Our Accommodation has changed in New York

In the last update to our itinerary, Gullivers Travel has changed our New York accommodation to a hotel closer to Times Square. It is also closer to 5th Avenue and the major museums and attractions.
We are now staying at:

The Hotel at Times Square

59 West 46th Street

New York City

NY 10036

Ph: +1 212 719 2300

See the inside of the hotel with a 360 degree view at the link below:

The Hotel at Times Square

Banksy's New York 'Better Out Than In'

UK artist Banksy had his 'Better Out Than In' art residency in New York in October 2013. During this month, he created street art works throughout Manhattan, Harlem, the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens. New Yorkers would wake each day to find a new Banksy created somewhere in the city. Unfortunately, many of Banksy's works were destroyed just hours after completion by local graffiti artists leaving their tag. In order to save the works, some property owners covered the artworks with plexiglass sheets, fitted a locked gate, or physically removed the works to preserve them.

'Hammer Boy' still exists on a wall at 79th and Broadway on the Upper West Side.

theverge.com

Google 'Binocular Building' and you'll find Google

Google Los Angeles is found in Venice Beach in a binocular shaped building designed by Frank Gehry.  Inside, two of the coolest conference rooms are found, designed by artist Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen. The space also contains a climbing wall, an outdoor movie theatre and a rooftop deck with views of Venice Beach.

my7continents.com

It's pouring rain at LACMA but no one is getting wet

The 'Rain Room' is an immersive art installation of an indoor rain storm where people can move about and not get wet. The falling water pauses whenever a human body is detected enabling visitors to control the stormy weather with each footstep. Rain Room provides a sensory experience of light, sound and smell and is currently on display at LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art) until April 24.

latimes.com

View the promotional video of the installation and read about its meaning

http://www.lacma.org/rainroom#landing

Easter Time and a Rabbit at The Broad

Los Angeles's newest contemporary art museum, The Broad, has been opened for the past six months and has already had over 350,000 visitors to see their inaugural installation. The museum is home to 2000 works of art primarily from the international postwar period and contemporary art. Eli and Edye Broad have been building their art collection over the last 50 years and have amassed works by Jean-Michel Basquait, Barbara Kruger, Jeff Koons, Jasper Johns, Cindy Sherman and Robert Rauschenberg  to name a few.

revistaaxxis.com.au

The innovative building design is by world renowned architectural firm Diller Scofido + Renfro in collaboration with Gensler. It is dubbed 'the veil and the vault' because the museum's design merges the two key components of the building: the public exhibition space and collection storage. The vault is enveloped on all sides by the veil, an airy honeycomb-like wall structure that filters in natural daylight.

theatlantic.com

The Broad Museum's Inaugural Installation contains masterworks from the collection. Jeff Koon's famous 'Rabbit', 1986, is a stainless sculpture that takes on the appearance of an inflatable toy. However, the soft, leaky and cheap vinyl shell has been replaced by stainless steel armour.

www.theatlantic.com
Here about Jeff Koon's 'Rabbit':

https://soundcloud.com/thebroad/jeff-koons-rabbit

Yayoi Kusama's 'Infinity Mirrored Room - The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away' is currently on display at The Broad. It is a mirror-lined chamber that has a seemingly endless LED light display. Visitors can experience the artwork, one at a time, for approximately 45 seconds. See the link below.

www.youtube.com

Yayoi Kusama Infinity Mirrored Room Experience

Performer Adele visited Yayoi Kusama's 'Infinity Mirrored Room' at The Broad in February this year and performed 'When We Were Young' in the immersive artwork. The resulting film was shown at the BRIT Awards 2016.

Move/LA Downtowner

Adele at The Broad

Adele at the 2016 BRIT Awards

Easter in New York

New Yorkers certainly know how to celebrate and the annual Easter Parade is no exception! Combining tradition with imagination, the easter bonnets that are worn by participants in the parade are full of fantasy and the surreal.

Dating back to the mid 1800's, a combination of religious services and haute couture saw the beginning of the Easter Parade. The social elite would parade their new fashions down 5th Avenue after they attended services at local churches, and the less well to do would come and see the latest fashion trends. The 'Easter Parade' event was also memorialised in Irving Berlin's 1948 musical that starred Fred Astaire, Judy Garland and Peter Lawford. 

While there is still high fashion involved in the event, the modern version tends to be more fantastic with live birds nests in bonnets and pets dressed in the latest 5th Avenue fashion.

www.newyork.com

allevents.in

http://new-york-city.edelight.de

Universal Studios Hollywood's newest attraction opening very soon

Universal Studios is preparing to open its newest popular attraction early next month: The Wizarding World of Harry Potter - just 2 days before we leave! With lots of hype surrounding its opening, check the link below to see what else is going on at Hollywood's Universal Studios:

2015/1016 Universal Studios Trailer

www.thestudiotour.com

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter Official TV Commercial

Iconic New York Food

A must-eat checklist of iconic New York food for our travellers to consider:

1. Hot Dog

European butchers introduced the 'dog' to New York in the 1800's, with Charles Feltman from Germany starting up a pushcart to sell the first hot dog on the beach of Coney Island in 1870. An employee of Feltman opened a shop opposite the pushcart offering hot dogs at a reduced price. Nathan Handwerker put his ex-boss out of business but started an iconic annual hot dog eating contest that has been running on July 4 (Independence Day) ever since.

In 1973, Papaya King had sold an original combination of hotdog and papaya drink for over 40 years, when an ex-employee opened up Gray's Papaya. It became a famous eatery that featured in movies and television productions such as 'You've Got Mail', 'Sex and the City' and 'Glee'. 

Their high quality all-beef dogs in a natural casing are grilled and served on a toasted bun with sauerkraut and spicy brown mustard. A great spot to go on our way to the National History Museum!

2. The Bagel

Jewish bagels are thought to have come from Krakow in the 17th Century and were brought to New York by Polish Jewish immigrants in the 1810's. In the mid-town borough that has the Chrysler Building, Grand Central Station and Empire State Building, new arrivals to New York searched for the American Dream. Here, bagel bakeries became so ubiquitous that a union was established to protect its workers and the craft of the handmade bagel. In the 1960's, the invention of automatic baking machines enabled pre-sliced bagels to become mainstream. 

The New York bagel of choice is smoked salmon and cream cheese, after a 1930's Kraft marketing campaign that successfully promoted the cream cheese combo. Lox (thinly sliced smoked salmon) was sold from pushcarts on the Lower East Side that were owned by Jewish immigrants in the early 1900's. Harry Brownstein, who emigrated from Russia in 1905, sold smoked fish in New York from his horse-drawn wagon. He was the founder of Willamsburg's Acme Smoked Fish company which now supplies bagel bakeries with kosher salmon.

Zucker's Bagels in midtown are hand rolled and kettle-boiled and made from plain-yeast dough using unbleached flour and sweetened with malt syrup. This makes their bagels a sweet bread with a crust that's chewy but not heavy. Zucker's Traditional Sandwich is a bagel filled with Nova Scotia smoked salmon, plain cream cheese, red onions and capers, Lucky's beefsteak tomatoes, served with a pickle and coleslaw. Let's search out the bagels when we visit Grand Central Railway.

3. Doughnut

The earliest 'doughnut' originated in Europe and the Middle East and made their way to New York as Dutch olykoeks (oil cakes). By the 1850's, the doughnut evolved into their recognisable ring shape. At Ellis Island, immigrants were welcomed to New York with coffee and doughnuts. In 1921, New York was home to the first automated doughnut machine which enabled them to be mass produced. The US produces around 10 billion doughnuts each year and new alternatives are always being devised such as the Cronut - a croissant/doughnut hybrid that originated in New York.

Chang W. Lee The New York Times

4. Pizza

Italian immigrants introduced the first pizzas to New Yorkers with early pioneering pizzerias using the best ingredients, including homemade fresh mozzarella. The New York regional style of pizza has a thin crust that allows for faster cooking in a city where everyone is in a hurry.

1000thingsnyc.com.au

5. Pastrami on Rye

The Pastrami on Rye is the New York sandwich: lots of smoked black-edged slices of pastrami inside two pieces of rye bread, smothered in yellow mustard and accompanied by pickles. The recipe has not changed at Katz Delicatessen since it opened in 1888 on the Lower East Side. At the time it was home to a thriving community of Jewish immigrants. The original pastrami sandwich was created by Sussman Volk, a kosher butcher but Katz Deli made it famous. About 6800kg of pastrami is consumed each week by Katz Deli clientele - these have included 4 US presidents, numerous celebrities whose photos dot the wood-panelled walls, and serving US soldiers.

newyork.seriouseats.com

6. The New York Cheesecake

The baked cheesecake has been eaten in Europe since the 1400's, but New Yorker's have appropriated the recipe by claiming it as their own. Reputedly created by Arnold Reuben, a German immigrant, the NewYork cheesecake was made famous by Lindy's restaurant in midtown in the 1920's. The dessert featured cream cheese, heavy cream, a dash of vanilla and a cookie crust, becoming hugely popular in the 1940's.

newyork.seriouseats.com

7. Ice Cream Cone

Ice cream first arrived in New York in the early 1700's but was a luxury items that was mainly consumed by the elite. In the 1790 summer, George Washington and his wife Martha spent around $200 ($3000 today) on the dessert. The 19th century technical advances in refrigeration and the transportation of ice, enabled the general population to consume ice cream. Post World War II, the Americans celebrated with ice cream with each person consuming around 20 quarts in 1946.

The first ice cream cone was produced by Italo Marchiony, an immigrant from Italy in the late 1800's. He invented his ice cream cone in New York city and was granted a patent in December 1903. Another alternative using a crisp waffle-like pastry was made at the St Louis World's Fair in 1904.

newyork.seriouseats.com

Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory

Australian lingo vs American

Do you know your biscuits from your scones? Check out the Aussie Lingo to American Page to see how our Aussie words match up to the American language!

quora.com

American Biscuit

australiatraveller.com

Australian Biscuit

Final Art Tour Meeting Tonight

Final Art Tour Meeting: Monday 7th March 2016
Time: 7pm
Venue: MFS at St Ives High School

Our last meeting before we travel will discuss:

• What to pack - clothes, comfortable shoes, day pack, wet weather gear, USA adapter plugs
• What to avoid carrying onto the plane - liquids over 100mls (that includes water bottles), sharp items including scissors and nail files
• Rooming organisation
• Travel diaries
• Travel money - travel cards loaded with US dollars, debit card as a secondary source and only at ATM's with Visa Plus, Maestro, MasterCard or Cirrus logo (transaction and conversion fees will apply). Spending money, tipping and what fundraising covers.
• Bunnings BBQ on the 20th March at Bunnings Belrose. Last fundraising activity to help pay for group expenses. Help with be needed on the day. Sign up for your duty on the roster. Thanks to Jo Doherty for organising the event.
• Gullivers Travel Raffle tickets - butts must be returned to school for the mid year draw.
• Mobile phones and travel sims - this MUST be sorted prior to departures as we require all students mobile numbers before we leave. Students must be able to text and call at any time during the tour. Please be aware and investigate the large costs involved when using international roaming with your usual mobile number.
• Risk Assessment during the tour - crossing roads, remaining in designated subway groups, remaining with supervised teachers at all times.
• Code of Conduct contracts and being ON TIME ALWAYS.
• Tickets and travel documents - when they will be available.
• Airport details - where and when to meet.
• Photo assignment - choose a subject or theme. Add to our photo book on 'New York is...'