J&J Adventures Part 2: New York City

Thursday, May 28

After breakfast , Bob drove us to the train station in New Rochelle, about 5 minutes from their house. We took the train into NYC and got off at Grand Central Station.

After asking a few people we were able to find the green line subway and took it downtown to City Hall.

We asked for directions and were guided by a nice guy on our way to the World Trade Center memorials. They have built 2 rectangular pools that are footprints of the buildings, with a wall about chest high with water flowing down to a pool and then another lower pool that all the water literally disappears into. The edges are surrounded by the names of people etched in stone who died in the 9-11 attacks that changed the world forever It was very powerful.

9-11 Memorial Pool - There are 2 of these. Very powerful

We elected not to go into the museum as there was so many things we wanted to see in the city. We went into Trinity Church which is near the old and New World Trade Center building. We then headed over to Wall Street and saw the New York Stock Exchange.

Hunger hit and we went to a great deli and had part of a sandwich and saved the rest and a yummy lemon coconut muffin. We then set out to find the bull of Wall Street which was surrounded by people taking pictures. We walked to Battery Park and walked around. We considered taking a boat to Ellis Island but as has been the problem on this trip, “too little time, too much to do”. Like I keep saying, we have to come back. After reaching the far end of Manhattan at Battery Park, we headed toward the midtown area. We walked along the Hudson River awhile and then stumbled into St. Paul's Chapel which we were looking for previously. It was right next to one of the World Trade Center buildings and yet stayed standing. It served as a respite for the rescue teams and first responders after the disaster, serving them food and rest, massage and kindness. Many of these volunteers worked 12 or more hour shifts to help the responders. It was a beautiful tribute.

New World Trade Center

As we were trying to get to Chinatown a couple of people stopped as we were searching our map and asked if we needed help. Again I say, who says New Yorker's are not nice? One man said, “you know you can walk across the Brooklyn bridge”, so we took a detour and walked half way across and back. Beautiful bridge.

Brooklyn Bridge

Chinatown

We made our way through Chinatown and got a Bubbletea and then Little Italy and just kept walking.

We made it to the Highline Trail which is a beautiful trail above the city that was a railroad line that goes for about 1 ½ miles. It was very nicely landscaped with a nice breeze. We eventually made it to the busy and crazy midtown area and spent quite a bit of time wandering around Time Square before taking the train back to New Rochelle where Bob kindly picked us up. What a great day. We must have walked at least 10 miles.