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NYC for The World Science Festival

I got to go! The World Science Festival is usually on the same weekend as the Squam Art Workshops, so I hadn’t been able to make it in the past. My life is normally about Nerd Fun without enough art and creativity so I will always pick SAW over the WSF if lucky enough to have the choice. Here are my photos of the trip, I’ll do another post with details on the WSF events that we attended. Took AMTRAK, pretty relaxing so long as the train stays on the rails. Shot and edited with my iPhone5, fun shots of Queens on the way into town.

AMTRAK in NYC
Queens from the train
Queens

We showed up in NYC for the first weekend of the invasion of Citibike. We hemmed and hawed about using the bikes to get around the city all weekend. We are accustomed to seeing this sorta thing in Boston already, and thought it might be fun. We walked around Midtown and Times Square, visited the International Center for Photography (does no one take museum worthy photographs when they’re happy? whole? away from warzones? not bleeding? just gimme just one happy picture??), visited a friend who works in the city… all while thinking about going in for Citibikes. The ICP is near the lovely Bryant Park where we saw four fellas playing Pétanque (kinda like Bocce) AND, there was a girl, maybe 10 years old, doing tumbling runs on the grass, cartwheels, back-flips, all sorts of gymnastic awesomeness… didn’t take a picture, since it was a girl and this IS the internet, I mean, duh. But, wow, she was fantastic.

Still tho, Citibike? do we or don’t we? After pricing bike helmets knowing we each had helmets at home that we didn’t pack to take with us, we decided to get a two day pass for a hop-on-hop-off tour instead… more photo opportunities, more witty tour guide commentary, and more cool air (it was in the 90s and humid).

NYC Bus ride on a hot day.

I took a vertical panorama Times Square from the bus.

Vertical panorama from the bus

The Empire State Building from the bus.

vertical panorama with the Empire State Building

City shots … from the bus.

City Shot from the bus
City Shot from the bus

Eataly.

Eataly

Marimekko over Madison Sq as seen from the bus.

Marimekko over Madison Sq as seen from the bus.
city street panorama

We hopped off the bus at Battery Park with the intent of going directly to the Skyscraper Museum. Now, Aram and I are pretty lucky in the stuff we happen upon. And by lucky, perhaps I mean intrigued by a lot of what we find, where maybe other people don’t give a damn. So then we found this: The National Museum of the American Indian, which is an offshoot of the Smithsonian Museum in Washington that we didn’t get to see when we were there last…in we went. So worth it.

Not to mention the building itself, Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House, is lovely to visit.

The National Museum of the American Indian
Skyscraper Museum

And inside World Trade Center area … the Freedom Tower is almost complete. The memorial is such a beautiful design

Freedom Tower
Memorial at the World Trade Center NYC
World Trade Center Memorial

beautifully done

World Trade Center Memorial
Woolworth Building Ceiling
Vertical Panorama of the Freedom Tower

After the WSF talk that night we checked out this insideout project in Times Square. Showed up for its last night, right before midnight. Stationed ourselves on the red TKTS stairs and watched the crown for a reaction.

Inside Out Project Times Square
Inside Out Project Times Square
Times Square for the Inside Out Project

People kinda didn’t notice.

Images Changing in Times Square for the Inside Out Project
Inside Out Project Times Square

And so we watched the Statue of Liberty shake down tourists for $5.

Statue of Liberty shaking down tourists for $5
Times Square is perfect for these vertical panoramas.
Times Square
Spiderman telling a Danish woman that he couldn’t really hang upside down from the post.
Batman with Chewy and Ironman
Times Square Vertical Panorama
The Woolworth Building
Ad for the Fung Wah bus (it’s shut down now, no?)

Over the Manhattan Bridge

Manhattan Bridge entrance in black and white

Going to Brooklyn over the Manhattan Bridge on the top level of a double decker bus is no problem. Coming back there’s no apparent railing, cable, fence, gate, protection of any sort that I could tell to keep tourists from plummeting from great heights into the East River. I spent the trip back over the bridge petrified, but trying to recall seeing any news stories about tourists getting dumped into the river… couldn’t think of anything… so I just focused on Manhattan Island and the guy in front of me… who also schooched his way towards the center aisle after he looked over the edge.
Glad I got a lot of shots on the way out of Manhattan ‘cuz I didn’t get any on the way back in, even if only for the fear of loosing grip of my smartphone.

Loved this building, btw. Reminds me of e.e. waveforms.
And here’s a few more shots from around NYU and Washington Square while we were coming and going from the WSF events.
Detail on the “bow” of the Flat Iron building.
The last thing we did was see Alan Cumming in MacBeth… he played all the parts in the play by himself, including the three witches, and it is a travesty that he wasn’t even nominated for a Tony. He was crazy awesome (literally). Most of the rest of the time was at the WSF lectures, which will be a separate post. ’til the next adventure…

2 thoughts on “NYC for The World Science Festival

  1. Looks like you had a great time, harrowing bus ride notwithstanding.

  2. fantastic pics Heather!

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