NYC Stories: A Time to Look & Listen

Despite the cold and negative wind chill during New York Fashion Week, it didn’t stop us from wandering the streets of Midtown Manhattan every chance we could get to explore. Once we hit the streets, we weren’t alone — Mother Nature wasn’t going to slow anyone down. For me, NYC isn’t so much a shopping or eating destination, granted, the array of food options in NYC is amazing — NYC is about the experience. I love discovering new places, seeing the architecture and stumbling upon old building

February 25, 2016

[x_section style=”margin: 0px 0px 0px 0px; padding: 45px 0px 45px 0px; “][x_row inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” bg_color=”” style=”margin: 0px auto 0px auto; padding: 0px 0px 0px 0px; “][x_column bg_color=”” type=”1/4″ style=”padding: 10px 10px 10px 10px; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 1px; “][x_text class=”center-text “] Danny de la Cruz @ VRAI Magazine by Danny de la Cruz / Photos by Audrey @audreydlc[/x_text][/x_column][x_column bg_color=”” type=”3/4″ style=”padding: 0px 0px 0px 0px; “][x_text]Despite the cold and negative wind chill during New York Fashion Week, it didn’t stop us from wandering the streets of Midtown Manhattan every chance we could get to explore. Once we hit the streets, we weren’t alone — Mother Nature wasn’t going to slow anyone down.

For me, NYC isn’t so much a shopping or eating destination, granted, the array of food options in NYC is amazing — NYC is about the experience. I love discovering new places, seeing the architecture and stumbling upon old buildings with history. On this day, our feet led us to a place I had never experienced.

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The New York Public Library

One such destination is the New York Public Library on 5th and 42nd streets. It’s a grand, imposing structure, built in the late 1800s that we stumbled upon while wandering down 5th. It stands out as a landmark building which draws you up its steps and past towering columns. Once inside, there were guided tours lasting an hour plus, but on this day, we wanted to quickly explore on our own before our next fashion event.

What struck me the most was that there were actually people sitting in the library and using the books. I know how silly that sounds, but in this day and age of the internet and ebooks, the idea of going to a library just hasn’t crossed my mind.

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A Time to Look

We wandered around the halls of this great structure with marbled walls, columns and arches around every turn, great halls and ornate details for the eye to relish. NY-17

A Time to Listen

As we followed a long corridor, we came across a set of old telephone booths encased in wood. While we examined the relic, an elderly gentlemen seated at a desk to the left started to talk to us. He appeared to be part of security, or maybe just a friendly volunteer and he told us about the library, which areas to see and even showed us that the phone booth still functioned.

We chatted for several minutes more and he encouraged us to pass by his favorite building in all of Manhattan, the Grace Building right next door on 42nd street for the beautiful curvature of its base. He even suggested other landmarks for us to visit that were off the beaten path. On this day, however, we simply followed his final words of advice and headed up to the third floor to check out the great hall and the Gutenberg Bible on display before heading out.

It was finally time to go and so upon exiting, we turned left onto 42nd Street and more than half way down, across from Bryant Park, we found the beautiful curves of the Grace Building.

See more of our NYC travel photos on Instagram.