The Dining Room is Done!

The dining room is done!  It's been done for two weeks, but I have been doing all those posts from my trip to New York City.  It looks beautiful, doesn't it?  And aren't you glad I am posting something different than my Manhattan photographs?  We are thrilled this is done.  It was a LOT of work due to the fact that wallpaper had to be removed from all the walls.   Kathy gets all the credit for removing the wallpaper which was a really awful job!  It's fun to sit back and just look at all our work, and see how beautiful the room is now!

 

Escape to New York - XV

OK, this is absolutely the LAST of my posts titled "Escape to New York."  I thought I was done yesterday but looking back over my photographs I discovered this picture of a Tiffany stained glass window on display at the Met.  The piece is called "Autumn Landscape", and the design is attributed to Agnes Northrop for Tiffany Studios.  This window is described as a tour deforce of it's medium.  This window was commissioned for an enormous Gothic Mansion in Boston, but it was never installed and instead was donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  It is stunning to see in person, because it is huge - the window and its frame are eleven feet tall!  And it is beautiful beyond imagining!

 

Escape to New York - XIV

This is the brand new Daniel Patrick Moynihan Train Hall that is actually inside the old post office, which is across 8th Avenue from Penn Station.  It is quite beautiful, I think, with the incredible skylights and the old fashioned styled ironwork holding the ceiling up.  It is bright and modern and airy and clean, compared to the Long Island Railroad train area, which is also being updated.  That's why the low, red, I-Beams were overhead in the photographs I showed in one of my early posts from New York.  There is a tunnel from this area, down under Eighth Avenue over to Penn Station, which is wonderful if it is raining or snowing.  This hall will allow for more access to the LIRR trains, and they are planning on adding more tracks for more trains under this hall.  This is also an additional terminal for Amtrack and New Jersey Transit as well.  They did such a nice job with this, I can't wait to see what they do with the redesigned LIRR area.  Stay tuned!

Here are two detailed photographs of the ironwork and the huge skylight windows.  So nicely done!  Be SURE to click on the first photograph because I posted it in a larger size and it will enlarge to fill your screen!

 

Escape to New York - XIII

 

It had been over a year since I had been to Manhattan, and I was absolutely stunned to discover that there is a brand new entrance down to the Long Island Railroad at Penn Station!  Whoa!  Who even knew they were going to build that?  I did show you a photograph near the beginning of this series from inside Penn Station.  So now you know what the outside looks like.  A very cool, modern stairway.  It is a direct way to get to the track level where the trains leave and arrive from.  Before this new stairway, you had to take an escalator or stairs down one level, turn a corner, and then take another escalator or stairs down to the track level.  A huge improvement!

And just as a reminder, here is a different view from the LIRR level, looking up the escalator toward the glass entrance way, above.  This is all very cool!

Escape to New York - XII

I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw this!  A young woman on an electric scooter, traveling in the middle of traffic on Fifth avenue, heading downtown!  In the middle of traffic, with cars passing her on each side.  Yikes!  I mean maybe it is safer riding in the middle of the street, instead of being over near the curb where busses and taxis are always pulling over to pick up or discharge passengers.  Still, I worry about this woman's safety.

 

Escape to New York - XI

After I did yesterday's photograph of the park, I continued my walk down Fifth Avenue.  This woman with her umbrella had passed me when I was photographing the the park, and I realized that there was a photograph to be had, involving the purple umbrella!  You would have laughed yourself silly if you saw me trying to get this shot.  I couldn't shoot while walking because the light was not very bright late in the day.  So I would run-walk to get closer to this woman, and then quickly stop and shoot a few frames as the woman walked away from me.  Then I would quickly run after her again, stop when I got close, and shoot some more!  Man, if you had watched me from a distance you would have thought I was a crazy person and you would have called the police!  But it is a lovely photograph, don't you think?

Escape to New York - X

Wow, I am really beating "Escape to New York" to death, huh?  I am almost out of photographs so soon I will be back to more normal stuff.  When I left the museum, I did my usual walk of 20 blocks back down Fifth avenue to the subway at 59th street.  I walked slowly, looking into Central Park hoping for a photograph for all the trees and plants in bloom.  I did find this photograph and the thing I really liked was the three skyscrapers disappearing into the overcast clouds.