My New York City Photo Blog Tour

Posted by Asher Fergusson on Oct 16, 2011 in Blog, Featured | 14 comments

On Friday September 30th, I woke at 3:30am to get ready to drive to the airport with two friends Narayana and Joey. We decided to go to New York City for 6 days largely because I’d never been there and also because I had some frequent flyer miles to burn. Plus we have a good friend, Austin, who has a nice apartment we could crash in. There were no issues with the flight and I was surprised how short the journey was, only 1 hour and 40 minutes from Chicago. By the time we arrived at the West Village apartment it was definitely past lunch time so we called a friend Trevor and found a fantastic little Thai restaurant with exquisite food for $8.

Soon after the meal Joey went with Trevor to stay with him at his place in Brooklyn while Narayana and I spent the night in Manhattan. The next morning we caught a bus which was hours late to Connecticut to visit Austin and his family at their home. It was very pleasant to be amongst the amazingly fluoro green forests.

Click on any photo below to ENLARGE.

We were experimenting with motion blur and Austin decided to stand in the picture and almost be hit by an SUV.

I tried a new effect I discovered where you use a flash in low light and then twirl your camera after the flash goes off. It works quite well, eh?

This lily was in the garden.

We had a great time at Austin’s house, hanging out with Anjuli and Matt (his sister and her boyfriend). On the Sunday afternoon we went to nice little lake nearby and went swimming and boating.

Testing the waters. I was the first to jump in because it was surprisingly warm.

The boat ride was very nice except I started feeling cold – maybe the water wasn’t so warm after all.

The Connecticut sky was beautiful that day.

That night we caught a bus back to New York City. The following day we met up with Trevor, Joe, Joey, Supriya, and Jeremy. Monday night (what you see in this pic) we went to Chinatown for some real authentic Chinese food.

Here is the street view on one of the corner’s in Chinatown.

It was a nice little restaurant that only had Chinese people in it. They welcomed us warmed but barely spoke English so it was interesting.

I was playing around with reflections because there were so many mirrors in the restaurant.

The food was fantastic once again. That was really one of the highlights of New York City – the FOOD! We used the website Yelp to help us find restaurants that were affordable with good reviews and I can honestly say every meal was absolutely delicious.

Here is Joe counting the money for the bill I think it was about $100 for 8 people – cheap!

New York typical night scene.

We caught endless trains to get around Manhattan. I concluded they are like teleportation devices because you simply walk down some stairs and a few minutes later when you walk back up the stairs your in a different country or at least a completely different neighborhood with a distinctly different feeling.

We finished the night at Magnolia Bakery on Bleecker St that had the best cupcakes I had ever had. Austin got a free one because he stuck his hand out first…

Another train blurring by.

Austin’s apartment was really nice and we’re very thankful for him inviting us over.

On the Tuesday we had a touristy day where we had to check out Times Square.

There were plenty of flashing lights and huge billboards everywhere.

We came across Hotel Eric Carter.

Almost at the main strip of Times Square – it kind of reminded me of the street scenes of the movie Blade Runner.

I think this picture of Times Square encapsulates what it’s like.

A stretch limo pulls through the intersection probably transporting a celebrity. Which reminds me, I passed the pop star, Pink, in the West Village near Austin’s apartment on Monday. There were like 9 paparazzi shooting away like there was no tomorrow. And actually that was something I noticed in New York City – there are an unusually high proportion of extremely beautiful people there. I don’t know why but maybe because they are trying to make it big and New York is certainly is the place for that. Any thoughts?

Here I am at Times Square, New York City to prove I was actually there.

Narayana wanted me to take this photo of him with the NASDAQ symbol behind him. I think it suits him, don’t you?

More outrageously large flashing billboards. On these streets there were lots of dudes outside stores and clubs hustling to get us to go to some comedy show or something. We just kept walking and then their standard line was “where are you from?”. Jeremy said “have you heard of Russia?” while we kept walking. The guy then said, “is that where you’re from?” We didn’t answer and kept walking and then he said, “I’ll meet you on Jersey shore.” Quite funny.

Just north of Times Square is Central Park which is literally breath of fresh air and a God send that they’ve at least kept some nature.

As soon as I saw this hotel I thought of Home Alone 2 where he stays at this Hotel Plaza and racks up a huge bill on his dad’s credit card. It also made me think of the homeless lady who saved him from the bad guys. Quite a beautiful scene.

In that little lake were gigantic fish! We concluded that the competition is so high in New York City that even the fish are the cream of the crop.

Our next destination on this day was the David Lynch Foundation New York City Headquarters. The elevator surprised me when I noticed there was no 13th floor! Crazy. I hate to break it to them but the 14th floor is actually the 13th floor. I found out that practically all buildings in the city are like this.

The David Lynch Foundation offices were very nice and they welcomed us and gave us chocolates.

We came in when they were in the middle of conference calls. Here is Heather Hartnett, Supriya Vidic and Austin Ayer. Austin and Heather work for the foundation and Supriya is interning there.

Another subway, another teleportation excursion.

The destination this time was ITALY or “little Italy“. We wanted to sample some authentic Italian food and had some sublime fresh homemade pasta – bellissimo!

One of the joys of living in America – you can practically buy a gun anywhere. This shop seemed quite fancy.

Joey has some Italian ancestors and in this photograph he looks rather Italian don’t you think?

Here is a NYPD cop talking to the restaurant owner. They talked for a long time, who knows what about?

We went to the fashion district SoHo and stopped by the newish brand UniQlo. I was impressed by the quality and the prices.

I bought an ultra light down jacket for $79. It only weighs 7 ounces or 200 grams and is super warm. Plus it folds into a little pouch that you can fit in your pocket! Score.

SoHo, New York City.

I was perplexed to see this Chinese man carrying two huge trash bags in the Asian style. Quite a sight and symbolic of the diversity of culture in the city. Did you know there are as many as 800 languages spoken in New York City?!

Another blurry train – I guess I got obsessed with taking a picture of every train I could.

We went to a comedy show at UCB East that was titled something like “Gene Hackman and Friends.”

It turned out that Gene Hackman had nothing to do with the show but that was a way to get us to come. Joe, Joey and Narayana were called on the stage to impersonate lines from different movies. They each got a crappy gift. It was an okay show with some really hilarious acts but mostly it was mediocre.

We stopped by a German bar where they were singing songs for Octoberfest – quite amusing.

Last but not least, we had a great a time and started wearing fancy clothes and didn’t want to leave. If you haven’t been to New York City I highly recommend it. It seems like this city is really a world city with so much influence on fashion, media, finance and education etc it can be totally mind boggling and addictive. I will go back there for sure.

I welcome your comments.

~Peace