Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Category: United States

2022 US Trip – Day 7 (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts – Chloe)
I accept that I did say that I had finished writing about the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, but I forgot this sculpture outside. But this will be the last post…..

Chloe was cast in one piece, which is in itself quite staggering given that it’s 24 feet in height, designed by the Spanish artist Jaume Plensa (1955-). It’s designed to always have a calm expression from whichever angle it is viewed from, giving the onlooker a feeling of peace and tranquility. Plensa is also the designer of the Crown Fountain in Chicago, which I might go and visit if I remember. The artist and the gallery gave great thought on where to place the artwork, settling on this spot as having the best light and location. Its size certainly makes it noticeable and at least it’s clear what it is, not some odd piece of rock which is meant to represent something that it looks nothing like.
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October 3, 2022
2022 US Trip – Day 6 (Moynihan Train Hall at Penn Station)

I’ve departed from Penn station in New York on Amtrak services before, but this is the first time that I’ve used Moynihan Train Hall, which opened at the beginning of 2021. I can’t say that I expected a great deal from the project, but any money put into rail in the United States should be applauded.

Arriving just one hour early and so cutting it fine (for me) my service was the 125 to Newport News, although I was only going as far as Richmond.

Now, I think this is bloody lovely. This was the James A Farley building which was a Post Office, but requirements change and it’s now Amtrak’s main facility for the city. It’s named after Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a politician who had championed this idea for some time.

From a different angle, but I very much like all that brightness flooding onto the concourse.

So much colour and so much clarity.

A plan of the railway station, with the platforms below ground, then the main concourse and then there’s a floor above which is partly still used as a Post Office.

The luggage carousel where they’ve made something of a feature wall of the station’s history. Note the quote from Moynihan which reads:

“In the old time, you arrived at Pennsylvania Station at the train platform. You went up the stairs to heaven. Make that Manhattan. And we shall have to again. Praise all”.

And the people of New York do have it all again, the destruction of everything above the platform level at Pennsylvania Station was a disaster, but this Amtrak station has clearly rectified many of the wrongs. This is a good time to requote Vincent Scurry as it’s in the same vein:

“One entered the city like a god; one scuttles in now like a rat”.

There’s a lovely waiting area at the rear, with everything being clearly signed.

And here it is, although you have to show your train ticket to get in. Lots of comfortable seats, power points and wi-fi, it has an air of calm about it. Indeed, so does the entire railway station which now has a food court with plenty of seats, information points and a shininess about it which should make passengers want to use trains. It reminds me of how calm Helsinki airport feels and to achieve that with a railway station in the middle of New York is what I consider to be a design miracle. For those reading between the lines of this post, they may gather that I like this railway station and it is far better than anything I can think of in London. The design of St. Pancras is impressive, although that’s mostly down to the Victorians, but they’ve crammed so much retail into it that there’s rarely sufficient seating available. And they might as well knock Euston down, a dreadful station.

I’ve digressed into complaining again though, so let’s get back on track (see the pun there?). After charging my devices ready for my train journey, an announcement was then made to go down to Track 13.

October 2, 2022
2022 US Trip – Day 6 (Morning Walk Along the High Line in New York Part One)

I took this photo with suitable care, but I spent a lot of time during my few days in New York looking at street views like this and waiting to be able to cross the road. At first I waited patiently for the green man, but New Yorkers don’t do that and I got to understand the flow of traffic on the city’s grid system and jaywalking like the locals. I find street views like this inspirational and they would be even more so without all the traffic, but that’s just the walker in me saying that.

Einstein loves New York apparently.

I’ve walked along the High Line before, but it’s such an inspirational idea for walkers and so well delivered that it seemed a useful way to spend the time before my Amtrak train departed the city. In short, the High Line is a former elevated railway line which had started to fall out of use by the late 1970s. Nearly demolished in the 1980s, it was saved and some visionaries arranged for some sections to be turned into an elevated park.

Some odd things happen in this elevated park, but they’re exciting, as crime is very low and misdemeanours much lower than in other city parks. It is also though very well funded compared to other parks, it’s got something of a charm and talking point nature that isn’t easily replicated.

A sign handily showing the scope of the walkways and that new bit in darker green towards the top is new to me (which is an excuse for a separate post), so I wanted to have a walk to there. There’s a handy “you are here” sign on the map to show where I was, so towards the southern end.

Anyway, enough text, now I have lots of photos….

And this is now the Hudson Yards development that I wrote about earlier on during the week, with the Vessel building just in short towards the right of the photo. It is a really quite invigorating walk and there’s talk of creating a 1.2 kilometre version in London between Camden Town and King’s Cross. For anyone interested there’s more about that project at https://www.camdenhighline.com/, but all credit to them for wading through the amount of documentation they need to read and produce, some of which are explained in the technical feasibility study section.

There’s more of the High Line now open which bends around the left in the above photo, and so that means yet another post is coming soon. Woooo!

October 2, 2022
2022 US Trip – Day 6 (Morning Walk Along the High Line in New York Part Two)

This is the photo that I left my loyal readers (or reader) with in my last post, where the High Line meets Hudson Yards. This is as far as I got last time that I came to New York as this section only opened in 2019.

The extension means that the railway line now heads off in the direction of the River Hudson.

It had been rather warm so far on my little walk, indeed perhaps a little too hot. Not that I’m one to complain about the heat of course. That situation changed when walking down here, clearly it’s some form of wind trap from the Hudson, although it was certainly refreshing.

Lots of little rail features remain, although I imagine most of these aren’t original.

These are the Pershing Square Beams, and congratulations for anyone who noticed that from the photo, and this is actually a little playground for children. Industrial and with a secret tunnel, this is a creative idea which I can imagine children would enjoy. Although they won’t at the moment as it’s shut.

Looking back towards Hudson Yards and look at all of those trains!

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PennStation.jpg

For this to make more sense, this photo from Wikipedia is useful as it shows the site before Hudson Yards was developed. The trains, which are at what is known as West Side Yard, are still being stored in the same place, but they’ve built the entire Hudson Yards complex on top of them. That’s some considerable feat of civil engineering and it’s no surprise that this project is expected to cost $25 billion, the most expensive real estate work in the United States at the moment, given all these challenges.

So all of that shiny new retail development is sitting on top of some rail tracks.

As with the older sections of the High Line, there’s plenty of floral arrangements about the place.

I confess that I didn’t walk all the way to the end, as I wanted to end up at Hudson Yards so that I could walk to Penn station to get my Amtrak train out of New York.

The Freedom’s Stand art installation by Faheem Majeed which was unveiled earlier this year and it takes its name from from the first black owned newspaper, Freedom’s Journal which was founded in the city in 1827. It didn’t last long, only until 1829, although it inspired The Rights of All newspaper, although that didn’t last much longer either. But, it was still an important principle and there’s more about this at https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/freedom-s-journal-1827-1829/.

With that, it was time to walk to Penn station and I mention that as there are plans to install an elevated walkway, called the Moynihan Connection, to allow pedestrians to walk there.

October 2, 2022
2022 US Trip – Day 6 (Walk to Airbnb in Richmond)

Having safely arrived at Amtrak’s Richmond Railway station I had a 40 or so minute walk to my accommodation for the evening. I was pleased that the train hadn’t been delayed as that meant I should arrive before it got too dark.

More on this in a later post when I leave Richmond, but this is an impressive way to welcome rail passengers. In brief though, it’s an odd arrangement and this space is mostly used for conferences and the like, with passengers just walking through the middle of it to get out. Between the mid 1970s and 2003 the railway station wasn’t used by Amtrak, they solely used their facility at Richmond Staples Mill Road, but it’s a positive that this more central building re-opened for passenger usage. Incidentally, I wasn’t at all clear how to get out, I missed the steps which didn’t seem entirely obvious (although actually they are, readers can see them in the photo, but I think I was looking at the roof) and instead followed by mistake the group going to the ground floor by using the lift. There was only just space for me, but everyone kindly made room, probably wondering why I hadn’t just walked down the steps. Anyway, that fascinating tale to one side….

I took a slightly longer walk than necessary which took me by the Capitol Building, but more on that again in a future post (all this excitement that I build up!!!). The lighting worked quite well here I thought.

The United States often feels slightly strange in numerous ways, but not least these huge grand buildings and then acres of what I consider wasted space for car parks. There are some states in the country where building owners are legally mandated to have large numbers of car parking spaces, which causes problems for the zoning when every structure is surrounded by tarmac. The newer parts of Richmond felt like that to me and that’s perhaps evident in the photo.

Off down the back streets of Richmond, I was heading for the Fan District of the city.

I’ve mentioned that I needed to rely more on Airbnb on this trip, although this might have been the final night when I relied on it during this trip (I have a couple more nights left to book) and was able to get hotels for hereon in. The owner was friendly and engaging, although he had messaged earlier in the day saying that he had no water. I thought this was going to be just one big heap of confusion, but just before I got there I received a message that he had fixed the problem. All was well with the world….

The room was spacious, spotless and freezing cold because of the air conditioning, a situation that I very much liked. I know that there are environmental impacts from air conditioning, and I mention that because Stuart from the LDWA would expect nothing less from me, but I do like their cooling qualities given how much I hate heat and warmth….

And a very large en-suite bathroom, with the shower off to the right. This cost under £40 per night, which was a third of the price of hotels in the city, so another clear win for the Airbnb. The house is entirely let to travellers, but I think there was just one other person when I was there and the owner lives nearby. There was a comfortable vibe to the arrangement and I’ve started to be won over by Airbnb because of owners like this. Cost effective, clean and also easy to check-in as all the information to get through the doors and into my room are supplied within the app.

That was me safely in Richmond, where the following day I only had until the evening before I got the train out of there, which meant I was going to have a busy day trying to see everything that I wanted.

October 2, 2022
2022 US Trip – Day 5 (Fare Evasion in New York)

These emergency exit doors on Subway stations struck me as odd as they’re effectively a free pass through the ticket barriers. I was travelling a couple of stops between two bars (of the drinking kind) and a number of people just walked into the station without paying (in New York, there’s no payment system to exit and travellers can legitimately just walk out) in what strikes me as a design flaw. An alarm does sound, but it’s mostly entirely ignored by station staff.

It seems that Janno Lieber, who runs the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, agrees:

“A lot of the riders who want to play by the rules are feeling like they’re suckers because they’re paying the fare and they see people sail right past them through the emergency gates.”

That same article notes that $500 million is lost per year to fare evasion across the city’s transport network, a quite ridiculous sum.

September 30, 2022
2022 US Trip – Day 5 (KCBC – Kings County Brewers Collective)

As I was still feeling a little sluggish following my cold, I only visited a couple of bars in the evening. Even that I thought was a sign of my remarkable bravery, but I’m not one to dwell on that or mention it to others. My visit was to Kings County Brewers Collective (KCBC) in Brooklyn, a few stops down from Grimm Artisanal Ales, which opened in 2017. The brewery themselves note:

“Once dubbed “the beer capital of the Northeast,” Bushwick was home to a large German immigrant population and a thriving brewing industry in the late 1800’s. Local beer was everywhere–in particular, on “Brewer’s Row,” where there were 14 breweries operating within a 14 block area (beat that, Portland). By the turn of the century, a whopping 10% of the beer produced in the US came from Brooklyn, and the majority of that beer was brewed in Bushwick. Then came the New York State hop blight and Prohibition. Ughhhhhh. Only a handful of the Brooklyn-based breweries survived and continued to operate afterward. When Rheingold and Schaefer breweries both closed their doors in 1976, Bushwick was left without a local brewery…”

Until KCBC came along and brewing in the area was back.

The bar set-up and this arrangement felt suitably comfortable, so I took a seat by the bar itself rather than at one of the nearby tables. The service was personable and helpful, with a regular supply of customers coming in to purchase takeouts.

The brewing equipment visible behind the bar and there’s been some care with the layout of this whole set-up.

The beers that I went for, and I faffed about for a while choosing which four to go for. As can be seen from my beautiful writing (whilst trying to lean on a bar at an angle anyway), I went the Claw & Order, the 6th Birthday Zombie, the 6th Orbit and the Lurking in Depths, which they carefully presented in the order that I had written them down. I always appreciate that, in the same way that I think a glass should be presented with a logo facing the front. But, I digress.

The four beers were all excellent, my favourite was the 6th Orbit IPA that was loaded with fruit taste and flavours of grapefruit and coconut, although I didn’t get the ‘gummy peach rings’ that were mentioned in the description.

It’s not that bad a taproom, so although it had space on a Thursday evening, I can imagine that it must get quite packed on weekend evenings. It’s an interesting part of Brooklyn as well, it had a vibrant and youthful feel to it with numerous other restaurants and bars in the vicinity. Although was very convenient is that the bar was just around the corner from the Jefferson Street Subway station and a train that went straight back to near my accommodation in Manhattan.

September 30, 2022
2022 US Trip – Day 6 (Amtrak Train from Penn Station to Richmond, Virginia)

I’ve already mentioned how much I liked the new Amtrak station at Penn in New York and I left that post as the announcement to board was made.

This is the queue for the train, which wraps around in front of the 13/14 gate sign before then going around it and then down the escalator. It was just as long behind me and it’s the most organised queue that I’ve seen at a railway station. Staff were ensuring people were waiting in the correct line and double checking that they were boarding the appropriate train. In the UK there would be a mad dash for the train, but perhaps the United States just know how to queue better.

This photo is taken from the opposite direction to the previous one and shows how long the queue still is.

Blurry unfortunately, but there’s the train.

The train was only busy for the first section of its journey between New York and cities such as Baltimore and Washington DC. On nearly all Amtrak trains I haven’t got anyone sitting next to me, but for the first half of this one I was sitting next to a lovely lady. She kept giving me grapes which was kind of her.

The space available on these trains puts the UK ones to shame. I can use my laptop because of the drop-down table that comes down and have plenty of legroom.

I didn’t order anything as I had acquired packs of Cheetos for my journey in advance, but here’s the menu for the buffet car.

That’s what it looked like later on during the journey, very peaceful and quite industrial.

One of the most delightful elements of Amtrak travel is seeing so much of the United States. Much of this doesn’t look as impressive in photos as in real life, or the exciting views passed before I had time to take a photo of them, but my 6.5 hour journey went by so quickly. I’m not sure that I’ve ever said that about travelling on UK trains, but this is a very stress-free way of getting about the United States. I had purchased these tickets some way in advance when the exchange rate was better, this trip cost around £25 which I thought was quite reasonable. Amtrak trains go relatively slowly and so it would have been quicker to get the bus, which I think was around five hours, but this is just a more decadent way to travel.

Disembarking at the Amtrak railway station in Richmond, my first time in Virginia. One of the joys about rail travel, as opposed to bus travel, is that you can actually see the countryside rather than just seeing endless roads, and I got off feeling more refreshed than when I got on. Amtrak should use that as a marketing slogan.

September 30, 2022
2022 US Trip – Day 7 (Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond)

Hollywood Cemetery was just a few minutes walk from my accommodation and it also opened at 08:00 so I felt that I’d make an early start and head over. There are a couple of things evident from this map of the site, firstly there are two US Presidents buried here, and secondly, there is a lot of Confederate history and there’s some vandalism clearly visible.

The burial site of the Presidents intrigued me the most and there are seven former holders of the office buried in Virginia, more than in any other State. There are only three places where there are two Presidents in the same location, which include Quincy (which I’ve visited), Arlington (which I’ve visited but didn’t see the graves) and here. More about those burials, and others in a separate post though, to avoid this one becoming too long.

It’s all peaceful and calm, I can think of much worse places to be buried.

As I mentioned, there a lot of Confederate history at this cemetery and that’s of course challenging in a number of different ways. I’ll come to him in a later post, but there’s the burial of the only Confederate President, Jefferson Davis, and thousands of troops who died fighting for their cause.

Not looking entirely dissimilar from the CWGC graves, these are the gravestones of those who died fighting for the Confederate cause.

And they go and on for some distance. But I’ll return to this in the next few posts.

I thought that this was one of the most beautiful sculptures at the cemetery.

It would be wrong to describe this as jovial, but I assume that the deceased had something of a sense of humour with the “another step into Trinity’s great dance to which all are invited”.

There are vaults as well as graves, many built into the undulating ground.

A view back towards the city of Richmond.

The views are spectacular, there’s a footpath and railway line in the foreground, with the James River behind it (named after King James I).

The cemetery was designed by John Notman in 1847 and it opened for its first burial in 1849, with the location having been thought ideal as a final resting place. I can’t say that I disagree with that, there are 135 acres of land here in its grand elevated riverside location.

Dream Girl.

The cemetery is still open for burials today and there’s plenty of space left, along with the neighbouring Mount Calvary cemetery which is for Catholics.

The White family burials.

And after ninety minutes of walking about, I thought that I best go and explore the rest of the city.

September 30, 2022
2022 US Trip – Day 5 (Skyscrapers By Central Park)

I decided to have a little walk around Central Park, unfortunately cut rather short by a deluge of rain, but it’s the rapidly (well, relatively) changing views of the skyscrapers around the edges of the park that I found the most captivating. If I’ve got my skyscrapers correct, of the tallest two, that’s Steinway Tower to the left and Central Park Tower on the right.

I think that Steinway Tower, or 111 West 57th Street as it’s officially called, looked very odd in the skyline because of just slender and thin it is. The development has 60 luxury apartments, of which only 46 are located within the main part of the tower. How much space do people really need in a city of such homelessness? The apartments cost from between $7.5 million to over $60 million, although the views are really something impressive judging by the photos at the official web-site at https://111w57.com/.

As an aside, look at the rainy skies….

Given that, I went to hide in a covered area and got there just in time.

Along with two police horses and their riders who also wanted to avoid the rain. New York has one of the largest number of mounted police in the United States, there are over fifty.

And a post-rain view of the skyscrapers.

September 29, 2022