New York City - Day 4: Statue of Liberty

We saved the best for last!  On our last day in New York City, October 18th, we saw the majestic Statue of Liberty.

Even through the government shut-down, the Statue of Liberty re-opened thanks to the state of New York paying for its operating costs.  Its reopening was announced on Sunday morning.  We went online to buy our tickets late Sunday morning, and the soonest we could get to the statue was the following Friday!  I guess lots of people were waiting to see her!  We didn't buy tickets to go up into her crown (there was a three month waiting list for that!), but we did buy tickets to go up into her pedestal.

So when we got ourselves to Manhattan Island, we then had to ride the Statue of Liberty ferry to Liberty Island.  The weather was cold and windy, and the water was choppy that morning.  As we disembarked, we were offered individual audio self-guided tours of the island. But our first goal was to take our tickets and go up into the pedestal.



When viewing the statue from the top of the pedestal, you are RIGHT THERE.  She is so large, and it's just amazing to be so close and be right underneath her!

When viewing her from the observation deck of the pedestal level, you are very close as well.  She truly is majestic!





And I guess I really never thought about it, but she faces outward from the city, toward the ocean.  She faces outward to welcome everyone to this land:

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

I would have loved to visit Ellis Island along with the Statue of Liberty, but unfortunately it was still closed for repairs due to Superstorm Sandy of last year.  I don't think a visit to the Statue of Liberty is complete without also seeing the immigrant gate of Ellis Island, but that will have to wait until our next visit to NYC.

We ate our picnic lunch on the grounds by the flagpole, finished up the Junior Ranger badge workbook with the younger kids, then left Liberty Island for home.

As we sailed away on the Staten Island ferry, we caught our last glimpse of the Manhattan skyline.

And thus ended our four-day adventure of New York City.

New York City - Day 3: World Trade Center & Wall Street

On our third day in New York City, we packed in quite a punch!

We started our day by visiting the 9-11 Memorial.  It's strange to think of it, but my kids really don't have any memory of the events of that fateful day, assuming they were alive in the first place!  I didn't really realize it until we got there, but Steve and I actually had to explain to the kids about what happened that day.  They had a vague idea, but really didn't know any details.  Andrew and Benjamin were only 5yo when it happened, and TJ and Daniel were 3yo and 1yo.  Joseph and Jonny weren't even born yet!  The way that the world suddenly changed that day is the only way that they will ever remember the world as being.  How odd!

The 9-11 Memorial is a somber place.  There are two sunken reflecting pools where each of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center used to stand.  Thirty-foot waterfalls - the largest in North America - cascade into the pools, each then descending into a center void. Surrounding each reflecting pool are the names of each person who perished that day at either the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, or the field in western Pennsylvania. 





On the grounds of the memorial site is something called the "Survivor Tree".  This tree was planted on the original World Trade Center plaza in the 1970's.  After 9-11, workers found the damaged tree, reduced to an eight-foot-tall stump, in the wreckage at Ground Zero. The tree was nursed back to health and grew to be 30 feet tall.  In 2010, the tree was returned to the memorial site and continues to grow to this day.

Adjacent to the memorial site is the new "One Trade Center" still being built.  It reaches 1776 feet (coincidental height?), and will be the tallest building in the United States when it is finished.

And lastly, still being built and not yet open to the public, is the 9-11 Memorial museum and visitor center.  While we weren't able to go inside, we were able to look through the window and saw two trident beams that were part of the original WTC buildings.

After we left the 9-11 Memorial, we stopped in a quintessential NYC coffee shop for a restroom break and some coffee, then started up the street into the financial district.

Along the way, however, we got sidetracked (again) when we stumbled upon the historic Trinity Church.  We viewed the inside, then walked through the grave sites on either side of the church.  It seems a bit odd to have this smack in downtown Manhattan, but it does predate the "concrete cliffs" surrounding it.  It is here that Alexander Hamilton is buried.  It is fitting that his grave site is at the head of Wall Street, considering that he was our country's first Secretary of the Treasury.

After visiting the church, we started down Wall Street, which today is closed off to automobile traffic.  We first found the back door to the New York Stock Exchange, protected by armed guards. In following around to the front of the building, we encountered a massive amount of tourists and found a National Park Service Historic Site called "Federal Hall". And it just so happened that only a few hours earlier the government shut-down had ended, so we were able to go inside!

Federal Hall is the site of our country's first capital.  This isn't well known, but our capital was first New York City, second Philadelphia, then third and finally Washington, D.C..  It was at this site that George Washington took the oath of office as our country's very first president.

Going back outside of Federal Hall, we found markings on the ground designating where the original palisade wall (i.e., "Wall Street") stood back when the city was known as New Amsterdam.  And of course, we got up close to the front of the New York Stock Exchange - a very impressive building!  Unfortunately, the NYSE stopped giving tours following the attack of 9-11, so we weren't able to go inside at all.

Walking another block down Broad Street brought us to the famous Wall Street Charging Bull bronze statue.  Surrounded by tourists, this statue has come to symbolize America's aggressive financial optimism and prosperity.

Then we sat in the Bowling Green Park in the financial district of Manhattan and ate our brown-bag lunches.

Following lunch, we hopped onto the subway and rode to Chinatown.  While I was impressed with the unique quality and ethnic diversity of Chinatown, my kids were less impressed, mostly due to the open-air fish markets which freaked them out a little bit.  Besides the smell of fresh seafood, they were squeamish about the crabs that were still alive that people were buying for their lunches.  We did, however, find great bargains on "I Love New York" t-shirts in Chinatown.  Interestingly enough, NYC's Chinatown is the western hemisphere's largest concentration of Asian immigrants.

A few blocks away was Little Italy.  Back in the late 1800's/early 1900's, New York City was the home of many European immigrants, Steve's paternal line included.  Italians formed their own society, and Little Italy was born.  In Little Italy we had only one goal: find Lombardi's Pizzeria.  Lombardi's is the country's oldest pizzeria, and they still bake their pizzas in a deep coal oven.  We ordered our pizza, watched them bake it, then took it "to go" in a box with us on the subway, then ate it on the ferry on our way back home.  I'm sure the people around us were jealous!

As you can see, we experienced a lot of New York City on our third day!

New York City - Day 2: Central Park

The second day of our NYC adventure found us a little tired from our late night the night before.  We took our time the following morning getting out the door, which was fine because we avoided the rush hour commute.

We got ourselves back to Manhattan and onto the subway.  Just for kicks, we rode the subway to Grand Central Station.  We wandered around Grand Central for a little while, just to see what was there.  It is immense!  Pictures can't even begin to capture the sheer size of the place.  This year happens to be the 100th anniversary of Grand Central Station, and it looks very much like it does on television. Quite impressive!

After getting back on the subway, our next stop was Central Park.  We packed lunches into a backpack that morning, so when we got ourselves to Central Park we found a nice spot on an outcrop of rock and had a lovely picnic.  After we ate, the younger two boys played on the playground while the older boys played Frisbee for a while.

Then we called everyone together and decided to explore the park.  Besides the scenic arched bridges and horse-drawn carriages, there is a lot to see in the park.  The first thing we stumbled upon was an old restored covered carousel. We watched it circle around for a little while and listened to its nickelodeon music play, then wandered off to find a chess/checkers pavilion where all the boys enjoyed a friendly game of either checkers or chess.

Next we found what's known as the "literary walk", which is a wide walkway through the park with statues on either side of famous literary authors.  While along this walkway we encountered a street magician who called out two of our sons to participate in his magic act.  His trick was that he had one of our sons write his name on a playing card, and by the end of the act the card was found inside an intact banana!  It was quite impressive!

At the end of the literary walk is a clamshell pavilion where people can see "Shakespeare in the Park" during the summer months. At the end of the mall we found ourselves at Bethesda Terrace where there is a beautiful angel fountain.  Behind the fountain is the lake where people can rent rowboats, and that day there were plenty of boaters on the water! We wandered across the lake on the famous "Bow Bridge" and snapped a few pictures of the family.

On the other side of the lake is what's known as "the ramble".  As the name suggests, this is an intertwining ramble of pathways through woods - easy to get lost, which we did!  We emerged near a statue of Alice in Wonderland, then followed our map to the Belvedere Castle.

Belvedere Castle is a stone castle in Central Park that today is used as a weather station. We walked to the very top of the castle and saw a panoramic view of the turtle pond down below.

 

At this point, we had spent several hours at Central Park, and we only saw a small portion of the park!  But our day was done, so once again we did the subway/ferry/car and got home by dinnertime.  A successful second day!