Tuesday, April 17

This was the day I had to go without my pedometer due to my pocket-less jumper, but we were not supposed to do that much walking anyways...

In Harlem, we did not walk much. We had a beautiful morning there, only walking a few blocks and learning a lot. Actually, some of it we already knew since we had read about the Great Migration. We also walked by places mentioned in Black Gotham Again I could see the master mind behind the planning of this tour, as we were going through history in the right order.

While waiting for lunch hour, I did my ver first single stroll. It was not that scary since I stayed on the same street the entire time. Since the purchase of my new hat at the Tenement Museum, I had become increasingly aware of my need for a haircut, so I took care of that in Harlem. All the hairdressers spoke Spanish the entire time, but I was well taken care of, AND I got to use their locked up bathroom.

We ate southern style food for lunch - true "soul food." To me, this was the winning meal thus far. And, after that, we started walking, so I must have burned most of those calories off.

First we took the subway to the west side of Central Park, and this was our last walking tour with Ed O'Donnell. Even though it looked fantastic to lie down for a nap in the park, I appreciated the walk and the knowledge gained from it. Having come here as a tourist, I would never have taken away as much as I have thanks to these tour. From the picture above, one might think that I'm not interested, but you will simply have to take my word for it when I say that I was! Our other scholar, Charles Calhoun, can be seen - or half of him - at the very left of the picture.

We exited the part by the Metropolitan Museum on 5th Avenue. Ed told us that we needed to be at the Museum of New York at 4 PM, and it was 3:40. We were on 87th Street, and the Museum on 104th Street. There were about a dozen of us who accepted the challenge. I came in third place and sprinted across the avenue right at 4. It was a little difficult to stand up and listen to the guided tour of the Great American Grid after that, but it was too interesting not to. Ed had already given us some background to the city's development, but now we got to see original maps and before- and after pictures from the last 150 years+.

I found the cafeteria in the basement and had coffee with a big, chocolate-something dessert and decided that I would sit there for a while (or forever) and see if there was anyone left upstairs to continue my adventure with. When my feet would finally agree to move on, I saw Carole outside and asked if she had made any plans. She said she figured she'd just walk for a while and take it from there. I joined her, and we walked. It wasn't the same sprint as before, but neither one of us could be called a slow walker. We walked from 104th street to 42nd! So we can definitely say that we have seen 5th Avenue. It got more and more exciting the farther south we got. My husband found out that we walked a 3.5 mile stretch, which combined with our previous walking and standing wore us out a bit. We were not up for any more adventure and decided to take the subway back to our hotel on the southern tip of Manhattan. After a few quiet minutes in my hotel room and a compromise with my feet (they agreed to walk again if I put socks and sneakers on instead of my sandals), Carole and I walked the few yards to the restaurant behind our hotel.

Stay tuned for the Wednesday report on the visit at Grant's Memorial and the meeting with Elmer at Time Square!