Tuesday, May 30th New York City
During our transatlantic crossing we met a nice German lady on several occasions; once she sat next to us at dinner and on a couple of occasions, we sat adjacent to each other for breakfast. She told a funny story about how her grapefruit knife had been confiscated during the embarkation process, after complaining the staff agreed to provide her the knife at breakfast each morning and then she returned it after she’d used it. This same lady happened to mention to us that she would be touring the United Nations building while she was in New York, and we thought this was a great idea. After a bit of research, I was able to buy tickets online and this morning we took the short walk from our hotel down towards the east river and the United Nations building.
The guard at the tourist entrance to the UN directed us across the street to the security office; we noticed an enormous line of people snaking its way along the street and around the building – we couldn’t believe this was the line for the tour group we had been assigned to. It turns out the line was not for our group – it was a special group who were attended a UN council meeting for people of African descent, the majority of the attendees were in traditional African garments – I suppose this should have indicated they were not in our group. The African line was completely obscuring the little tourist security office and when we finally fought our way through there were only about half a dozen people in the line. Note it is necessary to arrive an hour before your tour time this is to allow for the ID checking and badge issuing.
Returning across the street we made our way through another security checkpoint, much like you’d see at an airport, and onto the UN concourse. To the north of the concourse were beautiful lawns with impressive statues, there were also a few peace related statues on the concourse itself. This side of the building was entirely made from glass windows four stories high, and we entered through a small door into a large open lobby area. It was still about half an hour until our appointed tour time, so we wandered around the lobby looking at the various displays. In the basement we found the gift shop and café, we also came across a group of kids with Angolan heritage who were attending the council meeting – they were more than happy to pose in their striking outfits.
The guide for our group was a young gentleman from Japan who patiently explained the various missions of the UN as we progressed from area to area. At one point we found ourselves outside the UN Security Council meeting room while the council was in session debating the situation in Ukraine. We got to visit several of the large council meeting rooms, including the General Assembly – where the African people were having their meeting. It’s hard not to be in awe of what the UN has done and continues to try to do, from peace missions to humanitarian aid. The interior of the building is very modern, in a 1960’s kind of way with large open spaces and a quiet background hum of bureaucracy. Well worth a visit.
Our afternoon was spent wandering through the northern half of Central Park (the bit north of The Met), we’d never visited this section of the park before and found it to be delightful. It was a beautiful day with bright sunshine and virtually no wind when the Uber dropped us at the corner of 5th Avenue and W 100th Street. Entering the park we made our way along the side of a small lake, being careful to avoid the Canada Goose poop strewn along the footpath. Soon we were in the North Meadow with its baseball fields, then it was passed the tennis courts and on to the large Jaqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir which dominates the north end of the park. The new-style ultra-skinny skyscrapers could be seen to the south, I’ve heard that each floor is a single apartment – the views must be magnificent.
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