Continuing on from our TV & Movie Tour in New York we had a full day planned, unfortunately the weather was awful today with constant rain but YOLO – so of we set onto the Big Bus HoHo to take us downtown – Manhattan style.
Monday 22nd May,
We arrived downtown to meet our tour guide for the Wall Street Walk where we to be informed about the history of Wall Street and its surroundings. The weather really hindered this tour as we ducked and dived in between buildings to see the sights of wall street, with the most famous sight being the Charging Bull – this is installed after the 1987 stock market crash as a symbol to all Americans for strength and power of its people. In 2017 the bull was joined with another bronze statue – this time the “Fearless Girl” which is to symbolize “Know the power of women in leadership”.
Following on from the Wall Street tour we were suppose to board the Tall Clipper Sailing boat but this was cancelled due to bad weather… no real surprise there. Instead we decided to head indoors to the 911 Museum after paying our respects at the 911 memorial.
September 9th, 2001
Memorial – the picture will tell you a 1000 words and we all agreed that this was not a place to showcase that we had visited, that being said I wanted to share with you what the American’s have done to the sites (South & North Towers) in memory of people that lost their lives on that day including the Pentagon and the Pennsylvania Field, it also includes the names of the bomb attack back in 1993.
The 911 Museum is both heart warming and confronting, by this if you don’t know the story they certainly have put in every effort for you to know all about it by the end. A huge effort has been put into this to preserve actual Tower damage to the footings as well as artifacts from the day – firetrucks, ambulance, police vehicles are all on display. A memorial room where family members will tell you a little story about their lost loved one on that day and the panic around the day. Finally an exhibition hall that has every detail of that day – TV Broadcasts, memorials of people, Wall of the missing people, more personal artifacts and it goes on. Your were not permitted to take any photo’s in most of the memorials zones and the photo’s I have shown below are allowed.
We also watched a film that reviewed the day from the Presidents eye point, President George Bush was at a school when he got the message about the attack and was informed not to return, his emotional reflection on that day with one statement “I was not elected to be War President”.
Tuesday 23rd May,
Happy 40th Birthday Belinda, and lucky for us all the weather had turned around and the surprise of the morning would be happening. We headed back downtown but this time it would be for a morning flight in a helicopter, Walking tour of SoHo, Little Italy and Chinatown followed by dinner and a Broadway show (TBD).
Our helicopter tour of New York City (Manhattan Island) and our only view of Statue of Liberty, was well worth the $$$. Video link is here
After this excitement we were to join another walking tour to explore what downtown had to offer in some exciting little pockets of Manhattan. Our guide Elizabeth was a blast and made this day a very enjoyable day sightseeing around the areas as well as recalling what these areas used to be like even when the streets were dominated by local gangs, none more famous than the NY Tong Gang and the “Bloody Angle” – the nickname given to the road that rival gangs would meet in the middle to fight it out – hatchet style.
Little Italy was not as bad but it still was very well known and connected to their gangs that owned lots of the businesses being fronts for money laundering. Nowadays though about 90% of the work force in Little Italy do not even live there and this is seen as there footprint within New York is lessened.
SoHo – This area used to be full of brothels, crime and warehouses, but rent was cheap ($100 month) so many artists started to rent out the warehouses and live in this area. This then saw a change in the area as many people would visit SoHo to attend galleries (enticed by free wine) during the day and as more people visited the area soon started to change its dynamic. The local Mayor had to clean it up by reducing the crime, removing the brothels and restoring the “Cast Iron” buildings, in doing so the area is now a very hip and expensive place to reside with rent around $2200 month. Below is a pic of the cast iron buildings with Left Pic – being restored and cleaned Right- needing a little TLC
After a very interesting day and lots of shopping we decided to head out to watch Charlie and the Chocolate Factory on Broadway to finish the night off. If you were looking for a story line to compare with the movie then you would have been disappointed, luckily we were not and we were all very entertained with this remake of a great family favorite – well in our house anyway :-).
Wednesday 24th May,
Brooklyn Pizza tour, what better way to see Brooklyn (burrow of New York) as well as tasting 2 traditional styles of pizza (pie and square), opposite ends of Brooklyn at Grimaldi’s (pie) and L&B (square). This tour was so much more than a pizza tour though as our guide Marc was a Brooklynite we got so much history on the areas.
Grimaldi’s – this was your more traditional pizza (pie) that we are used to seeing in Aus, its round, but unlike in Australia these are cooked in a 428 degree coal brick stove which takes 3 minutes to cook your pizza.
L&B – the pizza we had here was thick square pieces with a rich tomato based sauce and cheese, there were no special cooking methods but still just as tasty. The same family still owns this business since its existence in 1939.
Now which one was better, both were basic in toppings – sauce and cheese with Grumoldy’s being the thin style pizza but it also had a certain added flavor due to the coals. You will have to go and taste them for yourselves to decide.
After an absolute blast of a day we went on a very unique tour of New York by an attraction called “The Ride” this was then followed up by a evening stroll to Empire State Building (video)
Thoughts of the Day (Top 3)
- Like the acronyms below New York now has named areas SoHo, NoHo, Dumbo
- Tours are a great way to see any new location, they offer more than the picture or landmark and all have been well worth the time
- You can plan everything except the weather !
FaceBook Images
#collectingmemoriesnotthings
YOLO – You Only Live Once
HoHo – HopOn HopOff
Our Aussie Family 