She is Buried in Trinity Church Near You (#27 Historic Downtown NY Revisited)

It’s HAMILTON DAY!

This is the day we dedicate to Hamilton-related sites, and the day we saw Hamilton: An American Musical on BROADWAY!

First Stop: Trinity Church

Another semi-fail; the church is mostly closed for renovation, but the cemetery is open and everyone is buried there. Also, most of these will probably be Cort's photos.  My phone takes horrible photos when you try and zoom; plus try managing a purse, a phone, and the ever stupid cane, and yeah.  Better to let the young'uns take over.

My name is Angelica Schuyler!

Brrrah, brraaah! I am Hercules Mulligan up in it, lovin’ it

My name is Alexander Hamilton, and there’s a million things I haven’t done, but just you wait, just you wait!

She put herself back in the narrative

My name is Philip, I am a poet. I wrote this poem just to show it.



And a bunch of other people who deserve to be remembered, even if their names aren't famous or aren't even visible, anymore:

Don’t Be Shocked When Your Hist’ry Books Mention Me (#46 Museum Mile Revisited)

Museum Mile was kind of a fail, but a brilliant fail.  This itinerary day was Monday aka Memorial Day, and  I knew places might be busy, but I didn’t really think everyone would be there.

We started the day at MoMA – this was my first visit, and fail: the garden was closed. At the time, I thought it was for construction, but a few days later I saw on Instagram that they had a huge event “Party in the Garden” on May 31^st and all the scaffolding was to support that.

Probably the most famous thing at MoMa is Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” which as expected was super crowded, but this giant asshole planted himself in front of everyone and just stood there.  There’s always one, right?

Other highlights: Monet, Mondrian, Pollack, Seurat, Picasso, Matisse, Duchamp, etc.

Seurat: The Channel at Gravelines


Pollack:




Magritte:  The Menaced Assassin



Mondrian:




Picasso:




Matisse:



Unfortunately “The Persistence of Memory” aka melting clocks was out on loan so I didn’t get to see that.

After MoMa, we Ubered to actual Museum Mile to visit the Guggenheim. First, that driver – was awesome.  He was also a little scary what with the speed and lane changes, but that it the fastest I’ve gotten anywhere in NYC.  Back to the Guggenheim - I’d see it before, but never been inside, and while planning the trip the website said advanced tickets wouldn’t be available because of an exhibit change, but that the museum would be open.

This was technically true, but the exhibit change was for the entire spiral (fail) so we just went in and took pictures of the famous spiral.  Maybe next time I’ll actually get to “go” to this museum.

Trunks, an exhibit changeover in red








We had the Met on the list as a maybe – if time permitted, and with the Guggenheim closure, time definitely permitted.  So, we walked down the street to the Met.  It. Was. Packed.  The line alone was waaaaaay down the block.  Fail.

We decided to just sit on the iconic steps for a bit and see if the line got any shorter, we people watched and chatted a little, and after a while determined that we were not going to go inside that museum on that day.  



So instead we chose a food vendor, found a table, and ate lunch. That table was so gross. But luckily for us there was a mom (I mean, she had her family with her, but MOM) at the table next to us and she gave us baby wipes to clean off the table and then sprayed it down with hand sanitizer for us.  Moms Rock!

After lunch, and a whole bunch of people watching we thought about leaving, but only made it to the tables on the other sides of the entrance stairs before we found less crowded tables, and people watched some more.  So while our whole plan was kind of a fail, I still had an amazing day.  The weather was great, I love to people watch, and it was just kind of a no-pressure day.

Two Pints o’ Sam Adams, but I’m Working on Three (#45 New York City Revisited)

I woke up Sunday morning with a little bit of itinerary anxiety because everything had to go perfectly time-wise to make our afternoon plans (Hamilton’s house – The Grange), and even if everything went perfectly there was a chance we wouldn’t be able to get in because tickets they are first come, first served, and we were going to barely make the last tour of the day….IF everything went perfectly.  I have learned that things rarely go perfectly.

We returned the rental car and were dropped off at the Metro North station to get back to the city.  This time around we had a better sense of everything, so I proposed to Cort that we skip the express train (it looked like it would be packed), and take the local so we wouldn’t have to stow our luggage in the rack.  That part worked really well. 

We ended up sitting on different sides of the aisle with our bags taking up the other passenger seat (I know this is bad manners, but we took the less crowded train so nobody would be inconvenience by our bad manners.)  

Since we weren’t really sitting together we both kind of zoned out on our phones for the ride.  I started perusing the Today Tix app – which I’d heard about somewhere and thoroughly researched to see if it was legit before the trip – because I was hoping to see a couple of shows and realized that we really only had Sunday and Monday night to do it.  (Hint, Broadway shows don’t really happen on those nights – matinees only, mostly on Sunday, and most shows are dark on Mondays.) So, I was looking at Today Tix hoping to find an inexpensive rule breaker.

Scrolling through, Imbible caught my eye.  To this very day, I maintain that I heard about this show either on Seth Meyers or the Hamilcast, but I cannot find a reference to it either place, but I remember hearing about it and thinking – ooh, maybe Cort will want to see this while we’re in NYC.  

And here it was – and they had a Sunday brunch show (like at 2:30 or 3:00) called Day Drinking: The Brunch Musical.  It meant abandoning our Grange plans, so I wasn’t sure Cort would go for it, but I scooted over to the aisle seat, leaned across, and was like, “Hey, do you want to see a show instead of rushing all over town to maybe get a chance to see The Grange?”  

I told her a little about the show and had her read the description and long story short, she was like, “Sure.” And I ordered tickets from Today Tix.

Oh my gosh, that took so much pressure off our day.  We didn’t have to rush at all!  So, once we got to the hotel, which let me pause for a second to tell you about our hotel….

We ended up landing a $59/night rate at a brand new (like opened last month) Times Square hotel  (see also: next to the Drama Bookshop – which plays an integral part of LMM’s creating of In The Heights).  The A/C Times Square is super deluxe, Marriott spent some serious money on an architect and designer because those standard sized NYC hotel rooms felt HUGE!  The bathroom felt HUGE!  And the whole place was just really, really nice and very conveniently located.  The rooftop bar wasn’t opened yet, and that is my only complaint.  Everything else was just excellent.  Oh wait, my other complaint was that because it was brand new construction, no uber/lyft drivers could ever figure out exactly where they should drop us off.  That’s not really a complaint, more of an amusing anecdote.

So, once we got to the hotel we found a restaurant kiddy-corner away and ate lunch at Schnippers , then walked back to the hotel to officially check in, get settled, and grab a Lyft to the theater.



Here’s the deal with Today Tix – you know the red TKTS booth in Times Square, and people always tell you about the amazing deals you can get there.  Today Tix is like that, but all in an app AND you meet up with their rep at the theater about 30 minutes before the show to get your tickets. (The meeting up with them is the part that made me nervous.) 

We got to the theater and the uniformed concierge was right outside (it turns out New World Stages has like 6 theaters inside so they had tickets for all kinds of shows there….Avenue Q, anyone?).  



We got our tickets, found our theater and it was a super smooth process.  I will admit to having a great deal of anxiety until the tickets were scanned and everything was cool.

I had so much fun at this show.   It was hilariously funny, super interactive, and I learned a whole bunch of stuff about brunch (did you know that a bloody mary is brunch in a glass – because….umami.) I left this show literally giddy with joy, it was way better than the super stressful afternoon that was previously planned.  

Bloody Mary


Irish Coffee


Bellini






In fact, we liked the show so much that we immediately bought tickets for their night show (Imbible: A Spirited History of Drinking).  Their website currently describes it thusly:

Are you a cocktail connoisseur? A history buff?  A science geek?  Or do you just love extraordinary theater?  If so, the THE IMBIBLE musical comedies are the perfect Off-Broadway experience for you!

1 Part Education +

2 Parts Recreation +

3 Complimentary Cocktails =

The best theater deal in NYC! 

THE IMBIBLE Off-Broadway shows combine music and comedy with history, science, and of course drinks to take audiences on journeys through time and around the world while learning about and enjoying cocktails and spirits! Created by internationally-acclaimed beverage educator Anthony Caporale, THE IMBIBLE Off-Broadway shows consistently receive rave reviews from both critics and guests alike. All performances include three complimentary craft cocktails, making THE IMBIBLE easily the best theatre deal on or Off-Broadway!

Shandy

Creamsicle Old Fashioned

Gin and Tonic

It was the most fun thing I’ve done on vacation in a really long time.  It was amazing.  Both shows were.

I Imagine Death So Much it Feels More Like A Memory (#65 Hudson Valley Revisited – Sleepy Hollow Cemetery)

This was Cort’s thing.  We got a map of the cemetery and originally drove over to figure out where we were supposed to meet later that night for the “Murder and Mayhem” tour.  Then we drove through the cemetery and Cort took a bunch of pictures including this one that I stole of the Headless Horseman Bridge.

And this one I stole of Washington Irving’s grave.  (The road was closed, and ain’t no way was I walking up that giant hill!)  Also, I really (really, really) had to pee, so I was pretty adamant with Cort that we leave and rest up for the night tour.  Also, I had a pounding headache and just wanted a couple of hours in A/C….did I mention that Sunnyside was approximately a bazillion degrees?

You can pretty much assume that I stole all these pictures from Cortney!

Overall, it was a pretty low-key day.  We’d been going, going for a few days and it was nice to lounge around Sunnyside for a while before and after the tour, and just take it easy for most of the afternoon.  We also ate lunch at Horsefeathers again.  They were still serving their brunch menu and (mine, at least) was not good.  We should’ve waited the 30 minutes until after brunch and ordered from the regular menu….

Cort really wanted to do the Murder and Mayhem Lantern Tour of the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery.  Originally, I told her that I didn’t think I could do it because we were going to visit 3 or so other places that day with lots and lots of walking – and I didn’t think my back would be up to it.  But we rejiggered some things on the itinerary, and I thought I could do it if we moved most of the stuff to the first day, and rested in the afternoon.  Overall it was not as murder-y and mayhem-y as I would’ve like, but it was generally interesting….and I’m stealing Cort’s pics for this too.

















This one is mine...