Statue of Liberty
We went to New York City for a long weekend in June. We both really liked it there but agreed we needed much more time. We did a lot but didn’t complete the entire list of what we wanted to do. Our first day there we got tickets for the Big Bus Hop-on-Hop-off tour. During the tour it started raining so they gave us ponchos. It started raining harder and sideways so everybody moved below deck and we were the only ones who stayed up top which was probably a dumb choice because we got stuck in a traffic jam. There was a protest going on in the streets that pretty much halted everything. We were absolutely soaked. It was like we weren’t even wearing ponchos. As soon as we came to the next stop, which happened to be Times Square, we got off. It is a tradition of ours to visit the Hard Rock Café’s whenever we can and conveniently we got off the bus right by one. We went inside and had lunch (an expensive lunch) and by the time we were done it had stopped raining. Times Square was one of my favorite sites. All the lights and big signs everywhere was so cool to see. After lunch we walked around the area seeing NBC Studios, Radio City, and the Rockefeller Center. We attempted to go to the Top of the Rock but they said the fog was so bad it was like looking at a white wall, so we hopped on the bus again and rode around till we got to our hotel. We stayed at the Ritz-Carlton Battery Park. We had a view of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island and the room had a telescope in it that we could use. That night we went walking around and stumbled upon the 9/11 memorial. A large fountain takes up the place where each tower had stood and names are written into the sides of the memorial for each person that had lost their life that day. It was an eerie feeling to be there.
9/11 Memorial
The next day we had booked the 9/11 Memorial Tour and One World Observation Deck. The tour guide made a point to end everysentence with “as well, too” and sometimes he would even add an extra “as well” on to the end of that. It was nonstop. I don’t think he knew he did it but we probably heard him say it 500 times over the hour and a half tour. The tour itself was very good. We got to hear how different stores turned into makeshift morgues and some restaurants gave out free food. A lot of people were displaced from their homes or stranded. Some people weren’t even able to access their apartments to retrieve their pets. It was also a day where people didn’t really carry around cell phones and telecommunications shut down so it was difficult to reach family and friends. We also learned about the Survivor Tree. The Survivor Tree was a tree that was taken out by the wreckage and when they removed everything many months later, they discovered the tree was still alive and had sprouted. They transplanted the tree to a facility where it was able to grow more and then relocated the tree back to its original home. The tree is surrounded by a fence and there is actually a guard that keeps watch of it. We also learned a little about the memorial itself. Someone has the responsibility of placing white roses in the names of the memorial when it is that persons birthday. The day we went it was William McGinn’s birthday. Next, we went up in the One World Tour. The elevator ride up to the observation deck was super cool. The walls are all screens which go
Ellis Island
through the history of New York City to what you see today. After the observation deck we booked the Liberty and Ellis Island boat tour. At Liberty island, we just walked around and took pictures. There were way too many people to figure out if there was anything else to do. At Ellis Island we actually went inside and checked out some of the different rooms. We even used the computer to look up Kyle’s great grandmother’s entry. She was 8 years old when she came over from Scotland (born in Ireland) and came over six weeks after the Titanic sank. Very scary. Next we went to the Top of the Rock to get a different view of the city. That night we took a night tour around the city which was really cool to see everything lit up.
Brooklyn Bridge
The next day we had some drama with our flights so our plans to go to Central Park were squashed. We ended walking across the Brooklyn Bridge which was pretty cool but way too many people and hot. We got sunburned. We had lunch in Brooklyn and then headed over to Coney Island go to go the Aquarium. The Aquarium was pretty small so it didn’t take us long to go through it. They are actually putting in a huge expansion so will be very nice when they are done. They had penguins though!
New York was pretty cool. We would like to go back to visit things we didn’t get a chance to and visit the other burrows because there is so much more to see.
