Tags
grand central, local food, Manhattan, New York, new york city, NYC, photo, travel
We spent the majority of our time in Manhattan, and for good reason. There is so much to see in Manhattan.
We had a look at Wall Street, it is so named because during the 1600’s the Dutch had a settlement here, and built a wall along the present day Wall Street.
Wall Street and the surrounding few blocks is the Financial District of NYC. Interesting to note that this area started the concept of commuting to work. Historically people always lived within walking distance to where they worked. With mass immigration the Financial District and the nearby Lower East Side where many of the workers lived, became run down. The more affluent Bankers and such did not want to live with the new immigrants as most arrived penniless. Upper Manhattan was yet to be developed, so people moved into the once separate City of Brooklyn and commuted across the water. This in turn forced the Cities to construct the Brooklyn Bridge and underground Subway Tunnels. (We learned all of this at the City of New York Museum- truly fascinating)
The building’s around Wall Street spare no expense.
Just around the corner from Wall Street and a few blocks over is the New World Trade Tower. We have looked at this massive building enough, (fourth tallest in the world) its time to go to the top.
I realize that this building cost about 4 Billion to construct, which is a massive amount of money. They also make a pretty penny selling tickets to the Observatory.
7,000 people per day at an average price of $30 = $210,000 per day.
The elevators are advertised as some of the fastest in the world. Massive TV screens cover the walls, and document the history of NYC as you go up. When you leave the basement, NYC is a small Dutch settlement, as you near the top of the elevator, you see the new World Trade Tower being built around you.
The views at the top were expansive.
If you are going up any Building in NYC, One World and Empire State are the most popular, plan your visit just before sunset. We were able to see daytime, sunset and night views.
From here we turned in for the night, but returned the next day with a big appetite. A member of our group, Tyler’s Dad wanted to try some Street food. We had already eaten, but documented and sampled the tasty eats.
From here we explored the outskirts of the lower east side, specifically Chinatown and Little Italy.
Little Italy is small and only runs for about one block, but just around the corner is the much larger Chinatown.
The murals, and art in random spots were fascinating.
This brings us to a very important time of the day. Dinner, or maybe it was Lunch. Either way it was time to eat, we were hungry. We visited the positively reviewed Shanghai Café Deluxe for Dim Sum.
Wow that was good.
We ventured into Times Square next:
From the hordes of people in Times Square, we wanted to switch gears and explore nature a little. Central Park is perhaps the only place in NYC you can escape the noise, taxis and thundering subways.
We were actually able to find a few places where we could not hear the raging city at all, other than Helicopters, but you will never be able to escape them.
Why break your back in the sweltering heat collecting bottles when you can stay cool in a Central Park fountain collecting pennies.
Near the fountain was a massive ornately decorated stone tunnel. A very talented street performer was belting out some opera music.
Central Park is so large, and we just walked whichever way we thought looked interesting, the problem with this is we got lost. We hired a pedi-cab to take us back to the subway station. But when we arrived, we were met with the wonderful smell of street food.
While sitting on a bench enjoying our lunch, we could hear sirens approaching. 4 fire trucks parked right next to us, and ran into the subway station.
Why are we telling you about a fire truck? Because of the decal on the side of it.
This just about brings us to the end of our time in NYC, but we had a few other places to see before we left.
The Flatiron Building is a famous NYC landmark
Our last stop in NYC was Grand Central Terminal.
We people watched in Grand Central and enjoyed the Air Conditioning before heading back to New Jersey for the last time.
You do not travel if you are afraid of the unknown, you travel for the unknown, that reveals you with yourself. – Ella Maillart