New York City ~ Day 2

Day 2 began with a quick breakfast at the hotel and a subway ride to Battery Park, as we had tickets to the Statue of Liberty (with a Crown pass) and Ellis Island. We lucked out with a sunny day (albeit a bit cool). 

After lots of security (repeatedly we went through security), we were on the “cruise” to the Statue of Liberty and had some good views of the NYC downtown as well as the Statue of Liberty herself. (Luckily, we stood on the right side of the boat and had unobstructed views as we pulled into Liberty Island.)

 

Since we prefer limited number of people, we high-tailed it to the Statue of Liberty to walk to the crown.

 It’s 354 steps, which were no big deal in terms of any kind of physical exertion, but the narrow circular stairwell was a bit claustrophobia.  At a bit over 6 ft tall, Brad was quite cognizant of the limited height clearance of 6ft 2in!

We were surprise how small the crown is (inside) and it was beyond cool to visit it – definitely one of the highlights of the trip!  (Found out later that Suzanne’s father did the same walk when he was about seven years old and that Brad's father did it when he was in NYC on his way to Europe as a newly enlisted soldier.)

(Stairwell)

We then took the “cruise” to Ellis Island where one walks the same steps as those that who immigrated so many years ago – like Suzanne’s great-grandmother - she came to the US via Ellis Island – yup – pretty cool. 

After about 4 - 5 hours spent between the State of Liberty and Ellis Island, we were hungry, so we went to Eataly (downtown) for lunch: 3 out of 5 starts – Brad enjoyed his meal, but Suzanne’s was under-cooked (not al dente) and service was poor.

We paid our respects at the 911 Memorial, 

Stopped by to see the New York Stock Exchange (where Suzanne’ father worked many years ago), 

checked out THE BULL (which has not been doing his job lately!), walked past the MMuseum (which was odd….), and got ourselves some cheesecake at Eileen’s for dinner (which was very good).

Oh, this is just a funky-looking building……..

We passed Canal Street as we continued our way back to the hotel and even happened upon the Union Square Greenmarket. 

Oh, as mentioned before, we stayed in the Chelsea district, which is home to many (all?) of the flower merchants - each morning they'd put their flowers and plants on the sidewalk and bring them in again each night. It was pretty much the only place in NYC that didn't smell like shit! ;-)

Onto day 3!