With this final post, I am concluding what has been a month in the making; the FINAL update of my time in New York City!  I have shown poor judgment by delaying this but with school and other activities taking place in Athens, this has fallen down my list of priorities.  I am going to conclude my post with photos from my time at The TODAY Show.  Thank you to all that have followed me and to those that still check back almost daily to see if I ever updated this again!  I am in the process of creating a new site which will encompass all of my past work and will also be a place where I can continue my writing and stay sharp for the future.  If you are interested in hearing more about this, feel free to email me at ryanlytle@yahoo.com.  Without further ado, my final photos from The TODAY Show:

I don’t think this photo needs any description but, just in case, this is me with Matt Lauer on my last day at TODAY.

And, another one.  Matt was and is a great mentor.  Very fortunate to have his guidance.

This is Meredith and I on my last day.  She is a sweetheart. 

My man! This is Charlie, one of the interns I worked with during my time with The TODAY Show.  I also had the pleasure of working with Will, Kelly, Jessica, Ariella, Nick and Nahema during my time with the show and i miss them all.

A few more of the people I was fortunate enough to work with.  Such a great experience, wonderful memories and I will always be appreciative of the fact I had this opportunity.

And, because of pressures to do so, I am posting a link to the most memorable moment of my time with The TODAY Show.  Again, thank you all for following my adventures through NYC.  It was a fun ride and I look forward to new adventures ahead.

My Most Memorable Moment at The TODAY Show!

Ryan

Well, I finally did something I had been wanting to do since my first day in New York.  I was told early on that the Staten Island Ferry offered some of the best views of Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty.  The best part?  The ferry is free!  Here are a few photos from my trip on the ferry:

The trip was about an hour round trip and it was well worth the wait.  It was great weather and the views were amazing!  I can’t believe my time here is almost over. Not much time left to experience the sights!

I apologize again for the delay in this post, but the past weekend has proven again to be very busy.  I want to update with a few photos from my trip to South Street Seaport.  According to the South Street Web site: “The Seaport and Pier 17 have a rich and diverse history as profound to New York City as Wall Street, Central Park or Times Square.  This cultural marketplace along the dynamic Lower Manhattan waterfront is a gateway to the harbor.  The neighborhood offers attractions, shops and restaurants for every taste.  Diverse year-round events are easily accessible by subway, car, ferry or bus. Concerts, street performers, boating, bike rentals, a farmers market, summer beach and winter celebrations abound.”

The place was as advertised.  Just check out some of these photos:

Not only were the views beautiful but the weather was the best I have experienced since I came to New York.  Without a doubt, South Street Seaport is one of my favorite places in the city.

The coolest snow art I’ve ever seen just laying around on an NYC sidewalk.  One of the things I ran into the other night coming back from Phebe’s.  Also, we met the “artists” who put the guy together.  These are the kind of things that would just be plain weird in most cities but a normal sight in Manhattan.

This won’t be a really long post like usual because my Friday night cleared out my entire Saturday, but there are a few things I want to point out about the weekend.

Friday night I met up with a friend for happy hour on the Lower East Side.  It was a Cincinnati bar called Phebe’s!  They have great beer prices and even better buffalo wings.  If I were back in Athens, I would honestly have to put these as one of the top two places.  They are that good.  After that I met up with a friend for a “going away party” at one bar and then a “birthday party” at another.  I usually try to keep my nightlife out of my posts so that’s about all I will share about that - besides the fact that it basically knocked out my Saturday completely.

So, on Sunday, I met up with a friend from The TODAY Show and we hit up The Paley Center for Media.  It was a cool place with a lot of media archives (which, if you know me, is one of the loves of my life) but there was a lot less there than we had hoped.  For an $8 admission fee, I was hoping for more exhibitions.  I have to say, the archives were very amazing though.

After that, we went to Clinton Hill in Brooklyn which I had been told was the home of the only deep fried turkey joint in New York.  I have had deep fried turkey only one other time in my life and it was a joyous occasion, so I had to try it here.  The place is called Jive Turkey, and I am now a huge fan.  I ordered the hot turkey sandwich.  Check it out:

Mmm.  That’s all I have to say about that.  They piled the turkey onto the sandwich, which was an added bonus.  Look how happy I am!

Overall, it was a very fun and, at times, relaxing weekend.  It’s crazy to think I have only two more weekends to go before I make the big trip back to Ohio.  Time has truly flown.

I finally got my hair cut this past weekend!  Two months in the making and I finally got around to it.  Now, I have always been very much against a man cutting my hair - a long story from when I was younger.  But I found this place on the Upper East Side called Premium Barber Shop.  I was very hesitant to go there and almost didn’t go through with it when I got to the place, but I persevered and I’m glad that I did.  The place was a more upscale barbershop with a very cool New York vibe.  There were four flat screens and the music was good.  It felt less like a barbershop and more like a lounge.  I got a shampoo, hot towel and a haircut - all for $12.95!  I don’t even know if I could find that deal in Cincinnati.  A great place for a haircut.  If you’re a guy in this city, I’d recommend it!

So this past weekend I was able to attend my third Broadway show since I’ve been here.  Race, a new play on Broadway, is the story about three lawyers (two black and one white) that are deciding whether to take a case that involved a wealthy white man accused of raping a black woman.

I know, I know.  This type of story seems very tired and overused.  That was my fear going into the show.  Fortunately, this play did an absolutely amazing job of adding a fresh change to this story.  It was funny and serious at the same time.  There were moments of complete hilarity and other moments of skin-trembling tension.

Here’s a photo of me before getting to see the show.  This show was absolutely star-studded which was cool to see.  I’ve seen so many different things with David Alan Grier and James Spader and Kerry Washington.  I hadn’t seen anything by Richard Thomas before but he was very good as well.

After the show, we decided to hang around to see if we could meet the actors. When they came out, they were very nice and even took photos with us which was really cool.

JAMES SPADER! He was very friendly and, surprisingly, very soft spoken.

KERRY WASHINGTON! She was also so friendly as well.

Overall, it was such a fun experience getting to see this show and meet some of the actors.

I’ll leave you with this photo for now:

Until next time, good night.

So I really didn’t get too many photos during my walk down Fifth Avenue from 110th Street.  It was more about just taking in the sights for me than it was capturing them.  For some reason, walking down those blocks on Fifth Avenue, I felt like I was in an episode of Seinfeld.  There was something about that area, it just made me think that if those characters had really existed, they would have lived somewhere out there.

Anyhow, Fifth Avenue is also known as Museum Alley - most of the big museums happen to be on this path.  I went past the Gugghenheim, which had a line outside the building:

I also went by the Met, which I still need to check out:

Finally, when I got past all of the museums (which, there were a lot more than the two pictured-obviously) I found the major fashion area of Fifth Avenue.  Every high-end fashion brand you could dream of had a store out there.  I, of course, went to the five story Nike store:

It was definitely the coolest Nike store I have ever been in.  This photo is taken from the fifth floor.  Very cool building.

After checking out this place, I met a friend at Gray’s Papaya - a famous hot dog chain here in New York.  The hot dogs were really good and the fruit drinks were good as well.  I still really want to check out Nathan’s on Coney Island in Brooklyn.  Not much time left, but that’s still on the to-do list.

More about my weekend coming in my next post.

This past weekend was the tale of two extremes.  One day was spent doing a lot of outdoor sight seeing in very peaceful areas, while the other was spent with friends and shows.

But I’ll start this blog off with the laid back part of my weekend.  I went up east to check out Central Park and the 100’s of Manhattan.  I was told by a friend from work that I have to take the train up there and walk all the way back down 5th Avenue.  Because Friday night turned out to be a bit of a late night, I didn’t really have much planned for Saturday.  The weather was good so I figured I would keep it cheap and do a solo walking tour of Central Park and 5th Ave.

I took the subway up to 110th and 8th and made the trek across Central Park to 5th.  On the way I snapped a few pics of the sights.

Of course when I first got to the park, I was greeted by 10 flights of steps.  It wouldn’t really have been a huge deal if the ice hadn’t been so bad.  You can easily see it from this photo how bad that ice was.  I guess they forgot to salt these respective steps because the rest of the park wasn’t too bad.  I felt like Joe Pesci from “Home Alone” trying to climb up these steps, but I made it up eventually.

When I finally made it past the steps, this was one of the first views I had from the park.  It’s amazing… all this green space is surrounded by the most intense city in the world.  I felt a little bit like I was back in Ohio when I was here.  So quiet and serene.  Those two words could not describe any other part of the city.

When I first saw this little pond, I thought that this was the body of water everyone talks about when they told me to check out Central Park.  I wasn’t too impressed, but then I learned that this wasn’t the pond to be looking for.  I did shoot this pic, though, for the ducks that were in the water.  I thought they deserved a little recognition for swimming in that water.

A little bit before I arrived at the BIG pond, I took this shot overlooking Central Park with the buildings of midtown looming beyond.  Seriously, I forgot how nice it was to be somewhere quiet and laid back.  That will always be something I will appreciate about where I’m from.

After this, I arrived to my favorite part of the entire park.  The BIG pond!  The next few photos are shots from there.  If you haven’t spent a little time in this city than you might not be able to appreciate the few moments of serenity I got to experience.  No one was around and the world was quiet for the first time in about two months for me.

Seriously, one of the best feelings of this weekend was the five minutes I spent checking out this spot.

My trip down Fifth Avenue is coming in my next post.  Check back for it!

It has been such an unbelievable experience being in New York City and working for The TODAY Show that I sometimes forget the life I have back in Athens.  Having my girlfriend visit me really reminded me of the things I have to look forward to when I’m back in Ohio.  I have four weeks left to live it up here, but Ohio will always be home in the end.

(Just in case you were all wondering, this photo was taken in the library of Birch Coffee - one of my favorite chill spots in the city)