Megan Singleton: BloggerAtLarge.com writer on her most recent trip to New York

Travel expert Megan Singleton's been in New York seeing the sights, and making some unexpected discoveries. 

After she learned the Abyssinian Baptist Church was booked out, she checked out the spring blossoms in Central Park, explored the Met and visited Little Island - which is built on wine glass shaped stilts across 4 acres in the Hudson River.  

Read more of Megan's travel tips here.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudgin
from News Talks AB.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
King Charles was in New York this week. Well so
was our co travel correspondent Meghan Singleton, and she joins me, now,
good morning.

Speaker 3 (00:21):
Good morning. Well Kinder, I thought I should tie in
King Charles's visit because he popped into Harlem as I
had done over Easter when I first went up. Do
you remember I told you that I was headed off
to the Gospel Church for Easter Sunday. Yeah, well ask
me how that went?

Speaker 2 (00:37):
How did that go?

Speaker 3 (00:38):
Meghan? Well, what I didn't know, Francesca, is that you
need to register. And so we got there. We went
all the way up to Harlem and they were turning
people away. So Abisinnian Baptist has been going since like
the eighteen hundreds. It's got several thousand members. And of course,
what was I thinking, Easter Sunday is going to be

(00:58):
the most significant day on their calendar. Isn't it a
side of Christmas Day? So I don't even know that
you could register. So sadly we were turned away and
we went and got the subway and I turned my
frown upside down and we had a day of serendipity,
and off we went on the subway down to Central Park,

(01:18):
where I found some blossom trees, which was my next quest,
and then we actually ended up having a lovely day
and we ended up going to the Yankees game after all,
even though it was gloomy and rainy and it had
been rain delayed, but I chose my attitude and we
enjoyed the met. Now wouldn't have gone to the Met
had I gone to church and had it not been raining.

(01:39):
So this is what does happen on days of serendipity.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
Can you tell me about Little Island?

Speaker 3 (01:46):
Little Island is it's been created. It's four acre part
space created on what looked like wineglasses popping out of
the Hudson River. So it's down near Chelsea, near the
high line, so you can sort of walk the high
line after you've done Little Island. Look, it's been on
my bucket list for a while. It's not that old,

(02:06):
but they do outdoor events and things there, and it
had blossom trees. But I just really wanted to see
it because it's so unique, and if you've seen pictures
of it, it really does look super quirky and it's
just another green space in New York, which they're actually
very good at doing. And then they've got, of course
their live events and their free you know, summer concerts
and things like that that they do.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
So that's a really great I've got a photo up.
It's bizarre. So it's all man made it. So they've
literally created this space as you say, that's got sort
of it's sort of undulating, and it's up on high
there's sort of high one glasses at some point and
lowered others.

Speaker 3 (02:43):
Yeah, but it spreads across four acres.

Speaker 2 (02:45):
Oh okay, Oh, I guess look at it. Interesting. So
it's got a sort of a little amphitheater in there
as well that looks out sort of over the river,
which is amazing, and lots of the sort of art
and gosh, they're very good at doing these kind of spaces.
This is what we need to be doing with when
you're Carter and Auckland, we need to be I mean,
we're sort of being a little bit more adventurous down there,

(03:06):
but they do it that. Gosh, this is incredible.

Speaker 3 (03:09):
Yes, I know, but I don't think we'd be able
to build something like that in our harbors. But anyway,
that's another story. Hey, subways are easy to get around.
You just tap your own credit card or your debit
card and on you go through. You don't have to
buy the local subway card anymore. So yeah, that is
really good easy. I just love New York. And you
can only do small chunks at a time because you

(03:29):
do walk twenty thousand steps a day. And even then
you're like, oh, I didn't get to Brooklyn, and I
didn't get to East Side, and I didn't get to
you know, down the bottom Battery Park. But next time,
there's always going to be next time. It's not going anywhere.

Speaker 2 (03:40):
But whenever I talked to you about New York, you often
say to it and I'm sort of surprised that you
hadn't thought about the church service and how busy that
could be in that you might have to book, because
you're very good at telling us in advance the things
that you kind of need to book for that you
might need to do for.

Speaker 3 (03:55):
But there was nothing on their website. And I had
gone on to the website several times to see what
the time the service was and I couldn't see anything.
And even today I thought I'm going to double check.

Speaker 2 (04:06):
And there'll be a little bit of feedback on the
website now. But little things like Allen's Stardust Diner normally
has a line down the street and it's really hard
to get into. Did you manage to get in there?

Speaker 3 (04:20):
We did because it was actually quite close to our hotel.
So it's a very quirky diner where the staff are
like Broadway singers, So they're walking around with a roaming microphone,
singing Broadway hits or Ebba songs or whatever while they're
taking your money, taking the check, signing things off. But
they're singing, and there's like a little like a boardwalk

(04:42):
sort of what do you call it, like catwalk in
between the dining tables. So they climb up the stairs,
they walk the catwalk, they do so moves, twirk away,
get back down, off the stage, carry on, take a
plate out to the kitchen, and it's just bizarre and
really really fun. So because there was no line, I thought,
I said to my husband, right, we're going in, and
he was like, what when.

Speaker 2 (05:03):
You said that they were roving with a microphone, I thought, oh, no,
not audience participation.

Speaker 3 (05:07):
That they are, Yeah, no, no, not at all. They
are the quality singers they've brought. They are amazing singers,
and they suddenly just just burst into song from wherever
they're walking from the kitchen to pick up a plate
to take it somewhere, and they're singing.

Speaker 2 (05:22):
I feel like you did a lot of quirky things
this time. I mean I know that. You know, as
you said, you went to the met and you went
to MoMA. Where is the best view is Empire State Building?
The best spot to head to.

Speaker 3 (05:35):
I prefer top of the rock because I like to
look at the Empire State Building in my skyline view.
And so from the obviously the Empire State Building you
don't see all the buildings are a little bit boring.
But when you're on the top of the Rockefeller Center
and you are looking at the Empire State Building, that's
a great photo op right there. And then in the
other direction you're looking at Central Park. So I prefer that.

(05:57):
And again I had one of these goh City passes
and I've chosen just three things quite cool. As I
got near them, they popped up, say, oh, you're right
beside MoMA. Oh gosh, am I so, and we went
so I quite again serendipity. I hadn't pre booked my
top of the Rock tickets either. I went into this
little pass see when's the next thing? Oh ten minutes time, right,
that's us up, we'll go. So that was how my

(06:21):
days in New York unfolded.

Speaker 2 (06:22):
Well, I have a lot of poemones, so thank you
very much for that, mecon. Look forward to catching up
with you next week.

Speaker 1 (06:30):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to News Talks it'd be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.