First Day in New York: Downtown Loop Tour

We woke up at 8:45 New York time...which meant we all got almost 12 hours sleep. Although you can hear quite a bit of honking from outside after a while you tune it out (and obviously we did). We met Juli and Alan for breakfast and then started our day. One unusual thing about our hotel is that you give them your room key when you leave, and then ask for it when you come back. I've never seen that before in any hotel that I've stayed at.

Today we went on the Downtown Loop tour, which is a bus tour of Manhattan. The bus is a double decker bus, although typically nobody sits on the lower level unless it's really crowded because you can't see anything. You're not allowed to stand up during the tour because there are street signs and street lights that are so low they would literally knock you out if you were to stand up at the wrong time. The buses are also really cool because they are "on-off:" you can get off at a point of interest, take some pictures or whatever, and then get back on a later bus to rejoin the tour.

We met the bus at Times Square and got some good seats on top. The guide explained some things about Times Square, which we had already seen, and then we got to see the Macy's store, which is absolutely gigantic. It's the biggest store in the world, eleven floors of shopping. Our guide, Alex, told us that Wednesdays are 70% off days at Macy's. The next stop was Madison Square Gardens, which is a lot bigger complex than I thought it would be. It's actually a couple of buildings.

Right by a bar called The Bitter End, Sophie stuck her feet through the railing of the top level of the bus. When Heidi went to pull her feet back through, one of her shoes fell off and onto the street. Lucky for us Juli was extremely vocal in letting the guide know what happened and we got the bus stopped 2 or 3 blocks later. Then I got to run back to retrieve the shoe. Everyone applauded when I got back to the bus.

There are a few things I've noticed so far about New York. One is that most of the buildings are really old compared to ones you would see in Edmonton. You can tell our hotel is a building that was built a long time ago, based on the outside and how small the hallways are and how steep the stairs are. I imagine that this is how most buildings in New York are since New York itself is so old.

Another thing is that there is so much construction everywhere. I thought there was a lot of construction going on in Edmonton but New York makes that look like small potatoes. I guess it is. Every street you drive down, there is part of it blocked off by a cement mixer or crane or you can see that renovations are being done. Outside my hotel window I can see that The Platinum condominiums are going up. The amount of construction going on is immense.

Which brings me to the first stop we made on our bus tour - ground zero, the site of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks. There's really nothing to see there, just an empty hole where massive buildings used to be. There is some information at the site about what they are planning to build there - it wasn't really clear to us if they have decided what will be built or not, there seemed to be some competing ideas. Heidi asked an officer of the New York Port Authority for his opinion. He told her he thought that a memorial, tastefully done, would be best.

We bought some lunch at a deli and went to St. Paul's Chapel - right across the street from ground zero - to eat it. Behind the chapel is a graveyard with benches which is where we ate. Most of the tombstones in there date from 1700 or 1800 or so, which was cool to see. Sophie spent her time chasing pigeons and finding rocks and sticks to put into my pockets. When she wasn't looking I'd put them back onto the ground. A few times she put rocks in my pocket that I had taken out before.

Heidi and Juli went inside St. Paul's Chapel and learned some cool things. St. Paul's is where the firefighters who were helping with the rescue/cleanup effort stayed after 9/11. There were also pictures of the mementos people had left on the railings of the chapel yard, and badges from various fire departments around the world. They learned about a very old sycamore tree that was damaged by debris from the World Trade Center. It fell over right onto one of the paths in the cemetery without damaging any of the ancient tombstones, so a bronze sculpture was made out of its roots.

We got back on the bus after lunch for only one stop, since we wanted to see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. On the walk to the ferry we saw what looked like a damaged, spherical sculpture. Heidi was the first one to recognize it as the sphere sculpture, signifying world peace, that had been located in front of the World Trade Center. We saw by the plaque in front of the sculpture that Heidi was right.

It was quite a sight to see the very famous Statue of Liberty growing bigger and bigger as we got closer and closer to Liberty Island, via the ferry. Sophie recognized it right away - she had seen a replica of it while going through customs in Toronto. Once on Liberty Island we walked around the statue and took several pictures. There were quite a few people there. Sophie amused herself by pointing at random people and saying "That's Poopy McGee!" We also got some pictures of Manhattan. The Statue of Liberty looks cool in person - I didn't realize her right heel is off the ground. It doesn't look like she sustained any long-term damage from when the X-Men battled Magneto there either. We didn't go into the statue since we were getting tired and we weren't allowed to take our various child-care related paraphernalia into the statue, which meant one of us would have to stay behind. Instead we left for Ellis Island.

Ellis Island had several immigration-related displays. We got to see how many Ukrainians live in the US (not many - 650,000) and Heidi looked up Moen in the Ellis Island immigration database. She found who she thought was her great-grandfather. We then got back on the ferry for the ride back to Battery Park in New York.

By now we were all really tired so finishing the Downtown Loop was an excellent way to finish the day. Both Sophie and Malakai fell asleep. We went through the East Village and learned all about tenement buildings, why they were built and how small they were (and still are). We got to see various apartment high-rises as we got closer to the United Nations, including the Trump Tower where Derek Jeter lives. The tour guide told us about how much it costs to rent some of these places and it's pretty incredible. Our guide also told us about a man who blew up his brownstone house (there are laws against renovating/tearing down houses because they are historical) to get even with his ex-wife, who was going to get it. Before he blew it up, it was worth $2 million. After it was worth $5 million because now it was an empty lot in Manhattan. Manhattan must be worth trillions. Nothing much was going on at the UN when we passed - all 192 flagpoles were empty.

The tour finished with Rockefeller Plaza and Central Park - both places that we may return to. The tickets we bought also get us an Uptown Loop, Brooklyn Loop and Night Loop so we'll be seeing more of the city right away.

Overall the Downtown Loop convinced me that yes, it would be possible for Spiderman to swing his way around Manhattan. I always wondered if there was enough tall buildings for him to swing from, but in fact there are tons and tons of them. There are a few places where he'd have trouble around Madison Square Gardens and Central Park. It was also cool to see all the conical water towers that feature so prominently when he fights a villain, on top of many of the buildings in New York. Jon said that those used to be required on top of any building taller than 6 stories.