Our second day in New York was spent wandering the High Line, and followed up with an evening at the New York City craft Beer Festival. Lots of walking and a fun night at one of our favourite spots.

When we checked in to our hotel, it seemed to good to be true that we were able to get a room so early in the day. Friday morning it quickly became clear why that was so - there was no way anyone should have been staying in that room. Right next to us, they were renovating the room, and started construction at 6:00 in the morning! Needless to ay, we complained and were moved straight away - up a few floor, but into a room with a slightly worse view. But better that than dealing with construction noises. And we ended up with a couple of vouchers for breakfast, which worked out well.

One of the many fun pics from the Highline

After breakfast, we headed out for a walk. The weather had improved considerably, and it was a cool, but sunny day. Our plan was to head over to the Highline, and walk the park down to the south end. It’s become a bit of a tradition for us, when we’re in New York. As we headed over to the start on 34th Street, we made a quick stop at the newest landmark in New York, “The Vessel”. Vessel is a 16-story, 150-foot-high structure of connected staircases between the buildings of Hudson Yards, located in the 5-acre Hudson Yards Public Square. Designed by Thomas Heatherwick, Vessel has 154 flights, 2,500 steps, and 80 landings that stretch from its 50-foot-wide (15 m) base to its 150-foot-wide (46 m) apex (making it as tall as it is wide at its apex), with the total length of the stairs exceeding 1 mile (1.6 km). Stephen Ross, the CEO of Hudson Yards' developer Related Companies, said that its unusual shape was intended to make the structure stand out like a "12-month Christmas tree." The copper-clad steps, arranged like a jungle gym can hold 1,000 people at a time. Heatherwick said that he intends visitors to climb and explore the structure as if it were a jungle gym. At the top of the structure, visitors can see the Hudson River.

A view of the Vessel. We didn’t book tickets to go up - next time.

Reflections in one of the copper surfaces.

Hudson Yards is a real estate development in the Chelsea and Hudson Yards neighborhoods of west Manhattan. It is the largest private real estate development in the United States by area, worth over $25B. Upon completion, 13 of the 16 planned structures on the West Side of Midtown South would sit on a platform built over the West Side Yard, a storage yard for Long Island Rail Road trains. The first of its two phases, started in 2012 and opened in 2019, comprises a public green space and eight structures that contain residences, a hotel, office buildings, a mall, and a cultural facility. The second phase, on which construction has not started yet, will include residential space, an office building, and a school. It’s amazing what’s gone up in just 7 years.

After exploring the Vessel and a bit of the Hudson Yards area, we headed over to the start of the Highline, on West 34th Street. To recap, for those that have missed it in the past, the High Line is a 1.45-mile-long (2.33 km) elevated linear park, greenway and rail trail created on a former New York Central Railroad spur on the west side of Manhattan in New York City. The abandoned spur has been redesigned as a "living system" drawing from multiple disciplines which include landscape architecture, urban design, and ecology. Since opening in 2009, the High Line has become an icon of contemporary landscape architecture.

The park is built on a disused, southern viaduct section of the New York Central Railroad line known as the West Side Line. Originating in the Lower West Side of Manhattan, the park runs from Gansevoort Street – three blocks below 14th Street, in the Meatpacking District – through Chelsea to the northern edge of the West Side Yard on 34th Street near the Javits Center. The West Side Line formerly extended south to a railroad terminal at Spring Street, just north of Canal Street, and north to 35th Street at the site of the Javits Center.

The park is probably my favorite thing in New York, and we visit it every time we come. Sadly, every time we come it seems to be more and more busy, and on this sunny fall day it was jammed to the point of being annoying.

Still, we persevered, and had a nice walk along the length of the park, stopping here and there to take some pictures.

The start of our walk along the Highline.

A look back at Hudson Yards and the Vessel from the Highline.

One of the many sculptures along the Highline. This one is on the new “Spur” that recently opened.

They combine art and gardens well in the park.

As we were walking along the Highline, a cruise ship went by along the Hudson River.

Part way down, towards the south end of the park, we noticed some strange construction happening out on the water at the piers. They were building something interesting, but it was hard to tell what it was.

It’s hard to tell what this is going to be.

When I got home, I did some digging and found out that it’s a development called “Little Island at Pier 55” - they’re building a new island that will be a new park out on the river. You should watch the video on the attached link - it’s going to be pretty amazing when it’s done. You just have to love New York!

After walking the Highline, we stopped at the Brass Monkey, one of our favorite pubs for some lunch. It was good as always - they were serving a pumpkin beer, but the glass was rimmed with a combination of sugar and cinnamon - quite delicious!

After having some lunch, we took the subway back north and headed over to Central Park. It was such a beautiful day, and we had time before we needed to get ready for our evening event. We got out of the subway near the Museum of Natural History, and made our way onto the tree-lines paths.

One of my favourite pics from the weekend.

There are so many interesting things to see.

We walked around the park for quite a while. The colour of the trees in the late autumn afternoon light was amazing, and I could have spent the whole afternoon there, taking pictures and walking about.

After wandering the park for a while, we headed back down to the hotel to get set for our evening out. One of the other events that was on this weekend was the New York Craft Beer Festival. On one of our previous trips, this same event had been on (without our prior knowledge) and we kind of stumbled across it. We had a great time, and have since been on the mailing list for the event. This year, it happened to be the same weekend as Halloween, so it was another reason for us to come.

Before heading out, we took a quick trip up to the rooftop bar to check things out. It was already busy at 5:30, and the views of the Empire State Building and the city skyline were amazing.

The view out the window from the rooftop bar of our hotel

The sun was setting, so it was time to head to the Beer Festival!

As you might expect, it’s a whole bunch of breweries, all providing samples of their wares. We ordered the “VIP” tickets, which let us into the event a couple of hours before the general public. I’m not s big fan of crowds, and this seemed like good value for the bit of extra money. When we arrived, it was fairly quiet, but it filled in quickly, and got really busy. The beer was OK - nothing extraordinary that I couldn’t find in Vancouver, but there was lots of good stuff, and the atmosphere was lively with people maintaining the Halloween spirit.

After the Beer Festival (well after we were done with it - it went on much longer than we could stay for), we headed up onto the Highline for a little bit, until it closed around 10:00 p.m. We then went intot he very interesting market called “Little Spain” before getting on the subway and heading up to another of our favourite bars, 3 Monkeys (not to be confused with the lunch spot). We had some food, a few more drinks and then called it a (very fun) night.