New York: Day 6

Monday was again a tourist day, albeit not nearly as busy as the previous week. After a refreshing night’s sleep I continued my touristy ways by visiting the United Nations headquarters at 42nd Street and 1st Avenue.

I took the one-hour tour that is the only way visitors are permitted to enter the various halls, and while it was impressive to actually sit in the General Assembly Hall and the Security Council Chamber, I didn’t learn much more about the UN than I already knew. They did have some fabulous gifts from member nations on display and a moving exhibit on the immense destructive power of the atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Other exhibits documented the UN’s peacekeeping efforts around the world and activities of the various world organizations under its umbrella. And as a bonus, I finally was able to get a good photograph of the Chrysler Building from inside the UN.

I then headed west on the M42 cross-town bus to Pier 86 on 12th Avenue to see the Intrepid aircraft carrier that now houses the Sea-Air-Space Museum, only to discover that the museum is closed on Mondays in the winter season.

Cursing myself for forgetting that all-important fact (I had made a note of it while planning my trip), I headed back towards Times Square to visit Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum on 42nd and Broadway.

While it is more expensive than any of the other attractions, I thoroughly enjoyed the hour or so I spent there, walking through a celebrity party “hosted” by Ru Paul and “attended” by anybody who was anybody, from Julia Roberts to Tony Bennett, then a room full of famous political and artistic figures and through to an excellent display of popular cultural icons like Madonna and Michael Jordan. Along the way I discovered that Salma Hayek is absolutely the perfect height for me, which just about made my day and week and decade!

The statues were so lifelike I could have sworn I saw a couple of them move while I was walking around the exhibit. In fact, on one occasion a lady was standing so completely still in front of a statue of John F. Kennedy that for a brief embarrassing second (until she blinked) I was honestly unsure if she was part of the exhibit or not!

The Empire State Building at 34th Street and 5th Avenue was next, but there’s nothing really spectacular about this one (especially if you hate waiting in line) if you’ve been up the John Hancock or Sears Tower in Chicago, or the Gateway Arch in St. Louis or any tall structure in other cities. It was a hazy day too, which meant that the Statue of Liberty and points south were practically invisible, so after spending the obligatory five minutes walking around the observation deck I proceeded on to the B&H photography store at 34th Street and 9th Avenue, which is reputed to the largest of its kind in North America.

The store is absolutely fantastic – huge floor area to begin with, and an even larger warehouse in the basement, and all the employees are extremely knowledgeable, able to immediately tell you the specs on any make or model of any type of camera you could care to mention. While I went there to pick some photographic paraphernalia for a friend, I ended up buying a great camera case that fits the 270 mm Vivitar zoom lens on my Minolta X700 as if it was custom-made.

But the really mind-blowing thing about the store is its delivery system. When you make a purchase or want to look at a particular camera, all the salesperson does is punch it up on the computer. In a matter of seconds, a robotic manipulator down in the basement picks up the equipment from a shelf, drops it in a basket, which then rides up a chute onto a system of conveyor belts that run all over the ceiling of the main floor and sends the requested item to the appropriate counter. The entire process is automated and works so efficiently and beautifully it gladdened the engineer in me.

Finally done with all that I had time for, I headed to the subway station to take the train uptown, but not before I squeezed in a quick shot of Madison Square Garden at 33rd Street and 7th Avenue.