Back To Manhattan To Fetch My Car

Of course I had “Clicky” with me to document the day.

As you might remember a few weeks ago I left my totally dependable Subaru Forester in the garage to spend one sunny day with the top down on my 12 years SLK230. Oops. Today Helaine and I headed to Manhattan to put an obscene repair bill on my credit card and drive home.

For the curious it was a crankshaft position sensor and some other related stuff. I plead ignorance. My guess is someone’s child has just had their college tuition paid by me.

Weatherwise it was the perfect day for a trip to New York City. The temperature was comfortably mild. The sky was deep blue.

Metro North is back up and running after Hurricane Irene. We hopped the train to Grand Central.

My car was repaired at a dealership on the far west side of Manhattan. On this day Helaine and I walked the 1.6 miles from GCT.

If you wanted to sell New York City as a destination today would have been the day to use for your pitch! The streets were full of people. Restaurants burst out onto the sidewalk. Everyone seemed to be in a good mood.

Of course I had “Clicky” with me to document the day including

  1. A bodega with a watchcat
  2. A TV actor on location yelling so scarily Helaine thought he was a real New York City screaming crazy person.
  3. The world’s strangest and probably most expensive satellite dish installation
  4. Manhattan street trees

The drive home was uneventful. Phew.

13 thoughts on “Back To Manhattan To Fetch My Car”

    1. Hi Rose. That shot makes no sense unless you’ve ridden a train! On Metro North and some other lines with complex fare structures the conductor takes and punches your ticket then places a punched check into a narrow slot built into the seats. I remember these from the 60s on the LIRR and my guess is they go back long before that.

      Here are the technical details of the shot. It was taken with a Canon 7D and Tamron 17-50mm lens at 50mm, f/2.8, iso 1250, 1/160 second exposure. I did wait for the train to be in a station and still.

  1. and Geoff, regarding the punched ticket/ seat check–each conductor has a unique punch shape. Some of them have to punch the tickets more than once as their “identifier”.

  2. What, no pic of the Benz with a sticker price on it? For the repair, you probably could have been close to new. 🙂

  3. I saw something in New York yesterday I’d never seen before — a Southern California-style “low rider” car, driving west on 50th Street toward Rockfeller Center. A modified 1980s Chevy Monte Carlo with very undersized wheels, day-glo paint job, booming audio system and whatever device enables it to rock and forth while stopped. Could it have been there for a movie or TV filming?

  4. Do you post to flickr or anything like that? I’m a wanna-be DIY photographer and like seeing the EXIF info for interesting shots like these.

  5. I was in town yesterday and the weather couldn’t have been more perfect. Last time I experienced a day like that was in Santa Cruz, CA. Wish it could be like that here all the time!!

  6. I was in NYC today too… drove in for a meeting at Ground Zero about the 9/11 Memorial event. On Monday I had a run-in with a deer, but all of the damage on my car had appeared to be cosmetic… key word APPEARED…

    As I pulled onto West Street to head for the West Side Highway, I noticed the A/C wasn’t working right, by 35th street, I was noticing my Water Temp gauge was starting to climb. Pulled off at 42nd St and limped over to 10th Ave just past a film shoot and found a deli. Ran in and bought two gallons of Poland Spring ($5 – actaully seemed like a deal)… went out and had everyone from the local UPS guy and another delivery man lending their advice as I popped the hood… nothing visible but the radiator was definitely low… refilled both the radiator and the reserve and headed out of town… stopped in Mamaroneck and bought a gallon of coolant just in case… got to the Greenwich service plaza and the temperature was rising again… so I played a game of driving with the heat on set at 90 and speed under 60 and GINGERLY limped home with frequent stops…

    It wasn’t until I got home that I realized I still had my 6 gallons of evacuation water (2 – 3 gallon cans with pour spouts, etc.) in the back! I went straight to the Repair shop then over to pick up a rental that is not covered by insurance … the number of cars in for repair with storm damage was AMAZING!

    Should have taken my wife’s Subaru Outback!

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