Why is São Paulo seemingly a non-event outside of Brazil?

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Quixote

I don't see how this is true. The biggest draws in London are (in no particular order):

Buckingham Palace
Green Park / St. James Park / Hyde Park
Big Ben
Westminster Abbey
London Eye
Harrods
Kensington Gardens
Tate Modern
St. Paul's Cathedral
The City
City Hall
The Shard
Tower Bridge
Tower of London
Oxford Circus / Regent Street / Bond Street
Regent's Park
Trafalgar Square / National Gallery
Covent Garden
Leicester Square / West End / Piccadilly Circus
Royal Opera House
British Museum
Royal Albert Hall
Victoria and Albert Museum
Natural History Museum

These attractions are spread out across an area smaller than NYC's top attractions. From the Guggenheim and Met down to the WTC and Battery Park, where you board a 15-minute ferry ride to one of the city's top attractions/icons and a UNESCO World Heritage Site (Statue of Liberty), is 19 minutes on the 4/5 train (86th to Bowling Green).

The Guggenheim, Met, Natural History Museum are relatively far-flung by Manhattan standards. My opinion remains unchanged, though, so I will agree to disagree here.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by muppet

120 historic churches within half a mile, some of them over a thousand years old, nor the ancient pubs and taverns.

So, ONE of them has a tiny minority of its parts that are over a thousand years old, all the rest are 900-something years old at most

There’s some 1,000+ year old stuff in Britain (link below), but in London, for obvious reasons, almost nothing has survived.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angl...n_architecture

[dc_denizen]

Not the ramshackle efforts of the bumbling saxons , but the severe and harmonious classicism of the age of the caesars.

[lio45]

Actually, I personally find a surviving Saxon building to be more impressive and architecturally precious than Roman stuff like for example Nîmes’ “Square House”.

(Precisely because, as you point out, the Roman buildings were of much higher quality therefore survivors in decent condition are less rare.)

[Quixote]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

The Guggenheim, Met, Natural History Museum are relatively far-flung by Manhattan standards. My opinion remains unchanged, though, so I will agree to disagree here.

The Met is NYC's flagship museum (one of the world's best), the Natural History Museum is the largest of its kind in the world, and the Guggenheim is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

All three are located in the middle of Central Park along the north-south axis. You can disagree, but it's all too convenient to just discount three of NYC's top attractions and important cultural institutions.

90% of what a London tourist would want to see and do is located within an area the size of Midtown Manhattan. London feels much more manageable by foot than NYC — a function of its more human-scale built environment as well as the fact that its attractions are more concentrated.

[muppet]

Originally Posted by lio45

So, ONE of them has a tiny minority of its parts that are over a thousand years old, all the rest are 900-something years old at most

There’s some 1,000+ year old stuff in Britain (link below), but in London, for obvious reasons, almost nothing has survived.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angl...n_architecture

Actually two of them if you count the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula in the Tower of London, which as mentioned, predates the castle. But point being, there are ALOT of old churches.

Technically St Bride's has a claim to the oldest church/ place of worship despite only dating from the Great Fire, in terms of name it stretches back to the 6th century, and the building before the fire was 7th century. Site-wise it was a place of worship for 2,000 years:

https://www.britainexpress.com/attra...ttraction=1590

"St Brides can claim with some justification to be one of the oldest sites of worship in Britain. Shortly after the Roman invasion of 43 AD they erected a building on the site, and remains of mosaic suggest it was a temple of some kind. In the early 6th century a small stone church was built here by the Irish abbess St Bride, or perhaps by some of her followers. This church was rebuilt and enlarged several times over the next 5 centuries."

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Quixote

The Met is NYC's flagship museum (one of the world's best), the Natural History Museum is the largest of its kind in the world, and the Guggenheim is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

All three are located in the middle of Central Park along the north-south axis. You can disagree, but it's all too convenient to just discount three of NYC's top attractions and important cultural institutions.

90% of what a London tourist would want to see and do is located within an area the size of Midtown Manhattan. London feels much more manageable by foot than NYC — a function of its more human-scale built environment as well as the fact that its attractions are more concentrated.

They're still far flung by New York standards. I doubt any New Yorker would tell you that any of those museums are centrally located.

[montréaliste]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

They're still far flung by New York standards. I doubt any New Yorker would tell you that any of those museums are centrally located.

Why?

Because they should all have been built on 42nd street between Broadway and 8th?

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by montréaliste

Why?

Because they should all have been built on 42nd street between Broadway and 8th?

Well, to start, some of the museums are about half a mile from the nearest subway station. This is the equivalent of walking a full subway stop in Manhattan. New Yorkers consider that to be a very long way from a subway station, especially in Manhattan.

I think it's more correct to view those places as destinations, since a visitor has to deliberately seek out those museums to find them. Other than visiting the museums there's not much of a reason for someone to be in that area unless you live around there.

[Crawford]

I don't see a huge difference in the relative distribution of attractions in NYC, London and Paris.

If I'm in NYC, the Met to the Brooklyn Bridge is a long walk. But so is Harrods to the Tower of London. And so is the Sacre Coeur to the Pantheon. In NYC, might be somewhat longer walk, but NYC is somewhat larger than London or Paris. In any case, doesn't seem to be an enormous difference.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by muppet

Actually two of them if you count the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula in the Tower of London, which as mentioned, predates the castle.

No it doesn’t. The current structure was built under Henry VIII from 1519 to 1520 after the one that stood on the site was razed by fire in 1512.

And you’re also being incredibly generous with that “one”. A more unbiased count would tally it as a fraction, much closer to zero than to one

But point being, there are ALOT of old churches.

Yes, of course. Just none that are a thousand years old yet

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I don't see a huge difference in the relative distribution of attractions in NYC, London and Paris.

If I'm in NYC, the Met to the Brooklyn Bridge is a long walk. But so is Harrods to the Tower of London. And so is the Sacre Coeur to the Pantheon. In NYC, might be somewhat longer walk, but NYC is somewhat larger than London or Paris. In any case, doesn't seem to be an enormous difference.

Paris doesn’t have many actual (singular) attractions, come to think of it. Its attraction power comes from a more diffuse source (the bulk of its urban fabric and neighborhoods).


Eiffel Tower wouldn’t attract anyone if it were by itself. Unlike, for example, the Tower of London or the Coliseum in Rome.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by lio45

Paris doesn’t have many actual (singular) attractions, come to think of it. Its attraction power comes from a more diffuse source (the bulk of its urban fabric and neighborhoods).


Eiffel Tower wouldn’t attract anyone if it were by itself. Unlike, for example, the Tower of London or the Coliseum in Rome.

I would say that Notre Dame and Arc de Triomphe are Coliseum like attractions.

The Eiffel Tower seems relatively far flung in Paris. If you're one of those people that want to see it up close, you're likely going to have to go out of your way, IMO. Same as going to the Met, Gug, or Natural History museums in Manhattan.

[Yuri]

I don't think the Tower of London is a bigger touristic attraction than Eiffel Tower. I, for one, never got inside Tower of London as I always thought there are so much more too see on the streets.

Regarding Paris, tourists are very interested on the Sacré-Coeur which is not that intuitive. There are so many great churches in Paris. Maybe is the combo of views and Montmartre (which is I don't like that much as it's overwhelmed by tourists).

[lio45]

I mean, an intact 950-years-old medieval castle would be an attraction even if it were in the middle of nowhere: it’s an actual attraction, in and of itself. Same with the Coliseum.

A newish pylon-like structure is only an attraction if you’re already in the city it’s come to represent.

If you replaced this:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valle_dei_Templi

with some sort of newish Eiffel Tower in the same location, tourism in that location would fall off a cliff, with good reason.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

I would say that Notre Dame and Arc de Triomphe are Coliseum like attractions.

The Eiffel Tower seems relatively far flung in Paris. If you're one of those people that want to see it up close, you're likely going to have to go out of your way, IMO. Same as going to the Met, Gug, or Natural History museums in Manhattan.

Notre-Dame caliber churches are dime a dozen in France. That one is not even particularly nice, it just happens to be where it is. Not comparable to the Coliseum.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by lio45

Notre-Dame caliber churches are dime a dozen in France. That one is not even particularly nice, it just happens to be where it is. Not comparable to the Coliseum.

Perhaps. But when Notre Dame caught on fire, it interrupted programming on every network in the U.S. Another church in Paris burning down might not have even gotten mentioned in many news reports here.

[montréaliste]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Well, to start, some of the museums are about half a mile from the nearest subway station. This is the equivalent of walking a full subway stop in Manhattan. New Yorkers consider that to be a very long way from a subway station, especially in Manhattan.

I think it's more correct to view those places as destinations, since a visitor has to deliberately seek out those museums to find them. Other than visiting the museums there's not much of a reason for someone to be in that area unless you live around there.

Nice try.

Of course, I agree that they are "destinations". I wouldn"t think of spending a morning in one and move onto another in the aft. As far as commuting goes, New Yorkers aren’t all umbilically tethered to subway trains. Besides, are we just concerned about New Yorkers hometown destinations, or the unwashed visitors at large?

[muppet]

Originally Posted by lio45

No it doesn’t. The current structure was built under Henry VIII from 1519 to 1520 after the one that stood on the site was razed by fire in 1512.

And you’re also being incredibly generous with that “one”. A more unbiased count would tally it as a fraction, much closer to zero than to one



Yes, of course. Just none that are a thousand years old yet

Re-read my post, I mention there are 60 historic churches within half a mile, and mention some are over a thousand years. Imo I'd count All Hallows, it's famous as the oldest extant in the city (Norman walls, Norman crypt, Roman floor below that) -you could count St Peter and St Bride's as 'continuous' churches but of course you wouldn't have to either. But my main point that there are ALOT of old churches 15 mins from Bank, the oldest part of the city, and the majority would predate the US by a century.

[lio45]

“Norman” anything is ~950 years old at most. As you no doubt are aware

“Continuously-occupied site” is totally unimpressive. The Gherkin (one of London’s most distasteful buildings) does not score architectural interest points from the fact that it stands on land that’s certainly been “used” for something or another since Roman London.

If St. Bride’s stone church were still extant, it would be a treasure of exceptional heritage value, but it’s not.