NYC Day Two

Day two started with a subway ride from midtown to downtown. We had reservations for 10am at the 9/11 Memorial. Luckily they admitted us even though we were 30 minutes late, and fortunately the line to get in was very short.

It was interesting to see so much construction going on around the World Trade Center. There were several roads blocked and fenced off so that buildings could be rebuilt, even 10 years later.

I felt that the memorial was a very fitting one, and the impact of seeing the depth and the footprint of the Twin Towers was very powerful and moving.

 

After leaving the memorial we walked through the financial district to Battery Park and found our way to the Staten Island Ferry. Along the way we passed by Zuccotti Park which was void of any Wall Street protesters.

 

In Battery Park we came across a community garden plot that had a very interesting way of keeping critters out of its gardens.

 We arrived at the ferry terminal just in time for 12:00pm ferry. We opted to take the Staten Island Ferry, which is free, to avoid the lines at the Statute of Liberty. Since you're not allowed to go inside the Statute we felt it was just as good getting a close up view from the ferry as it would be on the island.

If you enlarge this picture you'll get a good idea of how long the lines are as they wrap around the building.

 

 

This picture was taken on the ferry as everyone flocked to the deck to get a good view of Lady Liberty.

After our ferry ride to and from Staten Island we walked through lower Manhattan and the financial district. We passed the New York Stock Exchange building and Wall Street. It was lunch time so the streets were hopping. The street food vendors in NYC are kept very busy and almost at any corner you looked there was a line forming for food.

Wall Street

After our stroll through the financial district we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge. It was about a mile each direction and as you can tell walking across the bridge was very popular that day. The pedestrian part of the bridge is above the vehicle section of the bridge. There are two lanes, one for bikes and one for pedestrians.

This is a view of midtown from the bridge.

And this is a view of lower Manhattan from the bridge.

After our walk across the bridge we continued walking through China Town and Little Italy, on our way to the lower east side and vegan bakery, Babycakes that I wanted to try.

Not only is Babycakes a vegan bakery, it's also gluten free, soy free, casein free, refined sugar free, egg free, and Kosher. It was amazing how good my carrot cupcake tasted considering there wasn't anything sinfully bad in it. Ethan had a maple doughnut that he thought was delicious. Keith had coffee and a bite of my cupcake and proclaimed that my homemade cupcakes tasted better.

We had planned to make a stop in Greenwich Village at the Strand bookstore but our feet were hurting and tired so we opted for a subway ride back to midtown, just in time for dinner.

 I had to share this interesting parking lot that was near our hotel. The cars are stored in lifts. I'm not really sure how this works when you need to get your car back down. We never really saw it in action but it was always busy. And the rates were pretty cheap for Manhattan standards.

 After dinner we got dressed and ready to make our way to Carnegie Hall!! The most exciting night of the week! To be continued.............