This post is the second (Post 1) in a multi-post series about my day wandering down to Midtown Manhattan after Superstorm Sandy when there was no subway service and the only train service to Manhattan was the Metro-North Harlem Line that resumed hourly service after 2pm, all bus service was fare-free.
I left Bloomingdales and decided it was time to start walking west and see if Central Park had reopened. I walked over to Manhattan’s Grand Army Plaza and sure gates were closing off all of Central Park just like yesterday. Sure enough the park was closed and a ranger told me that they hoped to open back tomorrow. They were chainsawing all the trees that fell down and it was just too dangerous to have people inside. The strangest part about being in this area today was the fact there were no horse drawn carriages that are normally all lined up.
I also got the obligatory photos of the 5th Avenue/60th Street–(7 Photos) station on the N,Q,R whose parkside entrances were mainly being used by tourists trying to get glimpses into Central Park.
I continued walking down 59th Street (Central Park South) and tried to figure out why 7th Avenue was closed along with Broadway 58th, 57th and 56th Streets. Eventually I looked up and realized it was the famous crane at One57 that toppled over on the 80 something floor but hasn’t fallen off due to the winds from the Superstorm:
I also got photos of the entrances to the Uptown 1 Side of 59th Street–(7 Photos), and Downtown Side–(5 Photos), including a photo with the collapsed crane in the background
I kept walking down 8th Avenue and past the Uptown-(1 Photo) and then Downtown–(4 Photos) sides of the 50th Street Station