Brooklyn Bridge / Central Park
Our 11th Wedding Anniversary | Walking Across the Brooklyn Bridge & Through Central Park | July 2024
We woke up in our hotel and after breakfast, packed our bags, checked out, and hit the town again. It was promising to be even warmer than the day before so we wanted an early start. We had most of the day to see more of the city before our afternoon ride back North. And fortunately, our friend from high school happened to be free that morning to meet up. Doubly fortunately, he lives in Brooklyn which gives a grand excuse to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge and bag that county (we would have done it anyway, but an excuse is an excuse).
The Brooklyn Bridge ends pretty close to our hotel so we were on our way, taking our time and trying our hardest to not look like tourists while absolutely being tourists. Fortunately, the pedestrian bridge wasn’t too busy and we enjoyed more views of the Manhattan and Brooklyn skylines. On the Brooklyn side of the bridge, we missed the staircase down to the waterfront – or rather we thought the stairs led somewhere we didn’t want to go – and ended up making a big loop through central Brooklyn back down to the piers and waterfront where we met up with Gabe.
We spent the morning catching up, talking and walking along the waterfront. Lots of the old piers had been converted into parks and gardens and it was pleasantly green. Our conversation spanned a variety of topics but mostly revolved around Gabe’s life in the city and the interesting social and structural engineering that goes into keeping the city running. We ended up grabbing ice cream from a stand and then walking back into Brooklyn proper where Gabe showed us the entrance to the Subway and we said our goodbyes. Until next time!
While it would have been fun to walk back across the Bridge and through Manhattan down different streets, that would have been 5+ miles and, for how much I talk about urban transportation, we couldn’t not take the subway. We took the subway all the way up to near Central Park which was significantly closer to Grand Central Station. We wandered through Central Park admiring the skyline around us, and seeing all the different activities people get up to here, in this large green space in the middle of the city. We passed through the zoo (but didn’t actually visit) and eventually made it to the Balto Statue – basically the only thing we really know about the park (and the most iconic spot, in Jess’ opinion). We then looped around the park some more, passing other statuaries then started the walk back to the train station.
Along the way we passed 30 Rock and the NBC studios which was having a big kickoff event for the Paris Olympics. We made a feigned attempt at finding an I<3NY T-shirt to be obnoxious, but balked at the prices and so finished our walk back at Grand Central Station – which honestly is one of the most difficult buildings to get into or out of. We grabbed a late lunch to go from one of the kiosks and then were whisked away from the city. We had to transfer to a bus halfway through because of some track maintenance, but that was alright with us.
And before we knew it we were back in the Berkshires far from the hustle and bustle of the city. And honestly, we didn’t hate it. Walking and public transportation are the way to go and when we return (because we still have one more NYC county, plus all of Long Island and the NJ side of the Hudson…) it’ll probably be via train. We were thankful for the chance to take this trip and to have a completely new-to-us experience to celebrate our anniversary!
