As part of our commitment to go full-on tourist, we hit the Empire State Building first thing and got near the front of the massive line to go to the top. This is the view looking south at the Financial District on the tip of Manhattan. There’s a big gap there now where the Twin Towers once stood. We didn’t have to try very hard at the full-on tourist thing. We got off the subway with little idea of where to go so we consulted the map on my iPhone. The little dot indicating the location of the ESB appeared to be on the next block over. We started pointing and talking about what route to take to get there when I looked up and there was the damn ESB right above us.
Looking down at West 34th Street.
Still aways to go to the very top.
The Chrysler Building and the Queensboro Bridge.
The Manhattan and Brooklyn bridges.
The only view of the Statue of Liberty we had on the whole trip.
The hole where the Twin Towers used to be. Those cranes are building whatever it is that’s going to be built there.
Us. It was cold that morning.
In the indoor viewing platform there’s a big mirror running the perimeter where you can take a picture of yourself taking a picture of the city.
It’s tough to get a halfway decent picture of the whole thing. This ain’t it.
After coming down and finding a place across the street to pee from the Starbucks we drank on the way up, we headed down to the Financial District to see Ground Zero. Check out Gina in full tourist regalia: Central Park cap, bright red sweat shirt with ARKANSAS emblazoned across it, and backpack. I was wearing the hat earlier in the morning and some local made fun of me on the street. Whenever I looked at her I thought about that episode of Seinfeld where George pretended to be a tourist from Little Rock so some woman would take care of him. (The money quote is at 1:15 in the clip.)
We get down to the site and you can’t see anything because of the tall fences covered in blue plastic. We finally see a little booth for the planned 9/11 Memorial and the lady directs us to another building across a big street. When we get there it’s just a big window in one of the other World Trade Center buildings, no plaque or any kind of information. I was bummed. Later I found out there’s a preview exhibit somewhere, but we weren’t told about that.
Then we walked back around Ground Zero and hit Wall Street. This is Trinity Church at Wall Street and Broadway.
New York Stock Exchange. Lots of tourists and lots of security around this place.
We got back on the subway and headed for Chinatown.
In Columbus Park, in the area where the city’s worst slums once stood, groups of old people were clustered around about a dozen tables playing various card and board games. They seemed really serious about their games.
It doesn’t look like the Chinese Baptist Church gets much action.
Chinatown is a warren of narrow streets packed with tiny shops and open air food markets. One of the most famous is Doyers Street. That curve in the background was once known as the Bloody Angle for the carnage the Chinese Tongs once wrought there. The Tongs enjoyed killing with hatchets, hence the term hatchet man. Gina is peeking around a corner to check and see if any modern-day tong members have spotted her “Please Mug Me” attire.
Chinese McDonald’s
Lots of good-looking food right on the street. Well, the fish heads didn’t look all that good.
Comments
Awesome shots, and I had to laugh at the images of the Arkie tourists.