This was probably the busiest day of the entire trip. I got up early for a quick morning walk to find the theater we were going to that night to see “& Juliet,” a delightful jukebox musical featuring songs from the early 2000s. We heard everything from “Oops, I Did It Again” to “Can’t Stop the Feeling.”

I thought I would just get in about a 30-minute walk, but it did not work out that way because, once again, I got lost. Not sure how I did that this time, since both the theater and the restaurant I was looking for were on the same street. You had to walk by one to get to the other. I got some interesting photos you can see below. The one at the top is, in my opinion, the best shot I got on this trip. It’s a Times Square panorama composed of 11 separate frames stitched together in Photoshop.

After I got back from getting lost, grabbed a takeout breakfast from the diner across the street, and got Kathleen fed (she was not having a good reaction to the chicken parm from last night), I got down to the lobby to join the rest of the group

One thing I have not mentioned so far in our Broadway story is how we took over the hotel’s lobby almost every time we were going somewhere. It was a very comfortable lobby with room for about 50 people to sit. With 41 of us, that pretty much filled it up. It was a great place to meet in the morning to talk about the play from the night before, the tour from the day before, how much our feet hurt, or the aforementioned chicken parm. I have some photos I took this morning in the group below. Don’t forget that if you click them and look at the slideshow, they have captions, so you know what is going on.

After our early-morning lobby roundup, we headed to Rockefeller Center, where we took a short (not really) elevator ride to the Top of the Rock for amazing views of NYC. The views were truly amazing, but the hazy skies kind of ruined the photography. I know I could go into Photoshop and replace the skies, and I did that with a couple of photos, but as an actual photographer, I feel like that’s cheating. I posted both shots below so you could see what I mean. It was pretty darned impressive, though.

After our Top of the Rock experience, we had some free time to walk around the Rockefeller building and the surrounding buildings. I kind of became the tour guide, since I had been to this part of Midtown a few days earlier during our walking tours. A few folks wanted to see the inside of St. Patrick’s, so I walked them over there. Then we took a quick trip to see the site of the greatest art crime of all time (Rockefeller replacing Diego Rivera’s incredible mural with a piece of crap tribute to wealth and industry), and finally grabbed a drink at Starbucks.

We then met up with the rest of the group outside Radio City Music Hall. We got the full tour there as well (told you it was a VERY busy day) from a delightful young lady from California. Lots of photos of that are below as well. We even got to meet a Rockette. Many in the group had their photos taken with her, and she did a great job answering our questions. It was an excellent tour.

After that, we walked back to the hotel, where we could rest for about five minutes (almost not an exaggeration) before heading out for our last tour of the day to The Museum of Broadway. This place was amazing. The exhibits were outstanding, taking you decade by decade through the history of Broadway. The captions on the photos will explain more.

Then we were on our own for dinner (we hit a Greek place called Delos, which served good, basic Greek food), and then it was off to the theater to see “& Juliet.” Then back to the hotel to collapse…or to pack, since we had to have our checked luggage ready to go by 8:45 the next morning. More about our final day in NYC tomorrow.

I remember the old Times Square from when I was younger, and there was a seedy thrill to it. Some of that is gone, which I have a little bit of nostalgia for.  —Janeane Garofalo