New York City

 

The Music and Drama Departments braved the cold New York City weather to experience the world renowned arts to be found there. The trip, led by Mr Harrison, Miss Dobson, Mr Holiday and Miss Jones, consisted of twenty-five boys fron the Fifth and Sixth Forms.

 

We were fortunate to visit the incredible Art Deco styled Radio City Music Hall, located near the Rockefeller Centre, where we met one of the “New York Rockettes”, the dancers famous for their high kicks and their annual Christmas Spectacular. We also visited the Metropolitan Opera House, which has staged such wonderful performances as the première of Puccini’s La Faniciulla del West, as well as La Bohème, which was broadcast from the stage to an audience of four million TV viewers in 1977.

 

On the third night of our trip we took the subway to 8th Street where we say the Blue Man group perform at the Astor Place theatre. This show, which has toured many international cities, is about three ‘blue men’ who, having landed from space on an alien planet, explore their new world, and the audience, without words. We later attended a drama workshop, where a Blue Man described how he had to train for a year and learn the parts of each Blue Man as well as teaching us a drum rhythm from the show.

 

Any visit to New York would be incomplete without viewing the iconic sights of the city. On the night of our arrival, we went up the Empire State Building, standing at 381 metres, which was only a short walk from our hostel in Midtown Manhattan. This fabulous skyscraper offered us views from the East River to the Hudson River and from Battery Point in the south to Central Park, enabling us to see the lights of New York at night. From our vantage point on the 86th floor we could see the coloured lights of the nearby Chrysler Building and Times Square.

 

We were also given a tour of Times Square, Central Park and Fifth Avenue, and by ferry boat we visited the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, which are located in the Judson River. From Battery Park, we walked north towards Ground Zero, the site of the Twin Towers before the 9/11 attacks. City authorities are constructing a memorial where the World Trade Centre once stood, but for the meantime the names of those who died that day are shown on the fence surrounding the construction site.

 

New York is a great city for walking, as it is like one big movie set, constructed on a grid system. Our trip ended just as we were beginning to familiarise ourselves with the streets of Manhattan, having been given a few hours each day to do just that. The trip was a great success and was enjoyed by all, regardless of whether they had been to New York before.