USA 45 Days by Rail: Day 30 - Walking on the High Line

This day marked the first month of my trip, exactly 30 days ago I departed from Los Angeles. Actually it didn’t feel as that one month had passed but as it seems times goes much faster if one enjoys it. The sixth day in New York started a bit cloudy and I wasn’t first sure whether I should rather spent it in a museum. Nevertheless, after setting up a work related meeting for the next day I headed down to the 207^th Street station in order to get the A train all the way down to 34^th Street / Penn Station. The station was really packed even though rush hour was kind of over. I passed through the station in order to get to Madison Square Garden, my first destination for the day. I took some pictures of the main entrance on 7^th Avenue but that was basically it, there wasn’t much more to see. At least the sun had come out so I decided to spend this day with visiting different landmarks I wanted to photograph. My second destination was the High Line. A good friend of mine who spent the past year on a Fulbright scholarship at NYU had given me this tip. I took the E train from Penn Station down to 23^rd Street and walked a few blocks to 10^th Avenue where I could enter the High Line. The High Line is a former elevated railroad line that was converted into a walk, ranging all the way from 34^th Street down to about 14^th Street. The High Line provides very interesting views on the west side of New York and many interesting buildings. It also features nice little gardens and seating / resting areas. A really beautiful place which I can only highly recommend to visit. I followed the path all the way up to 34^th Street enjoying many great views while taking countless pictures. From the end of the walk on 34^th I got on the bus 34 that took me to Lexington Avenue where I had lunch. After lunch I walked back on 34^th Street approaching the Empire State building, while taking pictures of the building from different angles. Even though New York has a lot of great modern architecture, still I totally love this iconic monument of Art Deco. I was tempted to go up to the observation platform but I had been there 5 years ago and I didn’t want to spend half a day standing in line. Also the ticket price had risen significantly. After taking more pictures of the building from all sides I got back on the subway on 6^th Avenue, this time taking the R train. I went two stops until 23^rd Street. There was the next building I wanted to see, the Flatirion Building. Unfortunately, the sun was standing in a bad angle and I wasn’t able to get any good shots. Still I took quite an amount of pictures of the square right in front with the Empire State Building in the background. I left the Flatirion Building for another time and took the bus 23 that took me back to the High Line. This time I took the other half of the path from 23^rd Street down town towards 14^th Street. Again I couldn’t stop taking pictures, the path just opened up so many great views of New York City and the surrounding buildings. The path ended at the New Whitney Museum which I didn’t visit because it was closing soon and I wanted to be sure to have enough time in order to see the entire collection. Instead I continued my walk passing through the Meat Packing District. I had a little rest there and got myself some lemon ice cream which was really refreshing on this hot day. On 8 Avenue and 14^th Street I got again on the subway. I took the L train to 6 Avenue and transferred from there to the Q train that took me all the way up to 57^th Street. There I visited the last landmark for the day, the Carnegie Hall. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to enter the building as there were no guided tours between July and September which I think is strange as this is the main tourist season. All I could do was admiring the building from outside. Rush hour had started and I didn’t want to get into the middle of it. Instead I got myself something to drink and walked the short distance to Central Park where I took a little rest. Before going back to the subway I went quickly to buy a new USB stick in order to back up my pictures. So far I had taken more than 4,000 pictures during this trip and my 32 GB memory card was full. Finally I got the A train from 59^th Street station that took me straight back to 207^th Street. I spent most of the evening with backing up pictures and preparing a little bit for next day’s meeting.