New York City

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Last Friday we visited New York City. I guess you could say that we visited Manhatten. New York City is made up of 5 boroughs, each of which is a county of New York State. The 5 boroughs are: The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhatten, Queens and Staten Island. These boroughs were consolidated into a city in 1898. Manhatten is 2 1/2 miles wide and 15 miles long. There are about 2 million people living there. There are about 10 million in New York City and 21 million in the whole state of New York. As I mentioned before, we stayed in a RV park about 60 miles northwest of New York City. We took a tour from our campground. The bus picked us up around 8 a.m. and we returned after 6 p.m. A long but good day. We took the Lincoln Tunnel from New Jersey to Manhatten. Something the guide told us was that New Jersey and Oregon are the only states where they don't have self-serve gas stations. He said that gas is usually 40 to 50 cents cheaper in New Jersey than New York. The guide said that there are 35,000 police officers and 13,000 firefighters in New York City. There are also 13,000 taxi cabs. There are 4 tunnels and 19 bridges(George Washington Bridge has two levels.) Also, he said that you could get a $350 fine for honking your horn(although I did hear a few horns honking). I hope that I am getting the facts straight. It has been awhile since I took these notes. He talked fast and I was trying to keep up with him. We had a good guide and bus driver.. I don't see how the driver drove around the city like he did. I wouldn't even try to drive a car there. Our first stop was near Times Square. On the way there we saw where they televise the TODAY show. We were able to get out of the bus and walk around and take some pictures of Times Square and the crystal ball that will drop on New Year's Eve. We had pastry at Junior's. Junior's is famous for cheesecake but we didn't have any that morning. Near Junior's we went into the Marriot Hotel. I believe that the guide said that the rooms there would be $600 a night. He also said that that there were tenement buildings that were going to be torn down in a year and a studio apartment would be about $2200. a month. He said that the average income is $92,000 a year. It costs $40 a day to park your car. He said that there are 400 Park & Rides away from the city where you can park your car and ride to the city for $10 a day. Tolls to get into the city are $13. None to get out. We then drove to the southern part of Manhatten, known as the Battery. When hurricane Sandy came through, this area was under 9 ft. of water. Then we took a walking tour down Wall Street. There is a statue of George Washington. This is where he took the oath of office April 30, 1789. We then walked to the area where the World Trade Center twin towers used to be before 9/11. Where the twin towers were, they have built "footprint fountains". Two fountains that are actually cascades. Each occupies the exact footprint of one of the Twin Towers. The cascading water falls 30 ft. to a flat basin and then another 30 ft. through a smaller hole in the center. Large pumping systems blast 26,000 gallons a minute over the block granite walls one acre pool. There are 16 pumps that circulate 480,000 gallons of recycled water every 22 minutes. Around the rim of each fountain is a long bronze strip with the names of victims of the 2001 attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, of the hijack of Flight 93, which crashed in a field in Pennsylvania, and of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. The names are grouped by the location of each victim at the time of the attacks. Relatives of the victims could also request that individual names could be by others to whom they were close. The fountains are in an eight acre paved plaza filled with 415 trees, all the same size. Nearby is the Freedom Tower. It is 1776 feet tall. It is the tallest building in New York City. It is 400 feet taller than the original Twin Towers. It cost about 4 billion dollars to build. Tenants have started to move into the building. The rent rate for the lower two thirds of the building is $69 per square foot. If it was fully occupied, it would bring in around $120 million a year and take around 35 years to recoup the cost of construction. But, as one of the worker's who had worked on the site said, "This building wasn't built to make money. It as built to demonstrate something to the world." We then took the Holland Tunnel to New Jersey. We were going to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. Our guide said that the ferry would be less crowded from New Jersey. We drove to Liberty State Park. There we saw the Empty Sky Memorial. It is named after the Bruce Springsteen song about the attacks. It is two long parallel metal walls. It bears the names of the 749 New Jersey residents who were killed at the World Trade Center, at the Pentagon and in Shanksville, Pa, on Sept. 11, 2001. These two walls point directly across the river to where the Twin Towers were located. We took the ferry to Ellis Island. Ellis Island opened in 1892 as a federal immigration station. Between 1892-1924 approximately 12 million people came through there. It closed in 1954. It has been estimated that close to 40 per cent of all current U.S. citizens can trace at least one of their ancestors there. Three million German speaking individuals made up the largest immigrant group in the United States history through the end of the 19th century. It took 7 weeks to make the trip to the United States, often under very hard conditions. Ellis Island is not its own National Park. It is part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument. We then took the ferry to the Statue of Liberty. The Statue of Liberty was a gift of friendship from the people of France to the United States. The Statue was dedicated on Oct. 28, 1886. It is cared for by the National Park Service. The height of the Statue is 151 ft. from the base to the torch. With the pedestal and foundation the full height is 305 ft. The total weight of the Statue is 225 tons. The copper aloe weighs around 100 tons and is 3/32 of an inch thick - a little less than the thickness of two pennies. It was hammered by hand into plates which are attached to the interior iron frame. The crown has seven points, representing the seven seas and seven continents. It has 25 windows. The tablet in the Statue's hand reads in Roman Numerals JULY IVMDCCLXXVI - July 4, 1776. The current torch is a 1986 replacement of the original. The new torch is copper, covered in 24K gold leaf. Sunlight reflects off the gold during the daytime and floodlights light the torch by reflection at night. My dad said that when he came home from World War II, he saw the Statue of Liberty from the ship that he was on and that the Statue was the best thing that he had ever seen.

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Comments

[Mildred Voigt]

New York
Marilyn, this was so informative and I enjoyed reading about the area. It sure sounds as if you are having a wonderful time. Have a safe trip home.