Justine and I love going to New York City. There’s so many great things to do, so many cool places to go, and we’ve had some great trips over the years. And of course, we got engaged in New York, so there’s that memory that will always be very special. We had a busy long weekend planned, and both of us needed to get away and detach from work for a bit. As it was Halloween and the Marathon weekend, we had lots to do!
The entrance to our hotel - the Moxy Chelsea
The trouble with going to the east coast is the loss of the day - especially at vacation time. So as much as I hate doing it, I booked us a redeye from Vancouver to New York on Wednesday night, getting us in early Thursday (Halloween) morning. To make it a bit easier, I booked us business class on the longer flight, and I think we were both able to sleep a little bit on the way over. It was about 7:00 a.m. when we arrived, and so by the time we collected our baggage, made our way to the train, took the train from Newark into Manhattan and walked the couple of blocks from Penn Station to our hotel, it was about 9:30 a.m.
We were staying midtown at a new hotel - the Moxy Chelsea. It looked pretty funky, and I thought we’d give it a try. It has a very nice rooftop bar, which we wanted to check out as well. Luckily, they had a room for us (which we regretted later), and were able to check in right away. After getting settled in, we had a quick nap for a couple of hours to get ourselves sorted. It was a good decision, made easier by the fact that it was pouring rain, so exploring wasn’t the best option anyway.
We got back up around lunch time, and the rain had subsided, so we went out for a bit of a walk. Our neighborhood was very interesting - the “Flower District” and the street our hotel was on (W28th) was all flower stores. That was pretty interesting. We were also close to the Empire State Building, the Flatiron Building and an easy walk to a bunch of our regular haunts.
After getting back up, we headed out to find some lunch. We headed over to the Shake Shack in Madison Square Park, and had a quick lunch, sitting outside in the park, now that the rain had stopped. We had a chicken burger and a beer and enjoyed the clearing weather.
A view of the Empire State Building from Madison Square Park
From there, we wandered south a few blocks to Union Square and did some shopping. I always manage to find shoes I like in New York, and this trip was no exception. Justine found some things as well, so we’ll call ti a success. After wrapping that up, we walked over to Chelsea Market for happy hour oysters! This has become something of a tradition for us. Last time, we overdid it a bit, and both of us were off oysters for a while. As it was Halloween, and heading into evening, the kids were starting to come out, and Chelsea Market it seems is a good target for trick or treating - there were kids everywhere!
Halloween jack-o'-lanterns on display in Chelsea Market
Cool jack-o'-lanterns in Chelsea Market
They had a lot going on - great jack-o'-lanterns; lots of spooky decorations, people dressed up (some on stilts) and all the stores and restaurants were fully into the spirit of it. It was fun. We went to our usual fish restaurant and got a spot at the bar just as happy hour was starting. Our timing was great, and the place filled up fast after we arrived.
Round #1!
Round #2!
Our seat at the oyster bar
Justine about to dig in.
We were at the bar for a little more than an hour, then spent a bit of time wandering the Market, checking out some of the other stores. It was fun, but it wa also time for us to head back to the hotel to drop our stuff off, and get ready for the evening.
We had chosen this weekend to come to New York for a number of reasons - we love New York in the fall; it was Halloween; and it was the New York City Marathon weekend. All of these things have different levels of meaning to each of us, and many great memories from previous years wrapped up in them. But if you’ve never seen it - Halloween in New York is crazy-fun!
So we headed back up town, and then quickly turned around and headed back downtown to get a spot along the parade route. The New York City Halloween Parade is something else. New York's Village Halloween Parade is an annual holiday parade and street pageant presented on the night of every Halloween in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan. The Village Halloween Parade, initiated in 1973 by Greenwich Village puppeteer and mask maker Ralph Lee, is the world's largest Halloween parade and the only nighttime parade in New York City. The parade reports itself to have 50,000 "costumed participants" and 2 million spectators. Including the Mayor and Governor of New York. The official route on Sixth Avenue from Spring Street to 16th Street, all within Manhattan, is 1.4 miles long (the distance from the gathering spot on Sixth Avenue from Canal Street to Spring Street adds another 0.2 miles). The parade usually starts at 7 PM New York time and lasts for about two to three hours.
This gives you a sense of how packed the parade route was - 5-10 people deep on both sides, for over 1.4 miles. Pretty amazing.
The costumes and floats in the parade were very impressive. The sheer scale of some, and the variety and sheer elaborateness of some were spectacular. The rain had ended (other than a few drops here and there), but I doubt it would have dampened the spirit of the people in the parade. It was an incredible site to see.
I took way too many photos to possibly share. Sadly most of them were not very good, with the tough lighting conditions. Still a few turned out OK - more below if you want to flip through them.
I’m not sure if we made it through the full parade - I think we did, but it lasted way longer than I expected. Some of those people put a huge amount of effort into the costumes. It was very cool. We hadn’t had dinner,a nd at this point it must have been close to 10:00. Our original thought was to go up to the Blind Tiger Ale House, on Bleecker Street. We had discovered Blind Tiger on the last trip, but sadly it was packed, so we had to move on. Instead, we walked over to 7th Ave, and found this great Italian restaurant, where we ended up with a table right at the window looking onto 7th. This gave us a great view of all the people leaving the parade in full costume. We had some great food, and watched the craziness go by. It was a fun night.
From there, we caught the subway and headed back up to the hotel to call it a night. It had been a busy, but fun first day in New York! My original plan had been to do this as one big post, but I don’t think I’m going to get through it all. More to come in the next installment(s).