New York City walk8

Times Square. The glass elevators in the Times Square Marriott are the coolest free rides in New York, after the Staten Island Ferry. Go late at night when the crowds have thinned out- the goal is to zip all the way to the top without having to stop on any of the other floors. I'm telling you, get ready for some exciting elevator action.

There's an expensive revolving restaurant up top, but a cheaper alternative is the bar. Wait for a table right next to the window, they might try to get you to sit a few tables back. I like to embrace the cheesiness and order a touristy drink like the "I Love New York" or the "Frank Sinatra".

Titanic/Lusitania pier. On the West Side Highway, across from Little West 12th Street, is the White Star pier, #54. It was part of the original Chelsea Piers complex. The Titanic was scheduled to land here, but instead the Carpathia arrived with the survivors of the disaster. A few years later, the Lusitania left from this same place, on its last voyage.

Here's Pier 54 in 1940. The men are longshoremen who are there for a 'shapeup"- where the boss chooses who among them will get to work that day. You see scenes like this in the movie "On the Waterfront"

Some of the skirt-blowing scene was filmed in a Hollywood studio, but some of it was filmed on location, in midtown Manhattan.

You can see the grate on the SW corner of Lexington Avenue and 52nd Street.

Manhattan Schist. This is in Hamilton Heights, Colonel Robert Magaw Place I think. Schist is much in evidence in this part of town.