Mark Llobrera

New York, October 2025

Published in #family, #photos, #travel

A quick trip to New York City for a 10th-anniversary performance of Hamilton and a tour of Pratt in Brooklyn. We drove the Bolt up as an experiment in range and public charging, and I have to report: although it supports DC fast charging, it is painfully slow. That won’t be an issue with newer EVs, but suffice to say we won’t be taking that car on any road trips.

South Street Seaport #

We usually stay somewhere in the Flatiron district but this time we ended up in FiDi. On arrival we grabbed lunch at the Tin Building at South Street Seaport, which is basically a fancy food court with lots of catnip for photographers.

Sunlight glancing off the bow of the 1885 Tall Ship Wavertree, docked at New York’s South Street Seaport.
Ticket booth for the Circle Line.
Exterior of the Tin Building.
Interior windows of the Tin Building, under which runs a quote from Herman Melville’s Moby Dick: “There now is your insular city of the Manhattoes”
Neon-lit escalator leading to the second floor of the Tin Building.
Two women make crepes.

Union Square #

After lunch we took the subway up to Union Square to stop at the Strand and a nearby thrift shop.

The checkout counter at Strand Bookstore.
A young woman holds an oversized pencil.
Two leather chairs in a room lined with books from floor to ceiling.
This was my first time seeing the rare books section at the Strand

Times Square and Hamilton #

A quick pre-show bite at Sake Bar Hagi on 51st, then Hamilton.1 We had gotten tickets when we heard Leslie Odom, Jr. was coming back to play Aaron Burr, and the crowd was incredibly excited to see him back on that stage.

A dimly lit kitchen in a Japanese sake bar.
A couple smile in a dimly lit sake bar.

I appreciated all of the 40 megapixels in my Fujifilm X100VI because I was able to crop some usable photos from way back in the cheap seats. It also made for a discreet way to sneak a few shots in a no-photo performance without disturbing other folks in the audience, with its silent shutter and viewfinder.

A party scene from “Hamilton” featuring women in colorful gowns and men in uniform.
A single spotlight shines on Leslie Odom, Jr., playing Aaron Burr in “Hamilton”

Pratt #

I enjoy an early morning in NYC, especially if there’s fog or mist that’s just clearing. Grabbed bagels from a nearby shop (finding a good bagel in the Philly suburbs is hard).

A building at a triangular intersection, in the dim dawn light.
Early morning in FiDi
A Subaru with a vanity plate reading “SUBAWUOO”.
Love a vanity plate pun

Em is interested in art school so we took a tour of Pratt’s campus, and if she went there she’d end up back in her birthplace of Brooklyn.

A large yellow wall with “Pratt” in a large black block typeface.
A young woman listens to a college tour. She is visible between the books in a library shelf.
In the Pratt library
Light shining through the leaves of a tree.
A stand of trees backlit by fall light.

More photos on Flickr.

  1. I enjoyed reading Emily St. James on Hamilton’s 10th anniversary, and the political era it can’t escape. ↩︎