The All Star Game and the New York Philharmonic

In New York, time seems to be at a premium. Being that there is so much to do, you need to find time to do it all. You also have to be organized if you don't want to miss out. Stephanie and I went down to the Avenue of the America's (6th Ave.) this afternoon to catch the parade before the MLB All-Star Game here at Yankee Stadium. The red-carpet parade route stretched from 42nd all the way to Central Park down 6th Avenue. Every living Baseball Hall-of-Fame member and the All-Stars were walking in the parade. This was one not to miss. We missed it. It seems we were misinformed. Whereas the paper said the parade coverage began at 7:00 pm, what they really meant by 7:00 was 1:00, when the parade actually took place. I held our spots on the parade route against the never-encrouching crowd for over an hour before we realized that the parade had in fact aken place four hours earlier. This isn't the first incident of us missing something we really wanted to see. Time just doesn't make sense here sometimes.

In poor spirits, we left the parade route to grab some dinner. We went to Astro's Diner. This throwback joint served greasy food and flat coke. Another swing and a miss. Hey, at least the waiter was friendly.

Earlier today Stephanie had her first job interview here in New York. It was for a position similar to the one she had been in at the Brogan. This time it is at a gallery in Midtown. She thought it went really well, and they seemed to like her a lot. We're keeping our fingers crossed.

Remembering reading something about the New York Philharmonic Orchestra playing a free concert in Central Park tonight, we headed north into the park. We took our time walking by the lakes and under the canopy paths. We didn't expect the scene that awaited us ahead. Sometimes it's easy to misjudge the popularity of a free event in the city. One day you can go out and be one of a handful of people. We expected to find maybe a thousand people out in the park tonight. We didn't expect to find "61,000" people there, according to the New York Times. We could see the stage and barely hear the music from about a mile away when we entered the great green space. People were parked on blankets, drinking wine, and having a candlelit evening all over the place. I've never seen so many people in one space. I'm not sure how much you can see, but here's a video of the crowd followed by a clip of the orchestra. (I just watched the video and realized how fast I moved the camera, sorry. Please don't get sick on your keyboard.)

We left the concert right before its conclusion in order to beat the crowd (lest we be beaten by its retreating occupants). As we headed towards the subway I saw this fallout shelter. Interesting find in the middle of the city. History is all over the place.

When we got home I turned on the TV expecting to find the All-Star Game over with. We would have gone had it not been impossible to get a ticket to the last All-Star Game ever being held at Yankee Stadium. The game was in the 8th inning, but it would beb another three hours before it was over. It was a pretty amazing game, well defended on both sides. I had been wearing my Boston cap all day (in New York City!) and was happy to see J.D. Drew win the MVP award; a Bo-Sock and a Seminole.

With the morning fast approaching, it is time to get some sleep. I have an interview tomorrow with Borders Park Avenue. Steph has another interview with a different gallery as well. It's going to be a big day!