On our last day in New York City, we visited the wonderful New York Public Library. It's fabulous as a piece of architecture, and has some amazing items in its collections, including a draft of the Declaration of Independence and the walking stick Virginia Woolf left on the riverbank when she drowned herself. The library turned 100 last year, and still lives up to its founding goal - to make information freely available to everyone. Somewhere yesterday, I saw a quote by a NYPL librarian which said (I'm paraphrasing) that all you need to have to be a member of the NYPL is a sense of curiosity.
The section of East 41st Street leading to the Library is called Library Way, and has quotes from famous writers on brass plaques set into the pavement. How can you not love a city that venerates libraries?
Afterwards, Kati went off for one last bout of shopping, while Martin and I took ourselves to the Museum of Television and Radio. You get to sit and watch all sorts of shows from TV's history. I saw the opening sequences to Burke's Law and The Saint (I could have watched the full episodes but we were limited for time), revisited Love on a Rooftop and That's Life (whatever happened to E.J. Peaker?), and watched an episode of Moonlighting. Ah, Bruce! Martin of course lost himself in the Dean Martin show.
Sadly, it was then time to make our way to JFK. This time we took an official yellow cab, and were charged the correct amount.
We left New York, determined to go back again. It's truly a wonderful place - just about everything I can think of to say about it sounds trite and cliched. But I will say that it's just like in the movies, only better! And New Yorkers are great people - really friendly, and very polite and helpful.
Martin and I are back in London again and Kati is on her way home to her Jesse. We just wandered over to the Borough Markets and bought some delicious things for our dinner. After five days walking around New York plus another flight, we're taking it easy tonight!
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