Visit to Times Square

Watch Times Square Live

It was sunday and we were resting at the apartment. The weather was sunny, no wind, a perfect day to move out. We planned to go to Times Square in evening few before hours sunset and will hang around for few hours after sunset.
The crowd and light at Times Square reminded me of Las Vegas, Champs-Elysees Paris or Trafalgar Square in London, Nariman Point Mumbai. It seemed whole city has came on the street. If you visit this place regularly you will not miss crowd of India. Aryan was moving around on stroller but was lost in the crowd so I took him on my shoulder and now he was happy seeing everyone from top of my head while Nimisha carryied empty stroller.
Lines of movie theatre, musical halls were tempting but then Aryan troubles so much that I can't even think of watching movies in a hall. Shops and streets were glittering with neon light advertisements as if giving competition to Las Vegas. Infact to put Times Square on world map, there is an order from government to have all shops on the street with bright neon lights.

One of the fascinating thing was Rickshaw which you would normally not find in big cities. Hey, our Kolkatta have one of those Rickshaws too. There were Rickshaw in which group of people can sit and each of them can paddle and it moves around on the street. Sound interesting isn't it?

Rickshaw at Times Square

When people go to Times Square, they don't forgets to take snap of famous NASDAQ signs.

NASADAQ

Sit in one the nearby restaurants have coffee watch stocks moving up and down.

Stock Tickers

Cinema Hall

Ad. of Yahoo

For all those rowdies there is NYPD on the centre of road. Watch it before you think weird.

New York Police Department (NYPD)

Times Square
Times Square Information Center
Crowd at Times Square
On the way we crossed huge Virgin Records, giant Hersheys stores - Never thought even a choclate company will have such a huge office. Then visited mother of all store Toys R Us - it's a huge store for kids having wheel ride for the kids, model of dinosaur moving its head and growling, spiderman climbing on Empire state building. I bet once Aryan grows up it will be difficult to exit from that store without buying a toy. I wish someday we had this giant kid store in India too.

This is a happening place on New Year Eve when millions of people gathers on this street to watch waterford crystal ball being lowered from the top of a building when clocks ticks 12. When you have such a famous street then film directors can't forget to catch it their camera. We have scenes of Times Square in Home Alone 2, Spider Man, King Kong movie.

Visit to Brooklyn Bridge

After paying visit to WTC site and Wall street we walked towards Brooklyn Bridge. One of the longest suspension bridge in early days connecting Newyork City boroughs of Manhattan with Brooklyn.

The bridge was crowded on weekends with people strolling, cycling, running with pet dogs having wonderful view of Manhattan. On the right side at the entrance was Pace University and on the left side bit far away there were residential building which I believe was china town. There was separate lane at lower level for vehicles and the cars were zooming. Aryan was quiet happy watching cars moving at great speed from the top.

Brooklyn bridge came to limelight when it was used as escape route on 9/11 when WTC station was damaged and trains were cancelled. This Bridge has been featured in number of movies and two movies which I remember is "Godzilla" and "Deep Impact".

We strolled for hours, ate butter peanut almonds which we bought on the way, took some snaps and as wind started blowing in the evening it was time to go back home.

Watch live Brooklyn Bridge - Image gets updated every 10 seconds

Nimisha at entrance of Brooklyn Bridge

Another Bridge

Pace University

Brooklyn Bridge from distance

Nimisha with Aryan at Brooklyn Bridge

Nimisha with Aryan hidden in Stroller at Brooklyn Bridge

Nimisha at Brooklyn Bridge

Cars running on the Brooklyn Bridge

Myself with Aryan in Stroller at Brooklyn Bridge

Visit to Wall Street

After spending considerable time at WTC site, it was time to move around the financial district of US. I often hear about Wall street and when you have world famous business journal "Wall Street Journal" associated with then it adds to your curiosity. May be I came with very high expectation and it didn't matched with what I had thought, it didn't sounded very impressive to me.
Wall street was a narrow street, a kind of street which is rare in big cities. Infact, I crossed one old building when Nimisha pointed look it's "American Stock Exchange" which was another disappointment. It looked like a old building which has been neglected.

American Stock Exchange

After few more blocks we crossed Charging Bull, a bronze sclupture of Bull also known as Wall street bull. The sculpture depicts a bull, the symbol of aggressive financial optimism and prosperity, leaning back on its haunches and with its head lowered as if ready to charge.

Vishwa Mohan with Charging Bull

Nimisha with Charging Bull

Few more blocks we reached Wall street, and there it was much awaited New york Stock Exchange. There were security and an area was surrounded by barricades and there was a big US flag hoisted in the building. Just outside the stock exchange there was a statue of George Washinton, the first president of US. The street was too narrow to take complete snap of the building.

George Washington

US Flag flying at New york Stock Exchange

New york stock Exchange



Though when you refer Wall street, it refers to a street having all big financial institutions. But it seems now lot of financial firms are no longer headquartered at Wall Street or may be after 9/11 firms are getting de-centralized. Infact all big names in the industry are located in Manhattan, Long Island, Hudson Valley or in New Jersey. So when someone says a "Wall Street company" today does not necessarily mean that the company is physically located on Wall Street

HSBC

Citibank

Bank of America

Brown Brothers Harriman

Trinity Church visible from Wall Street

As this street is on world map so films on this street will also be not behind. "Godzilla" movie has few scenes located on this street.
It was real fun visiting financial district of US and a long cherished dream came true.

Visit to WTC

It was bright sunny day and the fiest weekend in NY so we thought let's start the tour of NY from the famous WTC site. We boarded the PATH train from Newport to WTC station and it was 15-20 min journey and all the while I was thinking how would the site look alike?
The suspense was over and we changed elevators at each of the three levels to finally reach the street level. There was a big crowd gathered just outside the WTC station taking snaps of the site. There were silent protests and people explaining the conspiracy theory behind 9/11 but it didn't looked very convincing to me.

WTC station was also damaged during the attack and it has been renovated. Outside the station there are photographs of tragic incident and how people fought back. There was a snap of a guy who was showing a poster of O+ - He was looking forward to donate the blood. There was another snap showing a person displaying poster - A room available for those who are lost. Those snaps were very touching and it showed how NY helped each other durin tough times.

Outside WTC station - A board listing events on that fateful day 9/11.

In memory of those who were killed, there was a board listing names of all the people who were killed.

Board listing people who were killed in 9/11

If WTC existed, this building would have been dwarfed and would not have been visible from the street. Between this building and the station there existed WTC site.

Building behind the WTC

Photographs at WTC site

People have not lost heart and still have the courage to build under sky rise building at that site. The Freedom tower is under construction and currently work on basement is going on. The Freedom tower will be 1,776 ft (541 mt) and WTC was 1,727 ft (526.3 mt) so this is going to even taller than WTC . That height has been choosen as reference to the year of American Independence.

Construction site for Freedom Tower

Outside WTC subway

Proposed Freedom Tower

After seeing the area of construction site, I can just think of the size of building they had.

WTC statistics

It was constructed during 1966-73 and was 110 storey and had 198 elevators.

After long tour of WTC site we moved to Wall street which was 5 min. walk from there.

Stay at Marbella

Trip to Newyork

This is the third official trip in eight months. Now I am going to New york (NY) on a two week assignment. As Nimisha and Aryan have never been to NY so they too joined me on the trip. We started our journey on 4th March through Amtrak train from Baltimore to Newark (NJ) penn station. It was two hour journey and Aryan kept us busy through out the trip and by the time we completed our snacks we almost reached Newark. Then we caught a NJ subway to Grove street and then boarded PATH from Grove Street to Newport/Pavonia.

Newport/Pavonia station

I can see ray of smile on Nimisha's face after leaving Baltimore. As soon as we got down from the train we saw a billboard having Shahrukh Khan advertisement of KBC3. Though sunday but subway was crowded and crowds of people moving here and there and this reminded me of early days in Mumbai.

Marbella Apartment

We had out guest house accommodation in Marbella apartment, a 40 storey high rise luxury apartment. The apartment was 5 min. walk from Newport station and was located on Jersey's city Hudson river waterfront. We had got apartment on 27th floor and what a wonderful view, whole NY city was clearly visible and gave a good landscape view of Manhattan. The apartment had all luxuries of party room, business center, conference room, swimming pool (closed in winter) and there was bus in morning which used to take us to Newport station. Though station was nearby but it was too cold and windy to venture out.

Newport Mall in night

Newport is located at wonderful location and have numerous malls (Shoprite, JC Penny, MACY, Target and Newport Centre Mall) for shopping. Newport centre mall has lot of good shops, movie theatre and food court and we spended good time over there. With good location comes the price, this is too expensive to live with rentals from our pocket.

I had a pleasant stay in Marbella apartment and I hope, I come back again and may be on 40th floor to have better view of NY city.

Aryan's first Birthday

Snap for the cake order. This photograph was created on the cake with cream

Birthday boy getting ready

Birthday boy ready for the show.

Birthday boy not comfortable with new leather shoes and socks. Dad puts the shoes, beta throws the shoes next minute. Finally dad gets tired and leaves him without the shoes.

Birthday boy waiting for the guest

Birthday boy watching decorations

Birthday cake

Aryan cutting the cake

Myself feeding the cake to Aryan

Nimisha feeding the cake to Aryan

Aryan playing with Birthday toys

On arriving NY, we started working on invitees, menu, venu, party items and return gifts. It was itself a project considering NY was a new location, wasn't sure of availability of friends, didn't had clue of indian stores and restaurants, weather was bad and I was having a tough time at work.

The first thing we zeroed was the venue. We requested for club room in Marbella apartment but their management had changed their policy of not giving the club room for parties so we finally decided to celebrate from our own apartment itself.

I digged through address book and found out all my school, college, TCS and iflex friends around NY/NJ area and sent the invitation a week before to book their calendar for Friday evening. It was not possible to cook for around 20 people so we started searching for Indian restaurants. With the help of my friend Jyothi, I got the link of few good indian stores/restaurants at Journal Square. We visited few restaurants and sorted out few based on menu and price.

Now it was time to buy party goods, order a cake and buy return gifts. Fortunately Shoprite near Marbella Apartment served our purpose for party goods and cake. KB toys in Pavonia Mall was an idea shop for kid's toys.

Then came 14th and just two more days to go. We went to Shoprite for cake order and there were few cake designs in their catalogue.We selected two Micky Mouse theme but the other cake which was on display (someone had ordered it) caught our attention. The baby photograph was displayd on the cake. I was curious whether the cake had just the snap at the top or it's made of cream and do we need to remove it or we can eat as it is. The bakery guys clarified we just need to provide a digital photograph and they will embed the snap on the top with eating paper (we can eat as it is).

We came back next day on 15th March, Nimisha finally ordered a pineapple vanilla cake which will have Aryan snap at the top. This was unique theme which I really liked it. The preparation was in full swing when it started raining in the evening. I was bit worried if it rains tommorrow how Nimisha is going to bring food from Journal Square along with Aryan in stroller. 16th was my last day in assignment so I wasn't sure when will I come home so it was left for Nimisha to manage it. In night I got call from my friend Jyothi that there is going to be 8 inch snow in NY tommorrow. At that time I thought let's see what happens tommorrow and then will take a call.

On 16th morning when I got up and saw outside my fuse blowed, the while city was covered with 6 inch snow and it was snowing heavily. We discussed few moments what to do, on one side we had already done the preparation and on the other side people will face problem coming from far off places. Finally we decided to postpone it for saturday afternoon. I wasn't sure whether it will still snow till saturday so I just played the card. I immediately shooted a mail explaining the situation and inviting everyone for saturday afternoon.On the way, I called all the invitees and explained the situation, apologized and re-invited for saturday afternoon. It was my last day in office and had lot of work and I was already late for office so I hurriedly went to office leaving all tension to Nimisha.

It was really difficult to venture out to Indian restaurants to get food and she took a wise decision of cooking dishes in the home itself. On 16th evening while my way back to apartment from office, I saw the chaos in NY city due to snow. It was snowing heavily, water everywhere, crowd running hapzardly, trains running late and I thought good that I postponed it. I finally reached home, a bit disappointed with gloomy weather. Aryan's first B'day and we were packed at home. I checked saturday's weather at weather.com and it seems it was going to be rainy in the morning and cloudy in the evening. This remined me of Aryan's Namankaran ceremony at Bangalore. We had planned for party on 14th April at Bangalore and just three days before Rajkumar expired and the whole town got crazy and all shops was closed and the city virtually stopped. People started moving only on 14th April and we had numerous task pending at our end. It was very hectic day for us and lot of people didn't turned up due to this.

On 17th morning, when we got up there was a ray of smile. The snow had stopped but was still cloudy.Roads and pavements were cleared to the extent that atleast vehicles and people can move round. I called Indian restaurant guys till 9:30 AM but no response, it seems they were closed. We took a decision we will cook everything at home and rest we will have readymade food for snacks and ice cream for dessert. There was another couple in the guest house Arul-Brinda and Aditya who were really kind enough to come for our rescue. Brinda joined Nimisha in the kitchen and Arul had four years of B'day celebration experience with his son. He helped me in decorating banners and balloons and Aditya kept Aryan busy with his toys. Without them it would had been difficult to manage. Finally we did completed everything by 1 PM. Fortunately guest started arriving only after 1 PM.

Few friends of mine took efforts amidst rough weather and went extra miles to join the celebration for which I really appreciate. Once we had sizeable number of guests we planned for cake cutting. Sometimes however you plan something do go miss. In our apartment we had heater and used to burn by switching knobs so no matchsticks. Nimisha tried burning candle on heater but it didn't worked so we asked everyone if someone smokes and have lighter but no luck. Then one of the guys burned a paper on heater and using that we lighted the candle. Aryan was bit confused why everyone is surrounding cake and looking at him. He too glanced at everyone and then pounced at the cake but then we were alert and we pushed him back.Finally Nimisha helped him to blow the candle, cut the cake and then everyone sang "Happy Birthday". We had collected few B'day songs and had thought to play through out the B'day party but it slipped from our mind. Both me and Nimisha fed him with the cake and he happily ate it.

It was already 2 PM and was time for the foodies so we served cake, baby potato cutlets ,chicked nuggets and beverages as snacks. Then we had main course as Puri, Chole, Pulao, Dal makhani, Chicken curry, icecream. People enjoyed cuisines made by Nimisha and Brinda. But since less number of people turned up there were lot of items which were left out and will have to be stuffed for next two days.

Few people left immediately and few close friends stayed till evening and we gossiped of college days. It was day well spent but I just wish weather be nice to us next time.