New York 15-17 March 2002

Friday 15 March saw us back at Heathrow ready to depart for our first visit to the city that never sleeps, New York. We arrived at Newark International Airport in New Jersey and made our way into New York Penn Station on the local rail network. It was a relatively painless taxi journey as we found our hotel on the corner of Lexington and 48th. After dropping our bag off we decided to tackle the streets by foot and see if we could experience the Empire State Building before the weekend queues, and also try to get tickets for the World Trade Centre viewing platform before nightfall.
	We definitely looked like tourists as we walked down 5th Avenue, our heads in a permanent kink as we gazed skywards at the buildings that surrounded us. After presenting our photo IDs before we were even allowed into the Empire State Building we purchased tickets for the Sky Ride tour and up to the observation platform. The Sky Ride was rather disappointing, with Scotty from Star Trek taking you on a crash course around Manhattan. Following the ride we took 2 elevators up the 86 floors to the observation platform. The views were amazing although somewhat hampered by the haze that was present in the sky, we had views 360 degrees around the city. Looking down from up there sure did make you realise how high up you were as all the pedestrians looked like ants and the cars looked like matchbox cars.
Just to make sure that no one falls (or jumps) off they surround you in a cage like structure so the views are partially obstructed by bars. It was extremely sad looking South East towards the financial district to where the Twin Towers used to stand but seeing nothing but emptiness where we knew they should be.
	A few photos later and after a little time to take in our surroundings we headed back down to street level and tried to figure out the best way to make it down to the WTC site. After waiting for 30 minutes and almost getting on two wrong busses Nina suggested that we catch the Subway down. It proved to be a brilliant idea and before we knew it we were outside City hall just a couple of blocks from where it had all happened just over 6 months before.
After soaking up the sadness surrounding the site we decided we would wander down to the ticket office to see if there were any of the complementary tickets available for the viewing platform the next morning. The office was closed and there were no tickets to be available until 11am on Saturday.
The queuing area outside looked just too long for us, and we decided that Saturday was better spent visiting the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. We wandered down to the Staten Island ferry terminal, across to Battery Park and then up Wall street past the New York Stock Exchange back to the WTC site where the 6 month anniversary lights had been turned on and shone a mile up into the sky. It was so sad yet breathtaking at the same time…
	Next stop was Times Square on the Friday night. Boy was it busy, hawkers everywhere and many other tourists. It is just so amazing when you feel as though you are in the middle of the movies. A small visit to the largest Toys R Us store was of course in order, it even has a ferris wheel inside the store! We finally found somewhere to have dinner and it wouldn't be a surprise to most of you that one of us had a huge steak since it had been 6 months since we were last over this side of the Atlantic.
0900 Saturday, we were in a queue (again) waiting to get on the ferry to the Statue of Liberty. The security was phenomenal, we had to remove watches, belts and jackets, and then go through the x-ray machine. It was ten times more secure than the airport! We were finally on the ferry at 0930 and on our way to the island. The day was warm yet still a little hazy, so the view looking back on the city wasn't as clear as it could have been. First stop was Liberty Island.
Unfortunately since 11 September, the statue itself had been closed and we were unable to climb to the top, but we had a great tour around the island and learnt rather a lot about the history of the statue. Before too long we were back on the ferry and walking the well trodden path up to the front door of Ellis Island Immigrant processing building. The museum was really interesting, learning the process that so many millions of people had to go through to have the new start in 'The Land of Opportunity'. We were back in the financial district by early afternoon and decided that it was a good opportunity to see a bit of the St Patricks Day parade and Central Park.
As we headed back up to the subway we passed the World Trade Centre globe. It had just been set up in Battery Park on the Monday to commemorate 6 months since September 11th. It was amazing how little damage had been done to this globe considering what had obviously fallen on it. The hard thing was the flowers and the messages of love that were scattered on the grass surrounding the globe from friends and families of the missing. After soaking in some more of this recent history we were back on our way.
Since we had got the subway sussed by this point and were up at the parade in no time. There were just so many groups of people going by in the parade it seemed to go on and on…(well it had been going since 11am that morning). We also decided that a visit to the other big toy store in Manhattan was a must, so FAO Swartz kept us occupied for about an hour. It is a big (and little) kids heaven. We finally did make it up to Central Park and positioned ourselves on the rocks above the ice skating rink. In this position you are behind the upper Manhattan skyline. The sun was setting slowly behind the buildings in beautiful colours…rather stunning. It was at that point that a lovely policeman offered to take our photo, and we struck up a conversation.
	He informed us which was the best way to walk through the park to see the fountain at Columbus Circle. He also told us how to go and see the viewing platform down in the financial district without having to get tickets and queue for hours. He told us to get up early and to go down at about 8am as the platform opens at 9am. We would never have thought that you would be allowed on it when it wasn't open so…we were up early and getting off the subway at 8am.
There guarding the entrance of the platform were two national guards equipped with machine guns. Now if we hadn't been told we could that would have been enough to put us off. We walked quietly around them expecting them to stop us at any moment and onto the platform.
The platform is made up of plywood, with messages of hope and love written on every millimetre of surface from those people from all over the world that have visited. You were looking straight onto the construction site. There wasn't really a lot to see. You could just see a large hole in the ground where they were digging into the car park and foundations of the structures. It was hard to concentrate as this morning was by far the coldest that we'd had since arriving. It was 0 degrees with an ice cold wind coming in from the water. As we left the platform there was a list of all the dead and missing from September 11th on one side of the ramp and on the other an amazing sculpture of some firemen.
Next stop was the lower east side to visit what was quoted as the cheapest shopping in Manhattan…Orchard St. We caught the subway to the closest direct stop and as we climbed out into the light we wondered where on earth we were. Everything was boarded up with garbage outside every door. It looked like we had just stepped into a scary movie. We began to walk in the right direction, and walked and walked and walked. We walked right through China Town, and finally reached Orchard St…but you wouldn't read about it. Everything was closed, even the Tenement Museum, which would have been interesting to visit. We walked along, starving as we hadn't had breakfast and decided to just flag shopping and stopped in a little diner to have what turned out to be a great breakfast.
Full and content we then headed off to the Holocaust Museum back down in the financial district. This was really fascinating, and it was interesting how having gone to Ellis Island yesterday so many of the two museums tied in together. About 2 hours later we headed back uptown to have a look at the United Nations building. Didn't seem to be a lot to see there so back off to Times Square to see if we could pick up a couple of cheap, I Love New York, T-shirts before we left. Mission successful, we were back in the hotel with plenty of time to get to Grand Central station to catch a train to the airport. Just as well as we had to wait for about 25 minutes for the right train to come along…appears that trains are the same world over.
7.05am Monday morning we arrived at Heathrow and raced back home so that we could get to work...rather hard to do on 4 hours sleep but there are some things that you just have to do in life…and one of them is New York!