We bought the NY City pass which gave us access to 6 iconic NY sites, Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island, Empire State Building, Met Museum, MoMA, Guggenheim and Natural History. All for $106 adults and Tessa at 17 got away with the youth pass which cost $79. Not that anyone checked, because WT went through the Statue of Liberty with Tessa's tickets by mistake.
The ferry took us to Liberty Island where the Lady Liberty stands. The security and ticket collection is done before you board the ferry at Battery Park, Lower Manhattan. It was a short trip to the Island where we walked around with the audio guide telling us the history of the statue, and who promoted and built it and so on.
The statue is made from thin copper braced internally by a lattice of metal and wooden frame. The framing was designed by none other than Gustav Eiffel. The copper has oxidised to the current green over many decades. You will see some buildings with similar colour as the statue, they too have oxidised copper cladding.
For extra payment, you can visit the pedestal and go inside the statue. We didn't bother.
We then boarded the ferry for Ellis Island. This was the main entry point for most east coast immigrants before flying got popular. The processing centre has been restored into a timeline museum of sorts.
The combination of the audio guide and posters gave a narration of the waves and waves of immigrants that came to the US and some individual stories. These two islands are US national parks, and some of the park rangers are descendants of people who were processed here. There is a similar set-up on the west coast in San Francisco, but not as well known.
Tree of words introduced by immigrants, giving the English (American version) language another boost of new words from other languages. These days, new words are coined by texting. For example, Noho has joined Soho as a precinct name in NY. Noho means North of Houston St (and Soho - South). Nolita another precinct is North of Little Italy.
The usual end of day scene.
2nd Jan 2014 Thurs
We took the subway to mid-town Manhattan to visit the Empire State Building. The subway was not very busy despite being peak hour 9.30 am when we boarded. I guess most people have taken the rest of the week off.
There was a queue to get up to the observation deck but it was moving and we were up there by 10.15 am. It helped that we climbed the stairs from 80th to 86th floors. You have to change elevators on the 80th for the last 6 floors. We didn't want to wait 15 mins for the second set of elevators and took the stairs. Catherine was a bit breathless, and I told her it could be due to the thinner air at this height. The same thing happened to me at Mt Blanc.
It was a bit cloudy but we still had a good 360 view of the city. The EBS appears to be the tallest building in mid town Manhattan.
It was colder up here because of the wind. So we only stayed long enough to enjoy the spectacular view and hot footed downstairs. Catherine purchased her souvenir CGI photograph with the ESB. She had her eyes open this time.
We then walked 7 blocks to 42nd street to visit Grand Central station and checked out the main concourse. And then lunch in the food hall below.
After lunch we walked 6 blocks west to Times Square. This place out-neons Vegas. It has so much foot traffic that the US Army has a recruiting station right in the middle.
We then strolled along Broadway northwards and ended up at Times Warner shopping mall at the south end of Central Park. I thought we'd done well today and suggested to the girls we took the subway home from here. The suggestion met with overwhelming approval.
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