5/30/18: This morning was very foggy – the kind of fog that gets everything wet! I stepped outside and felt like I was standing in front of a mister like you would want on a 90 degree day while standing in line at Disneyland. But it was only 60 degrees, and quite wet. I guess we better wear jackets on our trip to the city. I hope we can see the tops of the buildings in Manhattan! Our wonderful harbor host John, gave us a ride to the Staten Island Train, and told us how it works. Ride it all the way to the end at St. George’s, and pay $2.75 each when we get off. Then ride the Staten Island Ferry over to Lower Manhattan. The ferry is a free ride. Beware of very official looking entrepreneurs who like to sell you “discount” tickets for $20. “God bless ‘em for makin a living” says John in his New York accent. It’s funny, but I really have had to listen intently to understand these New Yorkers, “yous guys”! When we’re ready to come back, the ferry is free, and to get on the train at that end is $2.75 per person. So we can buy a ticket for $2.75 x 4 = 11.00, and we’ll both be covered for the round trip. Or we can buy more $ worth which will work on buses, etc., and we can ride a bus back from the city. Huh? 😳 EEEK! Us little country kids don’t know how to do mass transit. Tell us the simplest version of what we need to know, and that’s what we’ll do. Don’t give us options and confuse us. I don’t want to end up on a bus going to Harlem or the Bronx or Queens … that would be a typical accidental Karen adventure.
Ready, set, let’s ride a train in New York! It was surprisingly clean.
This is the Staten Island Train at Great Kills Station.
We got off the train at the end, figuring that we were just going to buy enough ticket fare to cover our round trip on the train. Simple. And then the information guy told us that it included a free bus ride once we got to Manhattan but only within the next 2 hours of buying the ticket. Well, that would be cool, to take a bus up town to Central Park or something. But my brain started to hemorrhage the more he talked, and the more anxious and confused I got. STOP with the options already!! On to the ferry! This is what the classic Staten Island Ferrys look like. And look! There is a green statue of a lady holding fire up in the air! We had a real nice view of the Statue of Liberty as we cruised by.
The city building tops were still in the clouds and fog as we arrived. We got off the ferry and thought surely there would be a bus information thingy there or something to help us figure out how to ride a bus up town. Naatta. Nuthin. Fugetaboudit. If you didn’t take Mass Transit as a class in high school, or study it prior to arrival, you’re not going to just land yourself in New York City and be a successful transit navigator. And don’t even THINK about using the subway – are ya nuts?! No way – we be chickens. Let’s just walk around and see stuff around here in Lower Manhattan.
As you know by now, I am always drawn to churches. As we started to wander I found a steeple, so we went to see it. It belonged to The Trinity Episcopal Church. This parish dates back to 1696 and received it’s charter as a Church of England from King William III. This is the third building for the parish, which was completed in 1846. It’s spire dominated the landscape, and it was actually the tallest building in the United States until 1869. George Washington and members of his government often worshiped here, as well as Alexander Hamilton, who is buried here.
Alexander Hamilton’s grave. He died at age 47.
Interesting tidbit about Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury. He died as a result of a duel with Vice President Aaron Burr in 1804. Seriously?! Yep – true fact.
The interior of the church was not open for visitors. Darn! The church sits near the intersection of Wall Street and Broadway. This the the view down Wall Street!
Down Wall Street we found Federal Hall. On this site, George Washington took the oath as the first President of the United States on April 30, 1789.
We saw the New York Stock Exchange Building. My goodness – it has all sorts of security, fencing, and road blocks around it. There was only pedestrian traffic on this street.
We saw a zillion food trucks around a park area nearby. It seemed appropriate to eat from one, but I was a big chicken, and even Kenny wasn’t seeing anything that he wanted to try. So we bought pizza slices from Steve’s Pizza. It was just a walk up counter service – but it was really good!
One thing we both knew that we wanted to do, was to go see the 9/11 Memorial. It is an eight acre park which is half of the original World Trade Center site. The designer called it “Reflecting Absence”. There are two pools like this, each set in the footprint of the twin towers. The two large void areas are visible reminders of the absence of the buildings that once stood here. This is really an unusual and cool memorial. Around the perimeter is a border about waist high, with a bronze ledge in which over 3000 names are inscribed of people who died in the tragedy. Water flows over a flat edge and down the walls into the pool bottom, and then it flows down again into an abyss – the hole in the middle – “gone from this earth”. And that is the message that the designer wanted to share.
I tried to get a picture of the entire height of the new One World Trade Center. It is 104 stories. It is like a mirror and reflects everything around it, so the top washes out into the sky.
We both really enjoyed the diversity and contrast of all of the architecture! I don’t know what this building is, but I called it the Jenga building. It looks like a giant game of Jenga!
This was the Westfield Mall Entrance, right by the 9/11 Memorial Park. Of course the mall is mostly underground. The inside of this was huge, and was just a big giant foyer with escalators down.
And this was just kind of cool. A huge red brick building with a swirly skyscraper behind it, and a church among other big buildings. I just kept taking pictures of the skyline above me! Such variety!
This was one of Kenny’s favorite shots – the buildings reflecting in the One World Trade Center building, with the Westfield Mall spikes flowing in on the left.
St Paul’s Chapel is Manhattan’s oldest public building in continuous use, opened in 1766 by the Parish of Trinity Church (the big church from earlier). It was not very big, but I did get to go inside. Not an ornate church – with black and white tile and wood floors, chandeliers, and folding chairs.
Continuing our walkabout, there were all kinds of cool buildings around the courthouses. I’m not even sure what this one was, but if you look close, there are a bunch of statues of men watching over the area from near the top of the building. Such ornate carvings and work – it just fascinates me!
By now we were over by the Brooklyn Bridge. We were at the street that goes across the bridge, which was not a good picture. I wanted to get down to somewhere that I could get a side shot of the bridge. There were all of these apartment buildings with the fire escapes just tacked on to the front of the buildings. And oh dear, Captain kept asking me what kind of neighborhood I was just strolling us through. I don’t know – I’m on a mission 😳 to get from here to there. Just keep walking.
Pretty soon we found ourselves at the East River Esplanade and bikeway underneath a freeway along the East River. And…. Ta-DA!! A beautiful view of the Brooklyn Bridge! It first opened in 1883 and was the longest suspension bridge in the world at that time. It is a beautiful stone bridge, made of limestone from Essex County New York, and granite stone from Maine.
We walked the esplanade all the way back to the Staten Island Ferry terminal. Along the way, we were fascinated by the swift current of the East River, and all of the ferry traffic to and from Brooklyn, and lots of helicopters! This is Brooklyn. And walking along an area under a viaduct freeway, as well as everywhere else we wandered, we saw less than a handful of homeless or panhandlers. That really surprised us. There was a lot of construction going on everywhere, but for the most part, the city streets and sidewalks were clean, and better than Seattle!
Near the ferry terminal was a nice park and a Coast Guard Memorial with this huge eagle statue.
We found our way back onto the Staten Island Ferry at about 4:15 with a whole bunch of rush hour commuters. The sky had all cleared up and we had a beautiful view of Lower Manhattan as we ferried away. It turned into a beautiful day, and we carried our jackets all day long. The temperature was in the low 70’s, which was just right.
Captain did admit that he found the day interesting, even though we put over 6.5 miles on our walking shoes today. But neither of us really enjoy being in any city – too much traffic, cars honking, people pushing, sirens, too much noise, commotion, congestion, and action for our little quiet country sensory nerves to handle. I’m glad we went, and Captain says we don’t have to go there again. I wish we could have seen more, especially Central Park! When we got off the train at the Great Kills station, it was foggy, windy and quite cool! What happened to that beautiful blue clear sky just a few miles back? The jackets came in handy here! It was nearly a mile walk back to the marina, but all downhill so not so bad. Except after 6 miles of tromping around in the city, Kenny’s knee was done, and going downhill gets more and more painful for him. He made it without going splat, which is good, because I sure can’t carry him!
Back at the Great Kills Yacht Club, we joined our harbor host John for a couple of drinks at the bar, and thanked him for his hospitality. This is a fairly small yacht club, with quite a membership waiting list. Considering it’s location, it is quite inexpensive to be a member here. It is run by the members mostly on a volunteer basis, and John made our drinks. The drinks were very inexpensive! Tomorrow we will head north through the busy city waterway that separates New York from New Jersey – the Hudson River.
This is so cool! I really do want to do that some day…just to see it and say I did! I know once would be enough, but my captain probably wouldn’t join me!