New York - Chelsea and Lower Manhattan

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New York in July. We were expecting blue skies and hot humid days. We certainly didn't expect two days of torrential rain! Anyway, this blog has LOADS of photos. Sorry!! For our first two nights in the Big Apple we were Couch Surfing again which saved us $100-150 dollars a night at least. Eric was a great host who cooked us pasta in a tomato and vodka sauce then took us out for exquisite deserts in a Chelsea restaurant.

Our first tourism experience ended up being the Visitors' Centre at Times Square. That's because it was raining so heavily in Chelsea that the streets were flooding and we decided to head into town. The centre is not particularly informative unless you want to buy theatre tickets or a tour, but it was a good place to start because of all the leaflets you can get there. We had a quick browse around some city centre shops before deciding to brave the weather and return to the Chelsea area.

We had read a little about The High Line and really wanted to see what they had done with an abandoned elevated railway section. Despite the weather it was nice to stroll along. It didn't even rain when we were there, although our views of the Manhattan skyscrapers were somewhat obstructed. The gardens are nice and we were completely puzzled by the car parking situation (see photo). If your car is at the top and you return first, how do you get out?

The next day we were up early to take a boat out to Liberty Island and Ellis Island. When we arrived at Battery Park it was like a hurricane! The driving rain meant we had to wait just minutes to buy our tickets and get on a ferry. The waters were rough and we wondered if it was a wise move. Still, we made it out to Liberty Island safely and the sun even came out - briefly! Around the base of the Statue of Liberty are various information panels telling you about its history and the views you can see. The ticket also gives you the chance to go inside the statue, although you can only look up the central section, there's an extra charge if you want to climb hundreds of steps to get a view from the crown. Security was a nightmare too. Backpacks are not allowed, but if you tell them you have an inhaler inside, they let you through. We didn't agree with this policy having paid to use the lockers. It also seems that you can take a large handbag inside the statue as long as it doesn't have straps like a backpack!

The ferry then took us to Ellis Island, home of the terrific Immigration Museum. There we watched a short film about immigration through the years and explored the corridors looking at various artefacts. It was very well put together and very interesting, not to mention how moving it all was. The stories modern day children had written about the experiences of their parents and grand parents had us almost moved to tears. Bizarrely the museum also currently features a special exposition on Barbie dolls from across the world!!

A day later and the sun finally came out. We headed straight downtown to where the twin towers of the World Trade Centre once stood. The new centre had us watching in silence as survivors and unlucky relatives recalled the horror of 9/11. It was interesting to see the plans for the Memorial Garden and the replacement towers. There is little to be said by way of comment though. We paused outside the rebuild No 7 WTC where a shiny statue gives strange reflections in its red surface. We stood in silence to see the site of the horrors and the memorials which now stand just metres from where the massive rebuilding project is under way.

We walked around lower Manhattan looking constantly upwards at the variety of skyscrapers, new and old. Then we walked alongside the Hudson River to Battery Park where the sunshine had tourists in their thousands queueing for the Liberty ferries. We had been wise to brave the storms the previous day as the lines were hours long! Some of the statues we saw were rather odd too.

After lunch we walked out to the Brooklyn Bridge. It's quite a popular activity to walk across it so we joined the crowds and were rewarded with marvellous views of both Upper and Lower Manhattan. Flagging in the heat, we then made our way back to Eric's to collect our things and head to a central hotel for a couple more nights in The Big Apple.

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Photos

Lady Liberty
Notice the reflection of the guy with the umbrella!