SUNGRL

Our tour guide on the boat yesterday suggested walking over the Brooklyn Bridge (Steve probably could have killed him at this point ) so today we, we being the royal we decided to do that first up. It is like a pedestrian highway but very enjoyable. The walkway actually sits above the cars in the middle of the bridge so you get good views of Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Manhattan Bridge. It only takes about 30 minutes to walk across the bridge.

The Brooklyn Bridge is a hybrid cable-stayed/suspension bridge in New York City and is one of the oldest bridges of either type in the United States. Completed in 1883, it connects the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn by spanning the East River. It has a main span of 1,595.5 feet (486.3 m), and was the first steel-wire suspension bridge constructed.

The Brooklyn Bridge was initially designed by German immigrant John Augustus Roebling, who had previously designed and constructed shorter suspension bridges.

While conducting surveys for the bridge project, Roebling sustained a crush injury to his foot when a ferry pinned it against a piling. After amputation of his crushed toes he developed a tetanus infection which left him incapacitated and soon resulted in his death, not long after he had placed his 32-year-old son Washington Roebling in charge of the project. Washington Roebling also suffered a paralyzing injury as a result of decompression sickness shortly after the beginning of construction on January 3, 1870. This condition, first called “caisson disease” by the project physician Andrew Smith, afflicted many of the workers working within the caissons. Roebling’s debilitating condition left him unable to physically supervise the construction firsthand.

In geotechnical engineering, a caisson is a watertight retaining structure used, for example, to work on the foundations of a bridge pier, for the construction of a concrete dam, or for the repair of ships. These are constructed such that the water can be pumped out, keeping the working environment dry.

Roebling conducted the entire construction from his apartment with a view of the work, designing and redesigning caissons and other equipment. He was aided by his wife Emily Warren Roebling who provided the critical written link between her husband and the engineers on site. Under her husband’s guidance, Emily studied higher mathematics, the calculations of catenary curves, the strengths of materials, bridge specifications, and the intricacies of cable construction. She spent the next 11 years assisting Washington Roebling, helping to supervise the bridge’s construction. There is a memorial plaque for Emily on the bridge.

After a quick stop in Brooklyn it was back on the subway, destination The Meatpacking District. Two markets started operating in this area in the 1880’s on the old freight yards, the Gansevoort Market (originally the “Farmer’s Market”), an open-air space for the buying and selling of regional produce started in 1879, and the West Washington Market, 10 brick buildings used for meat, poultry and dairy transactions, relocated to the river side of West Street in 1884. By 1900, the area was home to 250 slaughterhouses and packing plants, and by the 1920s, what had been a neighborhood based on mixture of marketplaces became more tightly focused on meatpacking and related activities – although other industries continued to be located there.

The area’s decline began around the 1960s, as part of the general decline of the waterfront area. Containerization of freight, the advent of supermarkets which changed the distribution pattern for meat, dairy and produce from a locally or regionally based system to a more national one, the development of frozen foods and refrigerated trucks to deliver them, were all factors, but meatpacking continued to be the major activity in the neighborhood through the 1970s. At the same time a new “industry”, nightclubs and other entertainment and leisure operations catering to a gay clientele began to spring up in the area.

Beginning in the late 1990s, the Meatpacking District went through a transformation. High-end boutiques catering to young professionals and hipsters opened. In 2004, New York magazine called the Meatpacking District “New York’s most fashionable neighborhood”.

Although we are hipsters that wasn’t the reason for our visit. We were there to walk the High Line – as you can imagine all this walking was making Stevie a very happy boy : )

The High Line (also known as the High Line Park) is a 1.45-mile-long (2.33 km) New York City linear park built on a section of a disused New York Central Railroad spur called the West Side Line. Inspired by the 3-mile (4.8-kilometer) Promenade plantée, a similar project in Paris completed in 1993, the High Line has been redesigned and planted as an aerial greenway and rails-to-trails park.

Repurposing of the railway into an urban park began construction in 2006, with the first phase opening in 2009 and the second phase opening in 2011. The third and final phase officially opened to the public September 21, 2014, except for a short stub above Tenth Avenue and 30th Street, which opens in 2015. The project has spurred real estate development in the neighborhoods which lie along the line. The park is extremely popular; as of September 2014, the park gets nearly 5 million visitors annually.

It was very cool and because you were elevated you got a good view of the disused warehouses below, apartment backyards, the Hudson River and the massive construction of apartment blocks that is going on. You could imagine the meatpacking industry in days gone by. Thanks Victoria Carter for the heads up about this innovative place to visit. An added bonus is that it is completely free for all to enjoy.

Last but not least on our agenda for the day was Times Square. Times Square is a major commercial intersection and a neighborhood in Midtown Manhattan, at the junction of Broadway (now converted into a pedestrian plaza) and Seventh Avenue and stretching from West 42nd to West 47th Streets. Brightly adorned with billboards and advertisements, Times Square – iconified as “The Crossroads of the World”, “The Center of the Universe”, and “The Great White Way” – is the hub of the Broadway Theater District, one of the world’s busiest pedestrian intersections, and a major center of the world’s entertainment industry. Times Square is one of the world’s most visited tourist attractions, hosting over 39 million visitors annually. Approximately 330,000 people pass through Times Square daily, many of whom are either tourists or people working in the area.

We can vouch for the 330,000 people – the place is madness – people and flashing lights everywhere! It was a must see though and we were there just in time to see the NASDAQ close on the big screen. The NASDAQ Stock Market, commonly known as the NASDAQ, is an American stock exchange. In terms of market share and volume traded, it is the largest stock exchange in the U.S. They have this televised closing bell ceremony everyday where special guests are invited to ring the closing bell. Only in America : )

New York is a crazy city but well worth visiting. There are so many sights and sounds and unfortunately we didn’t get round them all this time but got a good feel for the geography. We both decided that we will definitely return again in the future to finish off where we left off.

After a late start due to watching the last day of the Ryder Cup get underway we again headed to the subway. Internet coverage in the subway can be a bit patchy but Steve checked the Ryder Cup progress every chance he got. We were cheering for the Europeans and they did us proud at the end of the day.

Today’s first destination was Pier 11 just past Battery Park. We were doing a city sightseeing cruise. It is a hive of activity down on the water with ferries, water taxis and sight seeing boats everywhere. Not to mention the helicopters that were buzzing around and landing on the pier next to us – at one stage there would have been 12 helicopters sitting there, rotors all going, waiting for the next lot of tourists. We were in what should have been a tranquil setting on the waters edge but it was hard to hear yourself think.

We hopped on our boat and our guide introduced himself in his broken english – he was quite entertaining and so enthusiastic. We went past the other ferry terminals along the water front – in one terminal the ferries go to Governors Island which was closing down for the season today and in the other terminal the ferries go to Staten Island – these ferries run 24 / 7 and are completely free.

We passed by Battery Park which the locals refer to as The Battery. The park is 25 acres and is named for the artillery batteries that were positioned there in the city’s early years to protect the settlement behind them.

Our guide then pointed out the One World Trade Center which during construction was dubbed the Freedom Tower. The 104-story supertall structure, shares a name with the northern Twin Tower in the original World Trade Center that was destroyed in the September 11 attacks,

The tower’s steel structure topped out on August 30, 2012. On May 10, 2013, the final component of the skyscraper’s spire was installed, making One World Trade Center the fourth-tallest skyscraper in the world at the time by pinnacle height. Its spire allows the building to reach a symbolic height of 1,776 feet (541 m) in reference to the year of the United States Declaration of Independence. It has been the tallest structure in New York City since April 30, 2012, when it surpassed the height of the Empire State Building. The new World Trade Center complex, in which One World Trade Center will open later in 2014, will initially have three other high-rise office buildings, located along Greenwich Street, and the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, located just south of One World Trade Center, where the Twin Towers once stood. The construction is part of an effort to memorialize and rebuild following the destruction of the original World Trade Center complex during the attacks of September 11, 2001.

We then crossed to the other side of the Hudson River to the New Jersey side. New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by New York State, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania, and on the southwest by Delaware. New Jersey is the fourth-smallest state, but the 11th-most populous and the most densely populated of the 50 United States. New Jersey lies entirely within the combined statistical areas of New York City and Philadelphia. It is also the second-wealthiest U.S. state by median household income, according to the 2008–2012 American Community Survey.

New Jersey is connected to Manhattan via the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels and the George Washington Bridge. We saw the Colgate Clock. The Colgate Clock is an octagonal clock facing the Hudson River near Exchange Place in Jersey City, New Jersey, United States, with a diameter of 50 feet (15 m). It is currently situated 400 meters south of the former site of the headquarters of consumer products conglomerate Colgate-Palmolive, which was until the 1980s based in Jersey City. The clock was maintained by John A. Winters from the 1930s until his retirement in 1976.

The current Colgate Clock was built in 1924 to replace an earlier clock designed by Colgate engineer Warren Day and constructed by the Seth Thomas Clock Company for the centennial of the Colgate Company in 1906. After the current clock’s construction, the earlier clock was relocated to a Colgate factory in Clarksville, Indiana.

As of 2005, the Colgate Clock stands on an otherwise empty lot; all of the other buildings in the complex were demolished in 1985, when Colgate left New Jersey. The lot is located on the Hudson River waterfront and the clock itself is 100 meters south of the Goldman Sachs Tower, the largest skyscraper in the state of New Jersey. The construction of that building in the early 2000s forced a relocation of the clock southward to its current location. At the time of the relocation the size of the Colgate advertisement attached to it was reduced to comply with the Hudson River No Billboard law. As a part of the relocation agreement Goldman Sachs now maintains the clock.

The Central Railroad of New Jersey Terminal, also known as Communipaw Terminal and Jersey City Terminal, was the Central Railroad of New Jersey’s waterfront passenger terminal in Jersey City, New Jersey. This terminal building was constructed in 1889 but was abandoned in 1967. It has been preserved though as a historic place.

We then cruised past Ellis Island. Ellis Island, in Upper New York Bay, was the gateway for millions of immigrants to the United States as the nation’s busiest immigrant inspection station from 1892 until 1954. The island was greatly expanded with land reclamation between 1892 and 1934. Before that, the much smaller original island was the site of Fort Gibson and later a naval magazine. The island was made part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument in 1965, and has hosted a museum of immigration since 1990. Long considered part of New York, a 1998 United States Supreme Court decision found that most of the island is in New Jersey.

Now for the statue that I was most wanting to see – The Statue of Liberty. I suppose after seeing her at the start of many movies over the years I was excited to see her in the flesh.

The Statue of Liberty is a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in the middle of New York Harbor, in Manhattan, New York City. The statue, designed by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi and dedicated on October 28, 1886, was a gift to the United States from the people of France. The statue is of a robed female figure representing Libertas, the Roman goddess of freedom, who bears a torch and a tabula ansata (a tablet evoking the law) upon which is inscribed the date of the American Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776. A broken chain lies at her feet. The statue is an icon of freedom and of the United States: a welcoming signal to immigrants arriving from abroad.

Bartholdi was inspired by French law professor and politician Édouard René de Laboulaye, who is said to have commented in 1865 that any monument raised to American independence would properly be a joint project of the French and American peoples. He may have been minded to honor the Union victory in the American Civil War and the end of slavery. Due to the troubled political situation in France, work on the statue did not commence until the early 1870s. In 1875, Laboulaye proposed that the French finance the statue and the Americans provide the site and build the pedestal. Bartholdi completed the head and the torch-bearing arm before the statue was fully designed, and these pieces were exhibited for publicity at international expositions.

The torch-bearing arm was displayed at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, in 1876, and in New York’s Madison Square Park from 1876 to 1882. Fundraising proved difficult, especially for the Americans, and by 1885 work on the pedestal was threatened due to lack of funds. Publisher Joseph Pulitzer of the New York World started a drive for donations to complete the project that attracted more than 120,000 contributors, most of whom gave less than a dollar. The statue was constructed in France, shipped overseas in crates, and assembled on the completed pedestal on what was then called Bedloe’s Island. The statue’s completion was marked by New York’s first ticker-tape parade and a dedication ceremony presided over by President Grover Cleveland.

The statue was administered by the United States Lighthouse Board until 1901 and then by the Department of War; since 1933 it has been maintained by the National Park Service. The statue was closed for renovation for much of 1938. In the early 1980s, it was found to have deteriorated to such an extent that a major restoration was required. While the statue was closed from 1984 to 1986, the torch and a large part of the internal structure were replaced. After the September 11 attacks in 2001, it was closed for reasons of safety and security; the pedestal reopened in 2004 and the statue in 2009, with limits on the number of visitors allowed to ascend to the crown. The statue, including the pedestal and base, was closed for a year until October 28, 2012, so that a secondary staircase and other safety features could be installed; Liberty Island remained open. However, one day after the reopening, Liberty Island closed due to the effects of Hurricane Sandy; the statue and island opened again on July 4, 2013. Public access to the balcony surrounding the torch has been barred for safety reasons since 1916.

In 1881 Auguste Bartholdi contacted Gustave Eiffel (the Eiffel Tower engineer) as he was in need of an engineer to help him to realise the Statue of Liberty. Some work had already been carried out by Eugène Viollet-Le-Duc, but he had died in 1879. Eiffel was selected because of his experience with wind stresses. Eiffel devised a structure consisting of a four legged pylon to support the copper sheeting which made up the body of the statue. The entire statue was erected at the Eiffel works in Paris before being dismantled and shipped to the United States.

We then went past Governors Island which is a 172-acre (70 ha) island in Upper New York Bay, approximately 800 yards (732 m) from the southern tip of Manhattan Island and separated from Brooklyn by Buttermilk Channel, approximately 400 yards (366 m). It is legally part of the borough of Manhattan in New York City. The Native Americans of the Manhattan region referred to the island as Paggank (“nut island”), likely after the island’s plentiful hickory, oak, and chestnut trees;[4] the Dutch explorer Adriaen Block called it Noten Eylant, a translation, and this was borrowed into English as Nutten Island. The island’s current name, made official in 1784, stems from the British colonial era, when the colonial assembly reserved the island for the exclusive use of New York’s royal governors.

Defensive works were raised on the island in 1776 by Continental Army troops during the American Revolutionary War, and fired upon British ships before they were taken. From 1783 to 1966, the island was a United States Army post. From 1966 to 1996 the island served as a major United States Coast Guard installation.

We did a cruise by the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges before getting off the boat in the financial district.

On our way to check out the financial district we passed by the National September 11 Memorial. The National September 11 Memorial is a tribute of remembrance and honor to the nearly 3,000 people killed in the terror attacks of September 11, 2001 at the World Trade Center site, near Shanksville, Pa., and at the Pentagon, as well as the six people killed in the World Trade Center bombing in February 1993.

The Memorial’s twin reflecting pools are each nearly an acre in size and feature the largest manmade waterfalls in the North America. The pools sit within the footprints where the Twin Towers once stood. Architect Michael Arad and landscape architect Peter Walker created the Memorial design selected from a global design competition that included more than 5,200 entries from 63 nations.

The names of every person who died in the 2001 and 1993 attacks are inscribed into bronze panels edging the Memorial pools, a powerful reminder of the largest loss of life resulting from a foreign attack on American soil and the greatest single loss of rescue personnel in American history.

It is a great place of reflection for the families of those that were killed but also for the general population – that day is marked in everyone’s lives for one reason or another. After having visited the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. we didn’t think we were up to visiting the actual museum – it was enough to see the memorial. The One World Trade Centre sits alongside one of the memorial pools. The top of one of the towers sits next to the memorial. There is a lot of construction in the area and apparently there will be seven World Trade Centres by 2020.

We then headed down the infamous Wall Street. Wall Street is located in lower Manhattan in the financial district of New York City. Over time, the term has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, the American financial sector (even if financial firms are not physically located there), or signifying New York-based financial interests.

Wall Street is the home of the New York Stock Exchange, the world’s largest stock exchange by overall average daily trading volume and by total market capitalization of its listed companies. Several other major exchanges have or had headquarters in the Wall Street area, including NASDAQ, the New York Mercantile Exchange, the New York Board of Trade, and the former American Stock Exchange. Anchored by Wall Street, New York City has been called the world’s principal financial center.

New York greeted us with blue cloudless skies and a temperature of 31 degrees today. A perfect day for a stroll in Central Park. We caught the metro to Times Square and then a connecting train to West Central Park. There were people running, walking and biking everywhere – it was very cool.

We checked out Strawberry Fields which is a 2.5 acre (10,000 m2) landscaped section in New York City’s Central Park that is dedicated to the memory of Beatles member John Lennon. It is named after the Beatles song “Strawberry Fields Forever”.

The entrance to the memorial is located on Central Park West at West 72nd Street, directly across from the Dakota Apartments, where Lennon had lived for the later part of his life, and where he was murdered in 1980.

Central Park is an urban park in the central New York City borough of Manhattan. It was initially opened in 1857, on 778 acres (315 ha) of city-owned land (it is 843 acres (341 ha) today. In 1858, soon-to-be famed national landscapers and architects, Frederick Law Olmsted, (1822-1903), and Calvert Vaux, (1824-1895), won a design competition to improve and expand the park with a plan they titled the “Greensward Plan”. Construction began the same year, continued during the American Civil War further south, and was completed in 1873. Central Park is the most visited urban park in the United States.

They were setting up for a free concert in the park – Global Vision which was starring Jay-z and Beyonce. We could hear some music playing and it was loud so I don’t think us oldies would have coped actually being at the concert. We wandered across Bow Bridge which is the largest bridge in the park. We overheard someone saying it is the yes / no bridge – will she say yes or will she say no.

Fifth Avenue runs along the east side of Central Park so that was our next stop. Fifth Avenue is a major thoroughfare in the center of the borough of Manhattan in New York City, United States. The section of Fifth Avenue that crosses Midtown Manhattan, especially that between 49th Street and 60th Street, is lined with prestigious shops and is consistently ranked among the most expensive shopping streets in the world. In 2008, Forbes magazine ranked Fifth Avenue as being the most expensive street in the world. Some of the most coveted real estate on Fifth Avenue are the penthouses perched atop the buildings.

On our travels we saw the Rockefeller Centre – not that we knew it was the Rockefeller Centre at the time – it was only after going through my photos that I saw my system had named the photo I took of this impressive building as The Rockefeller Centre. Such novices!

After a bite of lunch we headed for the Empire State Building – it was such a perfect day so we could see for miles. Such an impressive structure given it was completed in 1931. Being that high up and being able to see New York city in all it’s glory really put how huge the city is in perspective. We got a whole new appreciation for the place. We also got some great photos.

The Empire State Building is a 103-story skyscraper located in Midtown Manhattan, at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and West 34th Street. It has a roof height of 1,250 feet (380 m), and with its antenna spire included, it stands a total of 1,454 feet (443 m) high. Its name is derived from the nickname for New York, the Empire State. It stood as the world’s tallest building for nearly 40 years, from its completion in early 1931 until the topping out of the original World Trade Center’s North Tower in late 1970. Following the September 11 attacks in 2001, the Empire State Building was again the tallest building in New York (although it was no longer the tallest in the US or the world), until One World Trade Center reached a greater height on April 30, 2012. The Empire State Building is currently the fourth-tallest completed skyscraper in the United States (after the One World Trade Center, the Willis Tower and Trump International Hotel and Tower, both in Chicago), and the 23rd-tallest in the world (the tallest now is Burj Khalifa, located in Dubai). It is also the fifth-tallest freestanding structure in the Americas.

The building is owned by the Empire State Realty Trust, for which Anthony Malkin serves as Chairman, CEO and President. In 2010, the Empire State Building underwent a $550 million renovation, with $120 million spent to transform the building into a more energy efficient and eco-friendly structure. Receiving a gold Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating in September 2011, the Empire State Building is the tallest LEED certified building in the United States.

After all that sightseeing we were in need of some liquid refreshment. We wandered down Fifth Avenue and saw a sign for a roof top bar – 230 on Fifth. Given that it was the most stunning afternoon we thought that sounded perfect. Steve enjoyed a couple of 34oz glasses of Becks and I enjoyed a Raspberry Mojito. It was a very popular spot as you can imagine so we were happy to get a spot looking up at the Empire State Building.

We headed to Madison Square to catch the subway back to the hotel. We came across the Flatiron building, which has been called “One of the world’s most iconic skyscrapers, and a quintessential symbol of New York City”. It anchors the south (downtown) end of Madison Square and the north (uptown) end of the Ladies’ Mile Historic District. The neighborhood around it is called the Flatiron District after it’s signature building.