Bryant Park During the Warm Months

As mentioned in my previous blog entry, we visited Bryant Park with the kids twice now.  This last time was just this past weekend during the warmer months so it didn't at all resemble the winter park with an ice rink like the last time we were at Bryant Park with Lukey and Kenzie.  If we hadn't told the kids this was Bryant Park, they might not have recognized it in the warm weather!  The park really does look a lot different in the summer months compared to the winter months.

During the winter months, they jam-pack this park with a big ice rink, a locker and changing facility, a few different socializing areas, and close to a hundred small shops.  When all the winter seasonal attractions are packed away for the summer, the park looks completely different.  

We quickly walked the few blocks from Grand Central Terminal to Bryant Park...

Below, the Public Library is behind them as they try to get their bearings...

Below is the back side of the Public Library facing Bryant Park.  I reminded the kids that the library extends the full length underneath Bryant Park and briefly described the card catalog system and how books are retrieved from this underground section of the library.  It is interesting but I'm not going to go into describing the library here.  This blog entry is about our visit to Bryant Park.  

Someday, when we have a bit more time, I'd really like to bring the kids into this public library to show them what a real public library looks like.  I really do think they would be shocked.  Libraries are becoming few and far between today and this immense library is very much an historic museum in addition to being an expansive library.

Here is the small carousel at Bryant Park.  Kenzie wanted to ride on it but, as we walked by, it was not yet running for the day.

On the northwest corner of Bryant Park, we were looking across at the building on the opposite corner as we waited for the traffic light to change.  I noticed the window washer scaffold on one of the lower floors and pointed toward it.  Then we realized that these window washers are actually robotic!  What the heck?  Wouldn't that take all the fun out of being a window washer in Manhattan?

When I had graduated from Civil Engineering back in the early 1980s, I was offered a job as a window washer on skyscrapers.  At the time, this was a bit more adventurous than I wanted.  In another year or two afterward, I probably would have jumped at that offer especially if it paid well!

Once I thought about this job turning robotic, I realized I shouldn't be surprised that the window washers on skyscrapers are now robotic.  Although...  hmmm...  didn't I recently (in the past year or two) see a video of a NYFD rescue of window washers dangling from a skyscraper off a toppled scaffold?   They cut through a window on one of the upper floors of this particular skyscraper to remove the huge window pane so they could pull the dangling window washer inside.  Hmmmm.... now I'm going to have to do more research on this.

From here, we walked uptown to Rockefeller Center...