the catastrophe.

                               We later headed down to Wall Street and the Occupy Wall street protesters. Wall St is a short street, about a third of a mile long, which runs between Broadway and the East River (BG, 64). Wall St gets its name from a wall, erected in 1653 during Peter Stuyvesant’s tenure, which stretched river to river at the northern edge of the settlement, ostensibly to protect the Dutch town from its British neighbors (BG, 64).
Mike’s good friend from college gave us background information on what was going on and the reason why protesters are upset. He stated capitalist shift to working people and the poor. Also, I was surprised to hear that the protest was small until the police enforcement got pepper spray on some of the protesters.This made people angry and got more people to gather and protest and it continues to grow. He gave us statistics that I was extremely surprised about, he said the government states that the richest 1% of this country owns more than the bottom 95%, which means only that 1% own so much power. He also stated how 26 million people in this country are unemployed.

These statistics scare me because I will soon be graduating from college and I am afraid I will be in the pool of people who are unemployed due to our economy. My classmates and I got to speak to an extremely passionate protester who explained to us the meaning of banks. He said that usually the more people that give money for the bank the lower the fees. He stated that banks use 4% from our banks interest, which ends up losing the value of the money and people need to be protected from currency. He finished with saying how capitalism works and if you make mistakes in the market you end up failing. He was wearing a Capitalism is freedom shirt and suggested us to look for more information on the website.

        We then headed to the world trade center area and observed the construction and the new buildings in the area. The World Trade Center takes New York City’s skyline.

We got to go inside the World’s Financial Center, where I viewed the beautiful palm trees inside the building and the view of where the Twin Towers were located was extremely sad. The hub of Battery Park City is the World Financial Center, whose five towers were designed by the firm of Cesar Pelli between 1985 and 1988 (BG, 61). We made a quick stop to St Paul’s chapel which was an emotional tribute to 9/11. I couldn’t imagine how it felt watching this horrible memory from the towers falling right in front of the St Paul’s Chapel.

St Paul’s Chapel opened in 1766 as Manhattan’s oldest public building in continuous use and a place where George Washington worshiped and 9/11 recovery workers received round-the-clock-care. After the World Trade Center disaster, the chapel served both as a place of refuge for workers at Ground Zero and a temporary memorial for visitors, who attached messages and memorials to the fence in front of the church (BG, 77).

        After our exploration around the World Trade Center area we headed towards Chelsea. Our walk to Chelsea was long and exhausting, especially since many of us were hungry and I was wearing rain boots which was slowing me down because the weather out of nowhere warmed up. We made our first stop to the Poets House which is national poetry library and literary center that invited poets and the public to step into the living tradition of poetry. Our poetry resources and literary events document the wealth and diversity of modern poetry, and stimulate public dialogue on issue of poetry in culture. Our class got to sit down and relax to read some book in the Poet House.

We later walked through the piers of Chelsea to finally be able to grab something to eat. The original deep-water Chelsea Piers were designed by Warren & Wetmore; the architects of Grand Central Terminal, to accommodate the large transatlantic liners build around the turn of the 20th century (BG, 188). We got to get something to eat in the Meat Packing District. Our professors explained how The Meat Packing District in the 80’s and 90’s had a reputation of having drugs and prostitution and is now gentrified and developed. The meat packing industry remains and still gives the neighborhood its working class edge, it gentrified rapidly during the 1990’s with stylish bars and restaurants, high concept clothing and design stores, and art galleries spilling south from Chelsea (BG, 184). After finishing our lunch we head to the High Line.
The High Line was originally constructed in the 1930s, to lift dangerous freight trains off Manhattan’s streets. The High Line was built not directly over the avenue but mid-block, between buildings or right through them (BG, 188).

                                        Our last stop of the day was to the Chelsea art galleries. Like the Meat Packing District, Chelsea has undergone rapid change in the past decade, its western reaches transformed from an industrial neighborhood once blighted by both street level and elevated railroads to the city’s new Soho, its street enlivened by art galleries, which consists of more than 200 of them, and chic shops (BG, 186). We stopped at about 10 different art galleries, each one consisted of different art work, unique and very strange looking.

Art galleries are not only to be able to buy the art work but also analyze the meaning and hard work behind it. After exploring some of the different galleries it was time to head home. I was glad to be able to explore so many things in one day, and I can’t believe I learned so much in such little time, next Friday is our last class which is extremely upsetting.

DAY #5: OUR 2ND LOVELY VISIT TO THE EAST SIDE

        Our day started with exploring the streets of Spanish Harlem. I was a bit nervous because I really did not like our first trip to Harlem, but I knew it would be different. Our first stop was to El Museo del Barrio, which means the museum of the neighborhood in Spanish. El Museo del Barrio consists of Puerto Rican, Caribbean, and Latin American Art.
Also, El Museo was founded in 1969 by community activists, teachers, and artists, mainly Puerto Ricans (BG, 376). Our tour guide Megan explained how the museum used to be an orphanage before it became El Museo del Barrio. The building and the structure of the museum appeared to look like apartment buildings. The outside of the building had an interesting quote, “the artist learns to communicate. The public learns to make connections, stating how art work can teach people a great amount. The front of the building also had two figures of a bride and a groom skeleton that represented the celebration of El Dia de Los Muertos, which means the day of the dead in Spanish.

        We later had a working tour with Megan around the streets of Spanish Harlem. Megan demonstrated to have a great knowledge about the city and its history and I learned quite a good amount of information.We learned that Spanish Harlem is known to have a big immigration population because of the easy access of transportation, like trains, to get around to other parts in the city.

African- Americans make up most of the population in Harlem, however a large Puerto Rican and Latino population is in the area known as El Barrio or Spanish Harlem(BG, 437). Also, Spanish Harlem is going through gentrification, where they are beginning to have luxury complexes in these areas and not just condos and projects. The construction of the elevated transit to Harlem in the 1880s urbanized the area, leading to the construction of apartment building and brownstones. Harlem was first populated by German immigrants, but soon after Irish, Italian, and Eastern European Jewish immigrants began settling in Harlem. We also passed through amazing pieces of art works throughout our tour. I was impressed at the art of Manny Vega, who was an important figure to the Latin American culture created his artwork around the neighborhood.

Manny Vega for many years has been teaching visual arts for organizations such as El Museo del Barrio, Arts Connection, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, and the Caribbean Cultural Center. I was also amazed to the see the graffiti hall of fame, which started in the 1980s, where graffiti artists started their work located along the walls of a school. We later got back to El Museo Del Barrio where we got to explore the amazing and interesting pieces of art. I was upset that I wasn’t able to take pictures of the wonderful artwork in the museum, but I did learn a good amount.

        After our tour around Spanish Harlem, we had a lunch break, where I got to eat delicious Mexican food at El Paso. After lunch, we headed to the Museum of the City of New York. The Museum of the City of New York offers exhibitions that explore the city’s complex history from its early days as a Dutch colony to its present importance (BG, 376). In addition, The Museum of the City of New York was founded in 1923 as a private, nonprofit corporation; the Museum connects the past, present, and future of New York City. What I enjoyed about the museum was the lovely but sad exhibit to our former Twin Towers.

The museum provided a timeline from the beginning of the construction of the towers until the end. Several ongoing exhibits document the theater in New York and the city’s importance as a port; a 25-min film gives an overview of the city’s growth from its beginnings as a struggling settlement to the present (BG, 376). We got to watch the 25 minute video, which explained the landscape of New York City in the past until this day.

        After exploring the museum, it was time to explore Central Park. I was completely shocked when Mike told the class we were walking all of Central Park, which was about 100 blocks, I thought I was going to pass out, but made it in one piece. I loved to be able to walk through Central Park and analyze the beautiful sunset, the water and the buildings of New York City.

Central Park is the heartland of Manhattan, 843 acres set aside for the recreation of New Yorkers and visitors alike (BG, 279). About 25 million people visit the park each year, which takes a toll on the landscape and facilities (BG, 281). Central Park was brought by the City of New York in 1853, located between the City of New York and the village of Harlem. In 1857, the city of New York organized a competition for the design of the new park, which had competition with the beautiful parks in London and Paris.

Central Park’s landscape and scenery are man-made designs by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux (BG, 279). We finally then arrived to our destination of Strawberry Fields. Strawberry Fields is a 2.5 acre area near Central Park West, which honored John Lennon, the song writer, singer, and member of The Beatles, who was assassinated in the courtyard of the nearby Dakota Apartments in 1980 (BG, 290). Strawberry Fields was created to remember John Lennon’s life, talents and memory, on March 26, 1981, City Council Member Henry J. Stern named the area Strawberry Fields, which was named after the title of the Beatles song “Strawberry Fields Forever”.

We finally ended at 59th street, where most of my classmates, including myself took the train to 34th, while others continued to walk down to 34th street, most of us at this point were exhausted and just wanted to get home. Overall, I am proud of myself for doing all of that walking, and completing everything while at the same time learning amazing information.

DAY #4: THE WILD WESTSIDE

         As I arrived into Penn Station, I knew the weather was going to be great, unlike our last class of all the rain madness. We stepped out of Penn Station and walked through the wonderful street of Broadway onto Times Square. As we worked our way to Times Square, I noticed the different lanes for pedestrians, cars and bikes.

Since we were such a large group, most of us were walking on the bike lane where we almost got hit by a very upset guy on his bicycle. Professor Cullinan explained to us how the different lanes for pedestrians and bikes are still a sociological issue that people are still fighting for. Pedestrian zones are areas of a city or town reserved for pedestrian only use. Converting a street or an area to only pedestrians is called pedestrianisation. Arriving to Times Square Mike explained to the class how in the 1960’s to the 70’s Times Square was the center for drugs, prostitution and pornography.

Before 1904 Times Square, then known as Longacre Square, was dominated by horse exchanges, carriage factories, stables, and blacksmiths shops (BG, 217).

        From Times Square we headed towards Rockefeller Center, but first making a stop at the General Electric Building. I was amazed at the beautiful artwork inside the building.

The GE building is the first to be constructed at Rockefeller Center and is still the most famous (BG, 248). Also, the skyscraper is the headquarters of NBC studios and houses most of the network’s New York Studios, such as 6A, Saturday Night Live, operations of NBC News, and MSNBC. We then finally arrived to Rockefeller Center, which is my favorite place during Christmas time.

I love going to Rockefeller Center during Christmas time where the huge Christmas tree is placed and ice skating takes place. Rockefeller Center was named after John D. Rockefeller, Jr., who leased the space from Columbia University in 1928, and developed it from 1930.

        We later headed to our next spot, the Museum of Modern Art. In 1929, when modern art was not considered art at all in many quarters, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller and two wealthy, and socially committed friends, Lillie P. Bliss and Mary Quinn Sullivan, founded a small museum in rented space in what is now the Crown Building on Fifth Avenue near 57th St (BG, 260). I love going to museums of art, it reminds me of when I was in Spain. I was excited to see the different art works, and there was an advantage in that we had an excellent professor Don, who knows a great amount of information on modern art, and walked us through some pieces in detail. There was one art work that really caught my attention because of the colors and how it stood out as I observed it.

It is called Dynamic Hieroglyphic of the Bal Tabarin (1912) by Gino Severini. Gino Severini moved to Paris in 1906 where he studied the Impressionists, he was fascinated with Seurat’s paintings and met Signac. On February 11th, 1910 Gino Severini signed the Manifesto of Futurist Painting and became a co-founder of this style. The information provided in the museum stated that he pictures a woman with brown curls and a white, blue, and pink flounced dress as she dances to music in the Paris Nightclub Bal Tabarin. I believe the message behind the art work is amazing and extremely interesting. Overall, I loved being able to attend and experience all the art work in MOMA.

        After a long tour around the museum, we then headed to Yum Yum Bangkok to eat Thai food. I was a bit nervous on what to expect in Thai food, but I ended up getting things I really enjoyed eating.

I ordered the Thai salad and chicken with garlic sauce which was delicious and left me very full and satisfied in the end.

       We later made our way onto the train to explore the streets of Harlem. Harlem is a place that is going through a gentrification process. Harlem is the most famous center of African American life and culture in the US, African American blacks made up most of the population, though the area east of Park Avenue and north of 96th St, with a large Latino population (BG, 437).

After the American civil war, liberated African- Americans searched for a safe place to explore their new identities as free men and women, and they found Harlem. Housing executives planned to create neighborhoods in Harlem designed specifically for white workers who wanted to commute into the city. We got to pass through the Apollo Theater, which opened as Hurtig and Seamon’s New Burlesque Theatre, for whites only, when the neighborhood was white and largely German-Jewish (BG, 440). We later walked up the long flight of stairs through the Morning Side Park, which was quite a challenge and was exhausting afterwords. We later passed the beautiful Riverside Church, and headed to the General Grants National Memorial. The General Grant National Memorial overlooks the Hudson River from the Morningside Heights of Manhattan. General Grant National Memorial is the largest tomb in North America. Grant's Tomb is not only the final resting place of the General but a memorial to his life and accomplishments.

At the General Grants National Memorial, some classmates and I got to hang out for a bit with the fire fighters and sit inside the fire truck. We got to experience what it felt to be a New York fire fighter as we got on the truck! We later passed through the Columbia University campus. It was such a beautiful campus and we got to sit down on the steps and analyze the beautiful surroundings.

Columbia University was founded in 1754 as King’s College by royal charter of King George II of England. It is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York and the fifth oldest in the United States. Furthermore, we ended at the beautiful St Johns the Divine Cathedral. Unfortunately, the church was closed and we didn't get to explore the inside of the church, but the outside of the church was absolutely amazing, and I could imagine how beautiful the inside would appear.

DAY #3: A RAINY ADVENTURE AROUND THE EASTSIDE

       As I arrived to Penn Station, I knew it would be a long, rainy, and gloomy day. I prepared before class and brought clothes indicated for the weather we were expecting. Our first stop was The Metropolitan Museum of Art located on 5th Avenue. It was quite an experience walking to the Metropolitan Museum under the heavy rain, and entering the museum covered in mud and rain.

       The Metropolitan Museum of Art, usually called The Met, is the largest, most comprehensive art museum in the world (BG, 326). The Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded in 1870 by a group of American citizens, who wanted to create a museum to bring art and art education to the American people. The Metropolitan’s paintings collection began in 1870, and 174 paintings in all, came to the museum.

The Metropolitan Museum contains everything from Greek, Egyptian to Medieval Art etc. As we explored the museum, we focused a great amount on the contemporary art in the upper floors of the museum where professor Don had great knowledge on the different works of art. I am not interested in contemporary art because I do not understand the meaning behind the different works of art.

However, in the end its art and the time put into the work is amazing. Contemporary art has to do with the feelings of the artist, and the message the work of art provides, which is pretty interesting on that aspect. Some of the artists we observed at the museum were Morris Louis, Mark Rothko, Andy Warhol, Chuck Close and many more. I didn’t seem to understand Mark Rothko’s piece called No.3, Oil on canvas. It seemed to have perfect straight lines, and squares that were colored perfectly in different colors with a blue background.

The message behind his art work as specified at the museum, represented the height and width of a human standing with arms, and created what he called “doors” and “windows’ in different colors. Mark Rothko was born on September 25, 1903 and died on February 25, 1970. He was American painter whose works introduced contemplative introspection into the melodramatic post- World War II Abstract Expressionist School and his use of colour as the sole means of expression led to the development of Colour Field Painting.

       After exploring the museum a bit, we later had an hour to explore the museum on our own. The most interesting part of the museum to me was the section of The Medieval and Byzantine, and The Egyptian Art.

The collection of ancient Egyptian Art at the Metropolitan Museum ranks among the finest outside Cairo. It consists of approximately 36,000 objects of artistic, historical and cultural importance, from the Paleolithic to the Roman period. In the Medieval Arts section the work was created from the 4th to early 16th century, roughly from the time of the fall of Rome to the beginning of the Renaissance (BG, 340). In addition, the information provided about The Byzantine Egyptian Gallery was extremely interesting.
It specified that the gallery is carved from the space between the great brick arches and walls that support the Museum’s Grand Staircase.Furthermore, the lightning in the gallery is dimmed in order to protect the old textiles on display.

       We later had a change of plans due to the weather. Unfortunately, we headed to Grand Central Terminal, instead of going to Central Park. I was upset that we didn’t have a chance to explore Central Park, and the beautiful Boat Pond as well as the sites associated with John Lennon. However, we had the opportunity to explore Grand Central Terminal.
Grand Central remains one of the world’s greatest railroad stations, and an enduring symbol of the city (BG, 228). Also, the Grand Central Terminal was constructed of glass and steel, the 100 foot wide by 650 foot long structure rivaled the Eiffel Tower and Crystal Palace for primary as the most dramatic engineering achievement of the 19th century. We also had lunch at Grand Central Terminal due to extreme weather we were encountering.

       Our next stop was the New York Public Library. The New York Public Library is officially the Humanities and Social Sciences Library, one of the libraries four major research facilities, world famous for its collections and much admired for the architecture of its building (BG, 207). I was amazed at the architecture of the library and the elegancy of my surroundings. I felt studious after sitting down in the main reading room in complete silence while I took down some notes and observed others completing their work.

       To end our rainy adventurous day, we walked through 5th Avenue a very upscale street. We passed the St. Patrick’s Cathedral, down to the Peninsula Hotel, then to the Tiffany store, and ended at FAO Schwartz.

FAO Schwartz was the highlight of my day, since it made me feel like I was a kid again. It brought back childhood memories of when I was excited to enter FAO Schwartz, and I will continue to have the same reaction until this day. It was a nice feeling looking around for toys, and playing the piano with my feet. Although the rough circumstances of the weather that didn’t stop us, I learned quite a good amount of information about the East Side of the City, and had a great time as well.