Summer Solstice in the Big Apple

Happy 1st day of Summer! This is what we did on June 21st....

Today we took a tour into New York City. Although we were able to navigate around Washington DC and Philadelphia on our own, we did not feel like driving into Manhattan. Our van driver picked us up bright and early at our campground. As a life long NYC resident, he filled us full of interesting facts about the city on our trip into town.

Our first stop was Liberty State Park, NJ on the shores of the Hudson River. There we picked up a boat to Liberty Island. By taking the boat from the NJ side, we avoided a lot of crowds and we got to look at the Manhattan skyline on the way. There we are--it's hard to get a photo of the whole statue and us but one of our tour companions gave it a good try.

We also saw Ellis Island. This is the place where millions of immigrants were processed when they entered New York. The National Park Service has opened a museum there.



We had some good views of the skyline from Liberty Island.

Of note, the space where the World Trade Center was is very evident. In this photo, the smaller black building near the center is the Deustchebank. The small spire on it's right top is the the Woolworth Building. The Woolworth building was behind the Twin Towers and was not visible from NJ prior to September 11.
The DeutscheBank building was heavily damaged and is scheduled for demolition because it can not be repaired. At this time the demolition is halted because they recently found bone fragments in the debris on the roof.

After our visit to the Statue of Liberty, we drove through the Holland Tunnel and entered Manhattan. Out first stop there was Ground Zero. Preliminary work on the Ground Zero memorial and the Freedom Tower have begun.

The "hole" goes down 6 stories. This cross is the last of the steel beams still standing from one of the towers. It was also scheduled for removal but apparently New Yorkers raised such a fuss that the decision was made to leave it for now. It will be moved later to another location.

Also of interest, 2 churches standing next to the Trade Center complex were not harmed. This cornerstone of St Paul's Church graveyard has not been cleaned and still shows the black soot from the explosion. Most of the other buildings in the area have been cleaned.

This church housed and fed firemen during the initial time after the attack. Now they host a continuing memorial to commemorate the hard work of the fire departments and rescue squads. A continuous stream of visitors parade through this area.

We drove through many of the streets of Manhattan, seeing many landmarks we had only read about. Out last stop was Times Square. What a crazy place! The sidewalks and streets were packed with people and cars. Looking all around, we saw signs for everything. These billboards advertise most of the current Broadway shows playing right now.

One of the craziest things we saw were the Naked Cowgirl and the Naked Cowboy. Apparently these 2 come down to Times Square most every day and play music and pose for photos. According to our guide they make about $1000 and then go home. Here is the Naked Cowgirl. Those pasties really sparkled! Only in New York!!

On the way back to the van, we stopped in at a little restaurant that our guide said had the best cheese cake in New York--he was right!

We had a great time seeing many of the sights. It was nice to have someone else do the driving.