New York Diary Day 6

We wake up to this incredible view from our hotel window. I told Hampton Hotel I was a photographer and they gave us a great view. It never failed to disappoint. Though I’m not sure what the buildings are in the photo, other than One World Trade Centre.

We had a bit more of a chilled out day planned. A trip to Prospect Park in Brooklyn, Dumbo and then One World Trade Centre.

Brooklyn Museum is amazing. They have “All gender” toilets. There’s also an “Ask a curator” app that’s very clever. When you’re by any artwork you do not understand you can post a question to the app and an actual human will get back to you while you wander the museum. It knows where you are using iBeacons and you can send an image too. Every museum should have something like this, but there’s obviously a huge cost involved. But imagine how liberating that will be for people? “Why is *this* art?” Ask an expert in a quiet low-key free from embarrassment way and you learn why things are art. It enables everyone to learn for free. Brilliant idea.

Outside we met an actual guy from Brooklyn who drives an actual NYC school bus. He was ace.

Off to Dumbo where *everyone* is taking selfies. There were so many people getting photos. I didn’t understand it. I know this view from… Well I’m not sure exactly. It’s just iconic. But I got the impression it had been in something I hadn’t seen. A famous person’s Instagram feed or some trendy TV show perhaps. No-one was appreciating the architecture or the way you can see the Empire State Building perfectly between the legs of the bridge. It was all about the social media content. I’m old and grumpy. Go away.

Off to Manhattan!

Final stop of the day was Ground Zero. I remember watching 9/11 live on my TV and via webcams. I blogged about it but the content isn’t in this site just yet. It took me a long time to look at a plane without thinking back to what I saw. So it was surreal to be in the area where it all happened because it’s so normal now. It’s every day NYC. Which is good. You want people to recover but at the same time, bit surreal.

After seeing that we took a look at Santiago Calatrava’s new subway station. Oculus.

Tea time!