New York City Tour

Farley and I decided while still in Miami Beach, that we would do a tour of NYC once we arrived.  We decided that if we were going to do a tour, we were going to do it all so we chose an 8.5 hour tour which took us all over Manhattan, included lunch in Little Italy, a boat tour and ended with us at the Top of the Rock.  

This first picture is a building in Manhattan's Midtown.  Apparently it was built right before the Great Depression and it was suppose to be a skyscraper; however, the builder lost everything and stopped at the 5th floor.  Sometime in the last decade someone decided to finish it, except that they did it with a modern glass building.  It looks so interesting:

As we headed north to the Upper West Side of Manhattan we passed things like the Lincoln center and lots of places where the rich live.  This building was build, I believe, in the last 1800s and it was designed to be fireproof--the walls were 1.5 feet wide.  Well, it wasn't fireproof but it is soundproof so it has been a hot spot for musicians and classical composers.  I guess they remodeled it a few years ago so it is now "luxury apartments"

 This is where John Lennon was killed, The Dakota.  Sorry the picture isn't better Mom.  The Strawberry Fields are across the street in Central Park, but I was on the wrong side of the bus and couldn't get any pictures.

Another picture of the Dakota.  I guess Yoko Ono still lives in their apartment.

The Apollo Theater in Harlem.

Just a few blocks from the Apollo is the building that former President Clinton has his offices (on the 14th floor).  It was a huge deal when he decided to move his offices here because this area has was very dangerous and run down, but has cleaned up by the city over the last 15 to 20 years.

We took a quick detour to Central Park's conservatories. We only had 30 minutes!

I believe the building in the background is part of Columbia University.  Their campus was something else, but it should be for $45,000 per year tuition (NOT room and board)

After leaving Central Park, we headed down 5th Avenue through Midtown and Times Square (see my blog on Time Squares for pictures of it).  Then we headed through SoHo and Greenwich Village, but I didn't get any good pictures of the area.  After that we stopped in Little Italy for lunch (included in our tour fee).  

 This is the restaurant we ate at.  It wasn't the most amazing food in the world, but the restaurant was cute.  Apparently, every 10 years buildings must work on the scaffolding to be up to city code, so there are covers up around certain buildings to protect the sidewalks while they work.  This was one of those buildings.

 A building in little Italy.

 A view of the Empire State Building from Little Italy.

Literally a block away from Little Italy starts Chinatown.  I didn't get a good picture of Canal Street, where people go to buy the fake designer bags an such.  

Next we headed to Wall Street.  Here is the Bull.

Then we headed to "Ground Zero."  However, we were told that New Yorkers don't call it Ground Zero anymore because it is cleaned up and they want to move forward, so they just call it the World Trade Center.  The black building is the 7th tower (I might be mistaken, but I think I am remembering correctly).  Apparently, there were eight buildings in total that went down on 9/11--the seven world trade center buildings and a hotel.  The 7th building was the first to be rebuilt and it is 55 stories.  The twin towers were 110 stories---imagine it twice as large!  The tour guide also said the fires could not be put out for 6 months.  If I remember correctly between 2,500 and 3,000 people died, but there were over 55,000 people in the towers.  It is amazing that more people didn't die.  Also, I didn't know that they people who live near there couldn't return to their homes for 6 months because of the asbestos and the horrible smell in the area lasted for years.  They are working on rebuilding the site now, as can be seen below

 I believe the crane on the right is where the first tower was and off to the left is where the second tower was.

This is inside the world financial center, where we took pictures  of the World Trade Center.

Our next stop was South Street Sea Port for a tour of Liberty Harbor.  Here is the Brooklyn Bridge!

 Ships at the dockside that you can tour.

 The Brooklyn Bridge from the water:

The Manhattan Bridge.  There are three bridges connecting Brooklyn to Manhattan Island.  From South to North they are the Brooklyn, Manhattan and George Washington Bridges.

Photos of downtown Manhattan from the boat tour:

The short round glass arches in the photo below was destroyed on 9/11.  They rebuilt it quickly (with the exact same design) and I believe it reopened on 9/11/02--one year after 9/11.

 Midtown Manhattan from the boat--the Empire State Building.

 Ellis Island: I had no idea how beautiful it was.  I can only imagine how it would feel to see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island after the long journey to finally reach America.  It was very moving to see.

The Statue of Liberty!

After the boat trip, we headed to the "Top of the Rock" observation deck at Rockefeller Center.  There were great view of New York City and we had a perfect day without clouds.  The first photo is zooming in on the bridges near my house.  If you look very closely, you can see the Robert F. Kennedy and Hell's Gate Bridges that I wrote about when I posted on Astoria Park.

 Central Park!

The Empire State Building, which also has an observation deck that you can go up and see the city from.

After finishing the tour, I wanted to walk down 5th Ave again.  Here is a picture of Cartier.  The building is almost as beautiful as the diamonds.  

Mom and I watched "Breakfast at Tiffany's" after my surgery last winter.  I am not sure if Tiffany & Co. are in the same building, but it sure looked the same to me!

I think I covered most of the tour.  It was a long day and I am not sure that I remembered all of the details correctly, so I hope everything I posted is accurate.  After walking around, we headed to Starbucks to get Farley some much needed coffee.  We decided to watch a move and order delivery.  We had Indian food.  It was such a wonderful day!