The weather forecast was for a mild day, expecting up to 25c. Rosie and The Operator hit the pavement at 8.00am armed with our New York Passes www.newyorkpass.com and aiming to make the first sailing of the day of the New York Water Taxi.
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We walked out to Pier 84, passing bleary eyed natives with a coffee in one hand and a dog lead in the other out for a morning stroll, the hour seemed pretty early for alot of them as people were thin on the ground, the car traffic on the other hand was chaotic with commuters coming into the city. We arrived at the Pier very early and couldnt believe it when we saw a dog exercise enclosure…..it was a fenced AstroTurf area, way smaller than our average back yards and there was a blow up paddling pool with a hose in it to one side. Three humans were inside the fenced area with their three dogs…..one whippet looking thing was totally having a good time, its owner was throwing a rubber ball to the end of the enclosure and the dog would bound 8 steps to retrieve it…..it was loving it, a couple of slurps of water from the pool and it was still loving it, even after the 50th throw. The other dog was a mini fat Schnauzer thing and it kind of stood in one place and cowered and shook with the fear of being out of the apartment and in the big wide world…..while the Alsatian stayed on the owners lead while the owner chatted up the Schnauzer’s lady owner…..Crazy!
The water taxi does a timetabled loop starting on the Hudson River and going to the tip of Manhattan Island, around the corner and up the East River to the Brooklyn Bridge, then it does a pass out in New York Harbour past Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty with a couple of other stops on the way. Our New York pass gave us a 24 hour ferry ticket. The Water Taxi Company also had a limited amount of entry tickets per day to the Ground Zero Memorial Site, it is first come first served otherwise we
would have had to book in advance from home. Rosie and The Operator were third in the que so no problems there, we also signed up with a walking tour of Downtown and Wall Street (free on our pass) while we were in the neighbourhood. So, past the money making buildings of the financiers we sailed and alighted
at Battery Park, a beautiful green park that fronts the waterline.
Rob was our walking tour guide, a native New Yorker and very enthusiastic about his job!
‘ New York New York what a wonderful town, the Bronx is up and the Battery is down’….he was very enthusiastic!
Rosie loves the green spaces tucked into the city, look up and you are reminded exactly where you are fantastic buildings and skyscrapers towering over the trees! The Battery is built on reclaimed land and housed the big guns during the war, it is also home to Castle Clinton, a fortification that was built in 1811 to protect NY from the British.
Take a close look at this sculpture, I only just glanced at it until Rob told us a story about it that made my skin tingle. This bronze sculpture stood in the entranceway atrium of a grand company, it was once a perfect sphere with a shiny orb and pedestal. It stood in the atrium of the South Tower of the World Trade Centre. It was retrieved from the rubble after the tower fell. It now stands in Battery Park with an eternal flame near it. The skyscraper to the right of the picture with the black unfinished piece on top is the Freedom Tower being built on The World Trade Centre Site. We left Battery Park and entered the Bowling Green, a beautiful little Park where the British relaxed with quiet games in the
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17th Century…..then the Brits were out of favour and Revolution began, the cast iron fence that borders the park had all its monarchy embellishment’s cut off and legend has it were melted down and made into 17,000 musket balls, the rough tops of the posts can still be felt today. Up Broadway we went to Trinity Church, no photos as it was all covered in scaffold and sacking 🙁 It was a beautiful Gothic church dating from 1697, a beautiful delicate thing it would look amongst the skyscrapers. We then turned off into the Financial District and onto Wall Street, so named for the wooden barrier wall built by Dutch Settlers in 1653 to protect Niew Amsterdam from native Americans and
the British. Wall Street and the New York Stock Exchange were, well, there, was nice to see……never saw a single person at any of the windows….not sure if anyone was at work that day…..
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…..and we wouldn’t be on Wall St with out the bull……
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The site was roped up for heaps of people, we arrived at 11.00 am and the people were flowing really well. The Operator laughed at one of the signs that said anyone with a handgun, taser, knives and pepper spray were to hand them in at the security screening. ‘Who on earth would bring that stuff in here’, came out of The Operators mouth….nec minit….Rosie is looking around after clearing the metal detector and xray machine and The Operator has been pulled off to the side and getting his bag searched, his Swiss Army knife is then confiscated…doh! He said he forgot it was in his bag….all the terrorists use that same excuse. We entered the Memorial site and the noise of the city melted away, the mood was quiet, reflective and sombre, there must have been at least a thousand people there and no one was talking albeit in hushed tones.
New towers are being built on the site, the Freedom tower is the big one in the right hand picture. It is going to be as tall as the lost ones and will be when finished the tallest building in New York.
We met back up with our walking guide and went to St Pauls Chapel, directly across from the World Trade Centre site. This chapel was built in 1776 and is of a colonial style, stone on the outside and timber on the inside. It is described as being a bit of a good luck charm as it has survived multiple fires through the ages and came out unscathed from the blow out of the 9/11 debris when all the buildings around it windows were destroyed by the explosion and fall out, nothing damaged the chapel other than it being covered in a curtain of dust along with everything else. The close proximity to the site and the undamaged condition of the building made it and its wee graveyard a hub for the rescuers who were accessing the site. Crews stayed round the clock
during the rescue and clean up effort, the pews have been removed as they were damaged by the fireman’s equipment and boots which marked the chairs.
The interior of the chapel is still a practising church and their are memorial displays inside to the deceased firefighters. This pile of Fire Brigade patches had one from New Zealand on top.
Heading back to catch our water taxi home we paused in City Hall Park for a snack…this little devil whom Gary named Brian was as cheeky as and really wanted a sandwich!
The park itself was lovely with gas lamps burning at the corners of the fountain.
Rosie was knackered when she staggered back to the ferry at Pier 17! So she just sat back, relaxed and let the ferry take her for a cruise to the Brooklyn landing and then past Lady Liberty….whom I must say was looking very fine that day. The ques for people visiting her were crazy, plus the statue was still closed for a year long refurbishment, you could only get into the pedestal….Rosie and The Operator thought we would give that a miss, we got great photos and a squizzy from the water right underneath her.
