chuljin
Lead Service Attendant
Post-Gathering D: Commuter crawl toward, and short first night in, NYC
Pictures of this part are here.
I was determined to make this commuter crawl better than Monday's (hangover, leaving BAL in the wrong direction, and so on), and it was pretty good until just near the end, when things fell apart a little (including literally).
I woke, ate the free hotel breakfast, packed, checked out, and headed towards Market. I intended to have lunch at Campo's, as Bill Magee suggested, but it was still a bit early, so I walked up onto Penn's Landing and took a few pictures of itself, but mostly of the scenery around it (including this one that made my hotel look like part of the Ben Franklin Bridge), then walked over to the the Independence Visitors' Center, got a soda and sat and people-watched, consuming it. Thence Campo's, where I had (of course) a cheese steak with (of course) whiz. Thence off to Camden, and its Walter Rand Transportation Center, on PATCO. This time my train was on the 'right' (south) side of the bridge, where the view is theoretically better, but the windows are so filthy that the resulting pictures are not that good. At WRTC I got a few not-so-bad pictures and videos of the RiverLINE trains, and one of Camden's City Hall, which reminds me of LA's in being large at the ground but topped by a slim tower (which nonetheless has offices within). Just below the darker-clad top floor of the bottom 'wide' section, you can see the City's motto, which I quite like: 'In a Dream I Saw a City Invincible'. One interesting thing here: The signs warning people to cross the tracks only in the right places are in, besides the English and Spanish one now expects anywhere in the US, Turkish and Hindi (I at first didn't want to assume it was Hindi; I recognized Devanagari, but don't know it well enough to be sure it wasn't instead Marathi or Nepali, but this page confirms it's Hindi).
I bought and validated my ticket, and my 12:38 RiverLINE train to Trenton was off. I sat in the accessible area, which was a single jumpseat just inside the door. As a Surfliner conductor once said, 'Luggage is not a disability', but I was tired and desperate, and also prepared to yield the seat to someone who really needed it. Before we even reached the next station, 36th street, we stopped outside the shops to change operators. The new one asked 'Good vehicle?' and the old one answered 'Uh...watch the brakes a little bit...paper's in the basket.' Yay, perhaps they would be unable to stop until just delivering me at NYP. :lol: The ride was enjoyable...we didn't come as close to the river as I originally thought, but it's so named not because it hugs the river, but because it merely parallels the river. Fortunately, in contrast to my only other DMU experience, the Sprinter, these use DEMUs, so the ride was pleasantly more trainlike than bus-on-rails. Between the Cass and Hamilton stops, I saw, beside the tracks, an attractive-enough building with a suprising amount of razor wire. Then I saw the sign: New Jersey State Prison.
At TRE, there was less to see and do in and around the station than I'd given myself time for, so I decided to go over to the NJ Capitol, which google maps told me was a brief-enough walk that I could get there, take a few token pictures, and get back with a little time to spare. Well, they don't factor in the weight of luggage, and I wore out as I reached the Trenton City Hall, and took pictures of that instead.
Back at TRE, I took one train earlier (3954) than my original plan called for (3856). As we were waiting, they announced that the train would be on track 1 instead of 2, fortunately on the same platform. While I waited, an Acela tore through the station, and I caught a video of it. Two women standing behind me said 'Wow, he must have somewhere to go!' :lol: As I found out the '9' indicates, this was also fortunately an express. On our way to NWK, we were passed by at least 2 Acela, 1 LD train, and 5 Regionals. Just north of Princeton Junction, I saw, on the NEC, a NJT diesel locomotive pulling a train of NJT EMUs with their pantographs down. Princeton shuttle perhaps. Also on the way, they were doing trackwork, so I noticed a very wide variety of Amtrak-owned MOW equipment including a train with many cars loaded down with new concrete ties. In contrast to what I'd heard, there was actually a restroom on my train, though unhelpful in that it was locked.
NWK is an interesting-enough station in its own right. Outside, I saw a fence to which many bicycles were chained, within a few feet of a sign reading 'Do Not Chain Bikes to Fence'. Here I started my plan to ride the whole of Newark Light Rail, PATH, and HBLR before going into NYC. The first step was to take either of the former's two lines from NWK to its other end and back. So I got on a 'blue' (Grove St) train, but through inattention and not understanding, it was one going only as far as Branch Brook Park. So I detrained there and waited for the next one in the same direction. As I waited, things started to fall apart...literally. The horizontal plastic part of the extending handle on my suitcase (which I'd bought new for this trip) separated from one of the two metal uprights. I found that it was because the hole in the metal part, through which the screw that attaches the two passes, was too close to the edge and the thin metal had broken. I wasn't too worried, I just favored the other side (by grasping the metal, so the handle wouldn't separate on that side, too) and went on to Grove. Just before Grove, I saw the NLR shops, which are quite large and include a surprising number of loops. On the way back, there was a surprisingly quick stop (emergency, perhaps, but more likely just firmest service braking).
Back at NWK, I decided I'd had enough for the day; it was getting late, and I was to meet my host at his office in Midtown at around 6. So instead of doing everything, I decided to take just a token PATH ride into the City and call it a day. I bought my PATH ticket, and while trying to figure out how to get my huge rollaway through the turnstile, I put the handle down, and the 'loose' upright went all the way down into the suitcase, never to be seen again. Stupidly not researching PATH first, I waited for a 33rd-Street-bound train, while 4 WTC-bound trains left in as many minutes, before giving up and just taking another NJT train. I regret it now, though not a lot, considering PATH's photography policy. So NJT 3862 (which was a little late), NWK-NYP. I grew up in the midwest, another place Interstates have exit numbers, and I know that where exits are close together, they'll put a letter, but I'd never seen anything higher than about D until, on the one paralleling the tracks, I noticed '15X'. Shortly before descending into the tunnels, I caught a brief glimpse of the New Yorker building, and knew I'd arrived.
My host's office is at Broadway and 37th, so I'd already worked out that I'd need to walk north on 7th, then east on 37th. The former was...er...'fun', with my struggling to pull my crippled suitcase, and walking against the flow of commuting-home foot traffic towards NYP. Soon enough, though, I arrived at 37th and Broadway, and saw the familiar and, the way my day had started to go wrong, comforting face of my old friend and former coworker, Gino D, who would be my host for the next 4 nights and 3 days in NYC. We started down towards the Broadway Line's 34th/Herald Square station, on the way stopping at two places, Broadway and 36th (?) and Broadway and 34th, just outside the station, to take pictures of the Empire State Building, as Gino does every day during this same walk after work, having built up an impressive collection. Then it was time for my first-ever ride on the NYC subway, to his place in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. My plan was to get the $8.25 day pass for the three full days I was there, but for today, I knew it would be the only ride, so I got the $2.25 single-ride. Uniquely among my many rides, I didn't record in my notes what train I was on, but the day's last picture shows we at least started by going south on the W, then (IIRC) changing to the eastbound L at Union Square and the northbound G at Lorimer/Metropolitan-Grand.
We were greeted by Gino's co-hostess, his charming fiancée Aimee, and I settled in and relaxed a little. I now noticed that the stress of working without its twin had bent the remaining upright piece of my suitcase handle to where it could no longer be put down, even with 'percussive persuasion', so it was to stay extended until the night before I left (see the very end of Part 11). They asked where I'd like to have dinner, and when I said 'I dunno, one of your own favorites in Greenpoint or [the nearby] Williamsburg.' So we walked to Williamsburg and dined at SEA Thai Bistro. It was interesting and excellent: large for a Brooklyn restaurant, very trendily decorated (fountain in the middle, swings rather than seats for future customers to wait to be seated, the strangest restrooms I've ever encountered in a restaurant [including screens over the urinals showing images from security cameras in the dining room]) but surprisingly reasonably priced, authentic food for such a trendy place, easy-on-the-eyes waiters (I told them 'now I know why you brought me here' ), and a variety of interesting martinis (that mine, lychee, was spilled just as they brought them, narrowly missing me but soaking the tablecloth, was the only issue the whole meal). For comparison with LA Thai food, I had my perennial favorite, the Mussaman curry. We then went to the nearby Gutter, a bowling alley/bar, where I had my first-ever White Russian. Those things are good. Thence back home and to bed fairly early: my host was to work the next day, and I wanted to get an early start exploring this amazing city.
Next up: Part 11, My three full days in NYC, followed by the brief and final Part 12, the trip home.
Pictures of this part are here.
I was determined to make this commuter crawl better than Monday's (hangover, leaving BAL in the wrong direction, and so on), and it was pretty good until just near the end, when things fell apart a little (including literally).
I woke, ate the free hotel breakfast, packed, checked out, and headed towards Market. I intended to have lunch at Campo's, as Bill Magee suggested, but it was still a bit early, so I walked up onto Penn's Landing and took a few pictures of itself, but mostly of the scenery around it (including this one that made my hotel look like part of the Ben Franklin Bridge), then walked over to the the Independence Visitors' Center, got a soda and sat and people-watched, consuming it. Thence Campo's, where I had (of course) a cheese steak with (of course) whiz. Thence off to Camden, and its Walter Rand Transportation Center, on PATCO. This time my train was on the 'right' (south) side of the bridge, where the view is theoretically better, but the windows are so filthy that the resulting pictures are not that good. At WRTC I got a few not-so-bad pictures and videos of the RiverLINE trains, and one of Camden's City Hall, which reminds me of LA's in being large at the ground but topped by a slim tower (which nonetheless has offices within). Just below the darker-clad top floor of the bottom 'wide' section, you can see the City's motto, which I quite like: 'In a Dream I Saw a City Invincible'. One interesting thing here: The signs warning people to cross the tracks only in the right places are in, besides the English and Spanish one now expects anywhere in the US, Turkish and Hindi (I at first didn't want to assume it was Hindi; I recognized Devanagari, but don't know it well enough to be sure it wasn't instead Marathi or Nepali, but this page confirms it's Hindi).
I bought and validated my ticket, and my 12:38 RiverLINE train to Trenton was off. I sat in the accessible area, which was a single jumpseat just inside the door. As a Surfliner conductor once said, 'Luggage is not a disability', but I was tired and desperate, and also prepared to yield the seat to someone who really needed it. Before we even reached the next station, 36th street, we stopped outside the shops to change operators. The new one asked 'Good vehicle?' and the old one answered 'Uh...watch the brakes a little bit...paper's in the basket.' Yay, perhaps they would be unable to stop until just delivering me at NYP. :lol: The ride was enjoyable...we didn't come as close to the river as I originally thought, but it's so named not because it hugs the river, but because it merely parallels the river. Fortunately, in contrast to my only other DMU experience, the Sprinter, these use DEMUs, so the ride was pleasantly more trainlike than bus-on-rails. Between the Cass and Hamilton stops, I saw, beside the tracks, an attractive-enough building with a suprising amount of razor wire. Then I saw the sign: New Jersey State Prison.
At TRE, there was less to see and do in and around the station than I'd given myself time for, so I decided to go over to the NJ Capitol, which google maps told me was a brief-enough walk that I could get there, take a few token pictures, and get back with a little time to spare. Well, they don't factor in the weight of luggage, and I wore out as I reached the Trenton City Hall, and took pictures of that instead.
Back at TRE, I took one train earlier (3954) than my original plan called for (3856). As we were waiting, they announced that the train would be on track 1 instead of 2, fortunately on the same platform. While I waited, an Acela tore through the station, and I caught a video of it. Two women standing behind me said 'Wow, he must have somewhere to go!' :lol: As I found out the '9' indicates, this was also fortunately an express. On our way to NWK, we were passed by at least 2 Acela, 1 LD train, and 5 Regionals. Just north of Princeton Junction, I saw, on the NEC, a NJT diesel locomotive pulling a train of NJT EMUs with their pantographs down. Princeton shuttle perhaps. Also on the way, they were doing trackwork, so I noticed a very wide variety of Amtrak-owned MOW equipment including a train with many cars loaded down with new concrete ties. In contrast to what I'd heard, there was actually a restroom on my train, though unhelpful in that it was locked.
NWK is an interesting-enough station in its own right. Outside, I saw a fence to which many bicycles were chained, within a few feet of a sign reading 'Do Not Chain Bikes to Fence'.
Here I started my plan to ride the whole of Newark Light Rail, PATH, and HBLR before going into NYC. The first step was to take either of the former's two lines from NWK to its other end and back. So I got on a 'blue' (Grove St) train, but through inattention and not understanding, it was one going only as far as Branch Brook Park. So I detrained there and waited for the next one in the same direction. As I waited, things started to fall apart...literally. The horizontal plastic part of the extending handle on my suitcase (which I'd bought new for this trip) separated from one of the two metal uprights. I found that it was because the hole in the metal part, through which the screw that attaches the two passes, was too close to the edge and the thin metal had broken. I wasn't too worried, I just favored the other side (by grasping the metal, so the handle wouldn't separate on that side, too) and went on to Grove. Just before Grove, I saw the NLR shops, which are quite large and include a surprising number of loops. On the way back, there was a surprisingly quick stop (emergency, perhaps, but more likely just firmest service braking).Back at NWK, I decided I'd had enough for the day; it was getting late, and I was to meet my host at his office in Midtown at around 6. So instead of doing everything, I decided to take just a token PATH ride into the City and call it a day. I bought my PATH ticket, and while trying to figure out how to get my huge rollaway through the turnstile, I put the handle down, and the 'loose' upright went all the way down into the suitcase, never to be seen again. Stupidly not researching PATH first, I waited for a 33rd-Street-bound train, while 4 WTC-bound trains left in as many minutes, before giving up and just taking another NJT train. I regret it now, though not a lot, considering PATH's photography policy. So NJT 3862 (which was a little late), NWK-NYP. I grew up in the midwest, another place Interstates have exit numbers, and I know that where exits are close together, they'll put a letter, but I'd never seen anything higher than about D until, on the one paralleling the tracks, I noticed '15X'. Shortly before descending into the tunnels, I caught a brief glimpse of the New Yorker building, and knew I'd arrived.
My host's office is at Broadway and 37th, so I'd already worked out that I'd need to walk north on 7th, then east on 37th. The former was...er...'fun', with my struggling to pull my crippled suitcase, and walking against the flow of commuting-home foot traffic towards NYP. Soon enough, though, I arrived at 37th and Broadway, and saw the familiar and, the way my day had started to go wrong, comforting face of my old friend and former coworker, Gino D, who would be my host for the next 4 nights and 3 days in NYC. We started down towards the Broadway Line's 34th/Herald Square station, on the way stopping at two places, Broadway and 36th (?) and Broadway and 34th, just outside the station, to take pictures of the Empire State Building, as Gino does every day during this same walk after work, having built up an impressive collection. Then it was time for my first-ever ride on the NYC subway, to his place in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. My plan was to get the $8.25 day pass for the three full days I was there, but for today, I knew it would be the only ride, so I got the $2.25 single-ride. Uniquely among my many rides, I didn't record in my notes what train I was on, but the day's last picture shows we at least started by going south on the W, then (IIRC) changing to the eastbound L at Union Square and the northbound G at Lorimer/Metropolitan-Grand.
We were greeted by Gino's co-hostess, his charming fiancée Aimee, and I settled in and relaxed a little. I now noticed that the stress of working without its twin had bent the remaining upright piece of my suitcase handle to where it could no longer be put down, even with 'percussive persuasion', so it was to stay extended until the night before I left (see the very end of Part 11). They asked where I'd like to have dinner, and when I said 'I dunno, one of your own favorites in Greenpoint or [the nearby] Williamsburg.' So we walked to Williamsburg and dined at SEA Thai Bistro. It was interesting and excellent: large for a Brooklyn restaurant, very trendily decorated (fountain in the middle, swings rather than seats for future customers to wait to be seated, the strangest restrooms I've ever encountered in a restaurant [including screens over the urinals showing images from security cameras in the dining room]) but surprisingly reasonably priced, authentic food for such a trendy place, easy-on-the-eyes waiters (I told them 'now I know why you brought me here'
), and a variety of interesting martinis (that mine, lychee, was spilled just as they brought them, narrowly missing me but soaking the tablecloth, was the only issue the whole meal). For comparison with LA Thai food, I had my perennial favorite, the Mussaman curry. We then went to the nearby Gutter, a bowling alley/bar, where I had my first-ever White Russian. Those things are good. Thence back home and to bed fairly early: my host was to work the next day, and I wanted to get an early start exploring this amazing city.Next up: Part 11, My three full days in NYC, followed by the brief and final Part 12, the trip home.
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