11. GOODBYE NEW YORK, HELLO NEW ENGLAND

December 25 2012

Today is the big day, we are on the road again. We pick up a rental car and drive, on the right side mind you, through Connecticut to Road Island.

Looking out of our bethel window it seems that we have planned well. The Christmas tradition is keeping New Yorkers at home. The roads look as clear as they ever might...

Goodbye New York, hello NEW ENGLAND

Here is our rental car... boring i know...

First stop, Yale university, New Haven, Connecticut... No particular reason. This random angular stone building simply appealed to me. It beckoned, "get out of the car and photograph me",,, so we stopped and i snapped off a few shots...

Love the angles

And the sculpture, why not a few more photos?

And more

Ok, a lot of shots. Turns out it's the Ezra Styles college. Never heard of it before, so now that i have looked it up on good old Wikipedia I am chuffed that I stumbeled upon this little architectural gem...

Ezra Stiles College is a residential college at Yale University, built in 1961 by Eero Saarinen. Architecturally, it is known for its lack of right angles. The college, considered by many architecture critics a masterpiece of American architecture, is built of rubble masonry with buildings and a tower in the style of pre-Gothic Tuscan towers such as still exist in the medieval Italian hill town of San Gimignano. The college consists almost entirely of single rooms, and in a modern attempt to capture the spirit of Gothic architecture, Saarinen eliminated all right angles from the living areas.

Architect Eero Saarinen is a bit of a hero in my book, he was the architectural judge who pulled Utzon's Sydney Opera house plans, that had been rejected by the other judges, out of the bin and promoted the design.

Would make a pretty nice bethel room, don't you think?

"Anyways" (as our American friends like to say) enough about that

Here is some typical local architecture

This is the small town of Essex

The Connecticut river

And this is Mystic

Yep, it's cold

And finally, we arrived in Newport Road Island. Couldn't resist stopping at the Kingdom Hall on the way...

And this,,, this is our warm bed. From memory, the house was built in 1830? Tomorrow we will introduce you to our equally warm hosts.

Love-you-bye

Lloydnalex

 

 

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10. CENTRAL PARK, SLIP SLIDING AWAY

December 24 2012

No trip to New York is compleat without a visit to central park. Its some 25 years since Alexandra ice skated so it was with some trepidation that she approached the Wollman Rink in Central Park... But she is a determined little thing and nothing would prevent her from skating on this day.

But...where's Alexandra???

Oh, there she is...

And loving it

Where's Elmo??? Look closely, he is there...

Oh, there he is again... He seems pretty happy wit himself too.

Central Park in the winter

The patriot in the park... Who knows?

Robert Burns dreaming of the plans of mice and men

Who doesn't love Central Park?

Lloydnalex

 

9. THE FORE-GLEAM

Sunday December 23

Meet Wendell, one of our DBD buddies. He like to keep a low profile so we cannot tell you too much about him.

Suffice it to say, he took us to Pratt congregation in Brooklyn, then in the... And then to pizza and then..

A NYC KH wit a car park... Unheard of

Pratt

Wendell took us on a special outing... You might call it a fore-gleam. We drove from Brooklyn across the Brooklyn bridge...

Through Manhattan

Up the west side

Across the 1931 George Washington bridge that spans the Husdon river. (Most things in the USA are named Washington). And then about an hour upstate to... Where do you think???

Where is that? No, not the IBM building on the left. Look across the other side of the lake there. Yep, that's the site of the new JW world head quarters at Warwick.

 

 

Well, lots of shots of the same thing really... We were not able to go onto the property but its certainly a beautiful place for a new bethel. If you haven't already you can see a little more at

http://www.jw.org/en/news/by-region/americas/united-states/video-clip-warwick-plans/

And just down the road, another property the society has acquired at Tuxeedo. Pretty cool 70s architecture. It's being used as a staging site for the upcoming construction at Warwick.

Then it was back across the George Washington

Back down the west side of Manhattan

Throug Manhattan ... and home again. Another big day out. Tomorrow our vacation begins.

Thanx Wendell

Bye for now

Lloydnalex