2015-04-12 - Old Croton Aqueduct Walk I - Part II

Not too far from Union Square is Theodore Roosevelt’s birthplace. It is a museum now and you can go inside and tour when it is open. It will be closed starting May 1 for renovation and accessibility improvements so visit it now!

Guess who this is at Madison Square Park? The answer is related to the biggest state in the US.

We picked up people from Bryant Park and took a long break. Bryant Park was originally Potter’s field and then Croton Reservoir, where the water from Old Croton Dam would end up after its 22-hour gravity-powered journey. From here, the clean water would travel around New York City, curing the city of dysentery. Now I feel safe filling my water bottles from bathroom sinks, which I did here. =) I was starving and had to eat, but we were no longer rushing to meet up with people. 

Grand Central Terminal and the Chrysler Building were beautiful as always.

Vanderbilt forged four competing railroads into an empire which is now Metro-North. The ban on “soot-belching steam engines” below 42nd street made it logical to have a station here. Grand Central Depot opened in 1871, became Grand Central Station in 1901 and Grand Central Terminal in 1913. 

The Chrysler Building is seen by many as the most beautiful building in New York City. It was erected in 1930 and later renovated.

It was a longer walk without pauses from there northward, mostly on 5th Ave past Saint Patrick’s Cathedral to the Frick Collection. I gave a brief talk about Henry Clay Frick, once the most hated CEO in the country, who came to work one week after being shot in the neck by an assassin, before we headed further north and then west into the park near the Met.

The park was stunning, and others were enjoying the day as much as we were.

We stopped for a bathroom break and then headed north to the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis reservoir.

The flowers were out to play and there was no reason not to smile.

The next real stop was Saint John’s Cathedral. This is supposedly one of the top ten biggest Christian churches in the world and, I believe, the tallest Gothic Cathedral in the world. Regardless, it is certainly one of the most beautiful I’ve seen. People really enjoyed the ten minute break to walk around inside.

Still 130 more streets to go and that’s just northward!