Robot Claw – Page 113 – “Life In The So-Called Space Age”

NYC: Edge

August 8, 2023

I slept in this morning, rare for me, but it’d been a late night last night what with all the postcards, blogging and burning my Puzzle & Dragons stamina. I ventured out for some late (for me) breakfast, before walking to this building:

It’s called ’34 Hudson Yards’ and at 103 floors is one of the tallest skyscrapers in the USA. If you look closely near the top, you’ll see a triangular platform jutting out. That’s an outdoor observation platform called ‘Edge’, opened only a couple of years ago, and was my destination today. At first I was a bit underwhelmed – since the building is new and has no history, the line experience was very dry – but once I rode the elevator to the observation deck my concerns just melted away…

Unlike others I’ve been to, the edge of the platform is just a glass wall which seemed to deter many people from stepping too close. It’s the 100th floor and since the glass is diagonally away from the edge when you go right up to it you can look directly down. It’s fantastic!

The views are spectacular, and the position closer to the river gives a different perspective on the city from the other three towers I’ve visited (this trip and last year). If you compare to yesterdays photos from the ESB you’ll see the visibility was better today as well.

The above is a photo of the Empire State Building taken from Edge, and you can see the two observatories are about the same height. They’re both outdoors as well, although the glass-only walls of Edge are better (more thrilling) than those of the ESB. That said, the outdoor part of Edge is only one side of the building, although you can view in all directions inside the building.

Edge has a transparent floor section you can stand on, and many patrons didn’t want to anywhere near it. In the above photo I am 1100 feet above the ground, standing on reinforced glass and looking down to the street. Had the floor broken, it would have taken me about 9 seconds to hit the ground, and when I did I would have been traveling over 300 km/hr. I imagine Kristin would have retired on the lawsuit money as well 🙂

The glass walls are very thick (at least an inch) but have gaps you can stick your fingers through. It was amusing to watch people summon their courage to walk close to the glass walls but still be hesitant to stand near the gaps. Even though they were scared I think they were having fun though.

I’ve now done four observation decks in NYC and enjoyed them all, and it’s interesting how each has its own strengths. Rockefeller center is the best placed, One Vanderbilt had the best experience at the lower levels (the mirrored rooms were extraordinary), ESB has a rich history and wonderful 360 degree views and Edge has the thrilling glass walls and floor. If you had time to do only one of them, I think I’d recommend the Empire State Building, but if you’re interested in these sorts of attractions then I believe there’s worth in all four.

Of course there’s two other notable decks in NYC as well (one is in the above pic). Do I have a third trip in my future?

After dark I skipped down to Times Square to see the lights and the people and neither disappointed. Every time we visit it seems the screens get bigger and you can barely see the buildings now for all the advertising! Covid is a very distant memory now (there’s absolutely no hint of the pandemic any more and I don’t believe I’ve seen a single mask these two days) and the city is once again bursting with tourists.

And since I know you’re interested, my meals today were an egg/bacon sandwich for breakfast, a turkey sub for lunch, some hot candied cashews for an afternoon snack and a burrito bowl for dinner. It was all delicious!

I head home tomorrow but not until mid afternoon. I’ve got a special plan for the morning; something that wasn’t possible the last three years. Let’s hope it works out…

NYC: Empire

August 7, 2023

I’m in New York City for an end-of-summer mini vacation!

Today I did a lot of shopping, a lot of walking, and a lot of eating. It rained a bit before lunch, then got very hot and humid, so it was a bit of an uncomfortable day. But to this veteran of hostile climes, I barely felt it!

I’m here to visit two more observation towers, and todays destination was the Empire State Building. It opened in 1931 and was the worlds tallest building for almost 40 years, and still ranks as one of the tallest (and very likely the most well-known) buildings in America. People have been ascending to the observation level for almost 100 years now, and today it was my turn.

It wasn’t very busy, and I was able to enjoy at my leisure the many displays visitors pass through on their way to the elevators. These include extensive histories and historical artifacts, a curved ‘theater’ showing excerpts from the hundreds of films in which the ESB has featured, a section where King Kong himself looks through the windows at you as you pass, and a gallery of celebrities that have visited the tower over the years, only one of which impressed me:

And then I rode the lift to the 86th floor for some sky-high views of New York City:

The green patch in the middle is Bryant Park, and the black and gold building on this side is the hotel I’m sitting in right now! As you can see it was a bit hazy today, but the views from the outdoor observation level were still fantastic. If you look closely you can see three buildings disappearing into the clouds in the distance: these are all residential skyscrapers. Imagine living with views like this?

Here’s the view in the other direction (south) toward Battery Park and the Statue Of Liberty (which isn’t really visible in this pic, but I could see fairly easily from the tower). I’ve given these pics a ‘ye olde’ filter since there was a sense of history being up the ESB. It wasn’t my first visit, but I barely remember the other time 18 years ago and the full experience is a lot more professional and impressive now.

Of course they exit you through the gift shop, where I briefly considered buying Bernard this lovely King Kong stuffed doll, before coming to my senses and heading onto the streets again to look for dinner.

Speaking of food: here’s what I ate today! A turkey sub, two mochi donuts (from different shops) and a chicken kebab from the just-opened and new to America ‘German Doner Kebab’ chain. It was delicious!

Tomorrow: another tower. Stay tuned…

Can Collection Update

July 31, 2023

I’ve posted about my can ‘collection’ twice before, which you can read here and here. It’s been five years since the last one so here’s an update.

Let’s start with dinosaur cans from the last Jurassic Park film. Once again these were available in various flavours of Dr Pepper and as you can see I only found five (of seven). Interestingly I recently learned that a similar promotion occurred in Australia! I wonder did any of my Ozlandian friends get any cans?

Here we have a selection of game-related cans. The Coke one I got in Japan, and the other two (both energy drinks that I didn’t drink) were bought in the USA. The Sonic can is pretty cool isn’t it?

These four One Piece themed cans – all for various coffee drinks – were all bought in Japan. Licensed cans for this series are common and you could probably fill shelves with them if you were a fan. I’m not, but I can’t resist a licensed can and KLS drinks the coffee 🙂

Some more anime-themed cans, both picked up on recent Japan trips. The Coke was sickly sweet and ended up being poured down a drain!

Even more anime-themed cans, this time for Uma Musume (‘Horse Girls’). The big ones are energy drink and came out of a machine in a Game Center, and the smaller one is coffee I bought in Akihabara.

Three Ultraman themed items. The two cans were bought in an Asian grocer in NYC, and I don’t recall where I got the Ultraman shaped bottle, which I’ve had for almost a decade. In Japan I saw an Ultraman can from many years ago, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this was another series with a rich history of licensed cans.

This coffee can featuring Jin from BTS was going to go to Bernard, but I’ve inexplicably kept it. I probably should just throw it away…

Likewise this Black Adam energy drink can, which I believe is the only licensed item in our home featuring Dwayne Johnson. I like this one, since the film was a flop and I haven’t seen any other merchandise.

Lastly we have these six Mountain Dew cans featuring art from various themes. They’re all from 2007/2008, and during this time Dew had several different promotions where aluminum bottles were made featuring designs by various artists. There seems to have been a lot of these (dozens) and some of mine are from the ‘green label’, ‘stars and stripes’ and ‘nascar’ (!) series. According to what I read retail distribution of these was very poor so perhaps it’s surprising I found this many.

As I was taking these photos and writing this post my intention was to recycle most of these cans, but in the end I… didn’t. They went into a box and into the attic, there to remain forever.