Sunday, July 15, 2007

Day 2: New York City

After breakfast and a quick drive into the city through the Lincoln Tunnel, parking at Port Authority and taking the A train downtown, we started our day in New York by paying our respects at Ground Zero. We had last been here in 1999, and the scale of the destruction is still unfathomable. It's impossible not to be struck by the waste of life and the resistance to the power of hatred, especially as you see it through the eyes of an international crowd who has come here to make peace, and in the unbearable sadness in the eyes of the firefighters of the companies around Ground Zero, who have seen enough for a hundred lifetimes.

The site is now a construction zone as well as a memorial, as the base of Freedom Tower is being laid:




There was a flutist playing quietly by one of the observation posts, Amazing Grace and the Battle Hymn of the Republic, over and over. Quietly and powerfully moving. Another man, maybe, whose eyes have seen too much.



And one of the enduring sights from our visit was the firetrucks which seemed to ring the whole of Ground Zero. This is the '11' truck from the fire station across the street, which must have lost every member on September 11th; two of the surviving building in the area are reflected in the windows.



Then we explored Wall Street a bit, saw Trinity Church and the New York Stock Exchange. Josh climbed the steps of old Federal Hall where George Washington took his first oath of office, and where some very pretty French tourists decided to take a rest.



Then back on the A train to the West 4th Street station, to explore Greenwich Village a bit. We walked along Bleecker Street and saw a lot of the same clubs that were there in Bob Dylan's day, then up around the NYU campus and Washington Square Park. Oh, and on the train Josh recognized Carl Johnson, the former football star from Stevenson. He was just sitting there with a Stevenson bag on the floor between his legs. Attends Yale now.

After the Village we headed back uptown to 59th and Columbus Circle, and walked up to Lincoln Center for a quick look. Ate lunch at PJ Clark's, which has replaced O'Neal's Balloon which had been there for years and years, but we ate hamburgers and pretended it was O'Neal's anyway, without the baskets and the shoestring fries. After lunch headed over to Central Park where we crossed over by Sheep Meadow


which had a lot of visitors because it was such a beautiful day. And hot! We were drinking water every chance we got. Down through the Literary Walk and the Wolman Skating Rink which is now a carnival in the summer, then out of the park by what used to be the Plaza Hotel and is now closed and being renovated as condominiums. Very sad not to be able to go into the lobby and the Palm Court.

Walked along 5th Avenue for a while, with stops at Tiffany, St. Patrick's Cathedral, Rockefeller Center and of course the home of The Apprentice, Trump Tower. Had to have a picture there.



Finally, to the circus of Times Square, and 42nd Street.



Back to the car and the hotel after that, dinner at the hotel, and rested in our suite the rest of the night. Lots of driving tomorrow for Brown.