May 29, 2007 at 1:21 AM
NEW YORK - This morning we took an exploratory stroll up Broadway, where we discovered at least eight Starbucks between our base camp at the Hilton New York and Juilliard, where I'll be attending the Starling-DeLay Symposium on Violin Studies this week. Eight Starbucks... that's eight green pins for the mental map. It also means probably another 12 non-Starbuckian coffee stores lie around corners and in-between; a good coffee quotient for my eternal search for the best vanilla latte on the planet.Soon we arrived at the Lincoln Center fountain.
"Can I have the camera?" said Brian.
He peered through the lens, aiming it up and then down. He backed up, then moved forward. He knelt down, stood up, tilted the camera this way and that.
"Take the picture already!" I said. After a few minutes his sister Natalie repeated my plea, and soon Robert joined in as well. But he was too involved to listen to any of us. He kept taking pictures.
After the lengthy Lincoln Center fountain photo shoot, we rounded the corner to find the Juilliard School very much under construction:
Now that I could put Juilliard on my mental map, we headed back toward Central Park, stopping for lunch at Whole Foods at the Time-Warner Center.
At Central Park, the kids climbed rocks:
Then they played on the playground, rode the carousel and managed to get us to buy them ice cream bars.
My children are seeing New York for the first time, and it definitely is spinning their world view, which has thus far been shaped by the sprawl of Los Angeles and the expansive nature of the western United States. The density of population, close proximity of so many towering buildings and intensity of cultural collision gave my daughter a kind of ADD feeling.
"Every time I walk out onto the sidewalk here, I totally lose my concentration," said Natalie, 9. "It's like I don't have any attention span any more. Why is that?"
Brian just thought it was BIG.
"I feel so small," he said, craning to see the point where a certain Manhattan building meets the sky. "I can't tell which buildings are taller than which!"
Hard to size up a place like Manhattan!
Hmmmmm....I thought you gave up lattes a long time ago.
It's true, I've given up lattes hundreds of times. Then, in a cranky state of half-slumber, I always go back to old Joe!
Thank you so much for sharing these pictures as well as your story. Travel is always good for the soul.
Sam
http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=4027285
As for the music scene, don't forget that Carnegie Hall is just ~1/2 mile southeast from Lincoln Center...
_Man_
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