A day Downtown

It's hard to decide where to start exploring New York. We took the easy way out and thought we'd start at the bottom and then gradually make our way up Manhattan Island. As it turned out we didn't pick the best day (Thursday) for a sightseeing ride on the Staten Island ferry.

This is the best view we got of the iconic downtown New York skyline as we left the ferry port, through the rain and gathering mist.

The early morning ride to Staten Island was a relaxed affair with very few passengers on this large, well equipped ferry running a FREE service for commuters. It contrasted with the NY subway service which is very short on people to help at the stations, very little graphical information about the service and little emphasis on keeping things clean. I maybe wouldn't have noticed this as much if we hadn't just come from London.

This was the best shot of the Statue of Liberty that I could manage in these difficult light conditions.

Back at Battery Park again we thought we'd kill some time at the National Museum of the American Indian (part of the Smithsonian), located in the beautiful old US Customs House, while we waited for our planned walking tour of the Financial District with the Downtown Alliance volunteer. As it turned out the volunteer didn't show at the appointed time and we found our time at the Museum was really enjoyable anyway - in fact this Museum is a hidden gem in NY City.

There were practising artists/craftsmen in some of the exhibition areas, happy to talk to us about their work and the stories behind them. We loved meeting Teri Rofkar, from Alaska, who explained to us the clan stories behind her weaving.

We loved our time at the Museum; so many beautiful examples of decorative costumes, weapons and embellishments.......and sad stories of destruction and genocide - but survival! The old US Customs House building itself is beautiful.

The US Customs House faces Bowling Green, New York's oldest public park (next to the site of the original Dutch fort of New Amsterdam). It is still surrounded by its original 18th century fence.

Walking from here up Broadway we quickly come to its junction with Wall Street. Here we are amazed to meet up with Ridwaan again. Ridwaan works for DFAT in Canberra and his wife is a teacher so we'd had lots in common to talk about when we first met him on the Staten Island ferry. Ridwaan was in NY for work but had taken some time out for sightseeing and catching up with some distant family. He was lucky enough to have seen Barak Obama the day previously (in NY for a fund raiser).

The obligatory photo of the NY Stock Exchange.......but I have many others: of the old JP Morgan building, the Trump building on Wall Street - yes the very centre of capitalism - and amazing examples of some of the world's first skyscrapers!

Wall Street is very narrow. This is the view West towards Trinity Church, site of New York's first Anglican church, by charter of King William 111 in 1697. This building replaced the one that replaced the one destroyed during 1776. Its construction dates from the early 1800s.

The Trinity Church burial ground is beside the church, on Broadway. It's a welcome open green space, but looks somewhat incongruous so close to the soaring towers on Wall Street.

Continuing our walk up Broadway it's not long before we come to the World Trade Centre site - now a 16 acre clanging, seething construction site in the middle of Lower Manhattan.

We get an unexpected view into this part of the construction site, showing the half finished new Tower One, to replace the previous North Tower, when the tall gates open for a lorry to pass.

We pay our respects first by visiting the Tribute World Trade Centre Visitor Centre on nearby Liberty Street to experience the personal stories of 9/11 and what it meant for New Yorkers. The small exhibition space does an excellent job of focussing on the human side of this tragedy and we decide to take a walking tour with a volunteer guide around the perimeter of the WTC site so we can learn more.

The tour starts around the corner at "Firehouse Ten" the little fire station closest to the WTC site. The memorial plaque commemorates the death of the over 300 fire fighters who lost their lives that day ("murdered", as they say).

Our guide Judith, a garrulous West Village resident, does a wonderful job of making the events of the day real for us in a way I hadn't expected (I thought I'd already seen everything I needed to know about 9/11). Tracey, an elementary teacher from Brooklyn was another volunteer on the tour who described to us the way 9/11 unfolded for her and husband Marty; they lost their son Terry who worked for a big law firm in the North Tower (102nd floor).

We were very moved by all this...but both women did a great job of demonstrating the resilience of New Yorkers and their progress towards believing in a more positive future - and none of that Bush talk of defending freedom etc.

Judith gave us a full description of how the site is being reconstructed. The memorial park which comprises two ponds that fill the respective footprints of the North and South Tower and a surrounding plaza and oak "forest" and memorial museum will open on the tenth anniversary this September. Tower One is set to open in 2013.

The small grey black square (foreshortened) shape you can see in the middle of this picture is the footprint of the South Tower.

And more clearly, this is the base of the North Tower pond.

As we finished our walking tour and walked around the Northern side of the site we got this amazing close up view of Tower One under construction. Its base incorporates huge concrete blocks to absorb explosions/ramming etc. It will be faced with special shatter proof glass and have its own fire fighter access stairs. It will be a little taller (when it includes its spire) than the original twin towers. Symbolically, it will be 1776 feet tall when complete.

Feeling very subdued we took the subway back to W23rd street, emerging from a corner we hadn't expected, and gaining a great view of our apartment block in the process. That's the old Chelsea Hotel next door. We've already checked out its heritage register and the commemorative plaques to Dylan Thomas, Brendan Behan, Leonard Cohen etc etc.

After a reviving cup of tea we headed down to the Green Table at the Chelsea Markets for a locally brewed beer (Rob) and a Cote du Rhone red (for me) before hooking into that wonderful sushi from the Lobster Place.