Monday 15th July: When I was investigating bars on 1st and 2nd Avenues on Saturday night I walked past the start of the Queensboro Bridge. The bridge is unusual because it also has a cable car to Roosevelt Island, which the bridge itself just passes over. I had recognised the cable car from the one in Spider-man (if you've seen the film you'll know the one I mean) so I walked over to have a ride. It's not on the Metro card like the subway and buses, but a single ticket is only $1.50 and it runs every quarter of an hour. The trip itself is fairly short, but there's an impressive view of the bridge and the river, and you can look back to get a view of Manhattan.
Roosevelt Island is surprisingly quiet. I walked south for a bit and found a hospital. This reminded me that my friend Val had been in for an operation over the weekend, so I found a payphone in the hospital and called her. She was still recovering from the operation and being doped up to the eyeballs (no change there, then) but sounded in good spirits.
I didn't really fancy walking all round the island, since nothing in my Rough Guide sounded worth seeing (for the trivia/film buffs out there, it sounds as though the building Spider-man lands in when he's knocked off the bridge by the Green Goblin is actually New York's first biological weapons facility). I got the cable car back and walked around Park Avenue and the Upper East Side for a while. This is the area where some of the really expensive stores like Tiffany's are located. Of course, I wasn't interested in any of those, so I went to a cafe for lunch. This was no ordinary cafe, so I ended up having a black truffle and porcini mushroom pizza and some very good coffee.
After lunch I wandered west until I came to Central Park. I had walked past it several times in the last few days but this was the first time I had entered the grounds. It really is an amazing place - not just the fact that such a large area in the middle of a city is given over to a park, but also the landscaping that went into it. I walked up the Mall, an area which is well known for the street performers that work there, continued over the road and came to the boating lake. Turning right, I used the last shot on my camera on a picturesque piece of stonework on one of the tunnels running under the road. This turned out to be particularly ironic, considering what happened next.