Day 4 - Quiet contemplation

Sunday was a day for quiet contemplation, so we headed south on Manhattan Island to visit the 9/11 Memorial.  Our friend Jan had lent us a set of cards with self-directed walking tours on them, so we picked one for the 9/11 Memorial and one for the Wall Street precinct.  The walks are quite easy and take you to points of interest, with some notes given to explain their significance.  After a subway ride we reached a point near the memorial.  While walking there we saw a new item of Police equipment, shown below.  It's a van with a box that can be raised hydraulically to give the occupant a better view of the surrounding area - very cool.

The 9/11 Memorial is very moving.  Two huge holes in the ground where the towers stood, each surrounded by a wall engraved with the names of all the victims who died there, including the emergency service personnel.  Water cascades down the walls, and the sound is quite soothing.  The photo below, showing Rhonda taking a picture of one of the two holes, gives some indication of the scale of the site.

 

I noticed a few white roses, inserted into names on the memorial, which are engraved quite deeply, and Rhonda saw the sign below, which was incredibly poignant.  We were both very moved by the experience.

 

We walked from the memorial to Wall Street, hoping for some fiscal inspiration.  Both of us found Wall Street to be quite underwhelming - it's not a very big area.  The New York Stock Exchange is near the middle of the area, and it's also quite small.

 

From Wall Street we walked to the Staten Island Ferry Terminal, another of Jan's recommendations, for a free harbour cruise.  The ferries run every 30 minutes and we arrived at the terminal with 15 minutes to wait - but it seemed to take forever.  There were quite a lot of people waiting and we hoped that the ferry wouldn't be too crowded.  We needn't have worried because the ferries are big, each can take over 1400 passengers.

 

The route of the Staten Island Ferries takes them past the Statue of Liberty and you get a great view back towards the southern tip of Manhattan Island.  Unfortunately the day was a bit misty, so the view wasn't the clearest, but it was still a great experience, and fabulous value for money.  A couple of happy snaps are below.

 

 

Jan had told us that there wasn't much to see on Staten Island, at least within walking distance of the ferry terminal, so we were happy to go straight back to Manhattan.  Because our ferry was going out of service after arriving at the terminal, we had to disembark, find the next ferry and get on board before it left.  We were a bit concerned that we'd miss the ferry and have to wait a whole 30 minutes for the next one.  Thankfully about 90% of the other passengers had the same idea as us, but, unlike us they knew where to go, so we just got carried along by the crowd.

 

Americans certainly like anything "labour saving".  In a pharmacy (the grocery shops on Manhattan seem to be pharmacies as well) I saw the following item in the Men's Grooming section.

 

I like the fact that the label states: "Helps stop razor bumps".  Of course it does, because the instructions on the back of the can tell you not to use a razor.  By the same logic, growing a beard also stops razor bumps.

 

That's all for today, tomorrow we're visiting the United Nations (with Jan as our tour guide)and going for a dusk cruise around Manhattan.  Hope this finds you all happy and healthy.