Brooklyn. Harlem and the Bronx

Having lunch at Yankee Stadium at the Hard Rock Cafe.  

We bought a tour package, we got four hop on hop off tours, downtown, uptown, Brooklyn and Harlem as well as a boat tour which goes around but does not stop at the Statue of Liberty and Staten Island. The fellow selling it gave it to us for four days instead of two so we can take our time whch was nice. The weather is still overcast, foggy and drizzly so we took the up town and Harlem tour yesterday.  It certainly wasn't as spectacular as the downtown tour but there we're a lot of famous names bring thrown around.  We got to see the buildings where folks, like Alex Baldwin, Janet Jackson and Barbara  Striessan lived, the place where John Lennon was shot, etc. etc.

We stopped at Yankee Stadium and earlier in the day we hads cruised their web site and Barry discovered that the Blue Jays were in town on June 17th, so we stepped up to the wicket and bought tickets.  They are in the he nosebleed section along the foul ball line in right field, who cares, we have binoculars and the subway goes right there. Inside the Hard Rock Cafe there is all sorts of music memorabilia including this pic of Elton John and the actual outfit he wore.

Did you know that the cafe's collection started when Eric Clapton asked the restaurant if they would hang his guitar on the wall to mark his favourite spot, a week later a package came in the mail from Peter Townsend of the Who, it was his guitar and he said mine is as good as his?!!

We went across the East River into Brooklyn which is on Long Island. There were views of the Brooklyn Bridge but we didn't get a great shot

The Manhattan skyline from Brooklyn.  The new World Trade Center building is the tallest and just behind it you can see the Empire State Building, the pointy one with the green top is the Woolworth Bldg.

This is the home of the New York Knicks, the basketball team.  The building is made out of steel and it is brown because they have just let it go rusty.  Okay nice colour but we know about rust, how long will it take before bits start flaking off and will they then replace all the bits, what???

Brooklyn's answer to the Arc de Triomphe, I guess I won't have to go to Paris now!

This building is made of prefab apt.  They just stack them  up one on top of the other.  Love the colour.

This is an example of the housing in Harlem. To be fair we saw very little of this boarded up, trashed bldg. Apparently things are on the upswing in Harlem and it is becoming gentrified and the boundaries are being pushed back. Our guide did tell us where he thought it was safe but if we ventured out of those areas it would be better to take a local guide with us. We saw the building where Cassius Clay changed his name to Mohammed Ali and where Malcolm X had his headquarters.

We ended the day walking through Central Park.  Check out the signs on the road, there are two way walking and bicycle lanes and only one small car lane on the far side.