New York, New York! (Day 5)

June 24, 2012

Hamilton Grange NM

The day started with a run along the waterfront, it was very pretty. Then we hopped on the subway to visit Hamilton Grange National Memorial, in the Harlem area. Hamilton Grange National Memorial is the home of Alexander Hamilton. Chances are that you see Hamilton quite frequently –he is on the $10 bill.  Hamilton was an orphan from the Caribbean that later became George Washington’s right hand man. Hamilton was instrumental in the creation of the new Constitution, and he was also the first Secretary of the Treasury. Hamilton only lived in the home for two years, before he was fatally wounded in a duel with Vice President Aaron Burr. At this point in time, it was illegal to duel; however it still seemed to happen quite frequently. Hamilton’s son was killed a dual a few years prior to Hamilton. The park service offers tours of the home. The tour was good and lasted around 30 minutes. There is also a 30 minute film available, but we did not get a chance to watch it. The display boards were interesting. Allow 1-1.5 hours to visit the site, if you do the tour.

General Grant NM

Our next destination was about a 30 minute walk to the south – General Grant National Memorial. There was a 3 minute film at the visitor center, which does not really tell you much about the site, but rather about all the sites in the area. I would advise not to wait around for the film to be shown. There are a lot informational boards in the film area that you can read if you are so inclined.  Ulysses S. Grant (the guy on the $50 bill), was twice elected to president and he established the first national park – Yellowstone. Grant’s Tomb was the largest fundraising event, at the time, raising $600,000 for its construction. The granite and marble structure was completed in 1897 and remains the largest mausoleum in North America. Be sure you check the hours that the monument is open, it is only open every other hour or so.  Thirty minutes would be more than enough time to spend in and around the memorial, allow more time if you wanted to read the display boards at the visitor center.

General Grant NM - ceiling

For lunch, we took a short walk to Dinosaur Bar-B-Que in Harlem. This BBQ place was better than Blue Smoke, and a bit cheaper. I had the pulled pork sandwich, which came with two sides.

After lunch, we hopped on the subway again and exited in the Times Square area. We had nothing else planned for the day so we decided to go to a Broadway show. We got discount tickets at the TKTS booth. The TKTS booth sells day-of-performance tickets only. We opted to see Mary Poppins. We had mezzanine seats, which cost us $156 for two tickets (claimed to be 40% off). The show was good and of course kids would love it!

While we were in the area we stopped by the Hard Rock Café store to get my husband his beloved zippo. Then it was off to the subway and back to the apartment for a bit of relaxation before heading out to dinner. We had dinner at a place called Sarabeth. I ordered the chicken pot pie ($16), which was very good.