Day 15 – New York (Black Friday)

Distance travelled: 7 miles on subway, 2 miles on foot

We had a change of plans on Black Friday. We were going to brave the sales, but actually the weather was the best day in a couple so we decided to take a walk from the apartment to Brooklyn bridge. And do the shopping tomorrow.

View approaching Brooklyn Bridge

You can see the bridge from Smiti’s building so we headed down to the riverside, and then along to try and get to the bridge. We got a little lost, or you might say just exploring, before we found the way up to the bridge.

The bridge is a very impressive structure to look at. A mixtures of steel plate and rivets type contractions and wires with wooden slats that make up the pedestrian part. They was quite a lot of tourists around, but once we walked over the half way, it wasn’t too bad and we spent a while taking some photos and looking back at the view.

Views from Brooklyn Bridge of Lower Manhattan

It was still a bit windy, so after a bit we decided we’d had enough and headed back to the shore.

In the evening I had booked tickets for a college basketball match at Madison Square Garden. There was an invitation tournament over the thanksgiving weekend. We went for a quick slice of pizza at a very well reviewed place just opposite. The pizza was great, but the service not so much. Probably due to the hype, it was very busy inside, but we did get a table easily once we were served.

Pizza Suprema on 8th Avenue, opposite MSG

We walked back over to the Garden, which is actually on top of Penn station. We dove into a bar outside for a quick drink as we still had some time to spare. We were the only ones there, and the bartender was very friendly. He actually let us go up some special stairs to get into the arena so we didn’t have to walk outside.

Madison Square Garden

Apparently MSG is the oldest arena in use in the National Hockey League, and it does look a little old, but actually is really well kept. As the college teams have a smaller following, the upper bowl of the arean was not in used, and even the lower half was only about half full, maybe 5,000 to 7,500 in attendance. I was pleased to see there was a band in attendance that provided some good authentic music. The seats were a little uncomfortable as there wasn’t much legroom.

Inside Madison Square Garden

The game was actually ok, but the New York team should have won as they were better, but actually they played terribly and lost.