New York - Day 6

Damn, it's hot out here right now. I just popped outside for a cigarette and it's even hotter than it was yesterday. I so didn't expect to be chucking on the sun cream on a city break like this....

So yesterday we decided to take advantage of the passes for South Street Seaport Museum, which we got at the same time as our tickets for the Empire State Building and Statue of Liberty tours. It's down below the lower east side of Manhattan, near the Brooklyn Bridge.



Since we're in the area, we take a walk across the bridge until we reach the halfway point, which contans some tourist info and some kodak opportunities. It's really warm by now, so we finally make our way down to ground level and the seaport itself. It's a strange combo of old sailing ships surrounded by skyscrapers and the sea. There's a Shopping Mall on Pier 17 as well as a convent-garden-like square surrounded by restaurants, swanky designer stores and the like.



The Museum is small but a worthwhile visit. In particular, there's an exhibit on Irish Fighting, which contains some cool memorabilia, from the preserved right arm of bare-knuckles fighter, Dan Donnelly (he beat Bill the Butcher in a scrap), to various props used in the movie, Million Dollar Baby.



After checking out the Museum and walking around on one of the oldboats in the harbour, we grab ourselves a delicious fish supper before catching the subway back to the hotel.



In the evening we head out to Tribeca to watch a few bands at a 'Barfly-scale' venue called the 'Knitting Factory'. The bands themselves turn to be somewhat more on the lighter side of rock than we were expecting (Think Maroon 5 etc), but all four bands are of an exceptionally high quality, even if the music they're playing isn't really our bag.



Like every night we've been out since we got here, as soon as the locals here as speak, they seem very friendly and delighted to speak to us English-folk. We wind up chatting to a very friendly (and really quite pissed up) trio, but they eventually leave and we can't be arsed to keep watching the last band, so we leave the venue ourselves and head over the lower east side.

There we find a very cosy (and somewhat busy) bar which we were too intoxicated to remember by name, but it was OK. A guy told JC that "We don't really take to visitors, but you guys seems cool'. We only stay for one beer anyway, deciding to save ourselves for Friday night.

And somehow I've picked up leaflets for a burlesque night and some kind of crazy BBQ/Party going on in Brooklyn tonight...