NY part 2

There is a very famous picture of a bunch of steel workers having lunch on a beam, high above the New York skyline. A man has created a statue of that picture, and has it attached to his truck as he drives around the City.



What is interesting is that the same photogapher also did a Men Asleep on a Girder version of some of the same men!

Since I was a fan of the cop/fireman/paramedic TV show called 3RD Watch, I just had to see if I could visit any of the famous sites that it was filmed at. The story of the show was that these guys were all working the 3-11pm shift (hence the 3rd watch) in the area of King Blvd and Arthur St, leading to a nick name of Camelot.

Searching the internet, I discovered that the firehouse of Fire Station 55 was a real fire house in Queens (firehouse for Engine 258/Ladder 115), so I had to visit. Located on 47th Avenue (not Street, which is one block over!) in Long Island City, Queens, its an active firehouse for the FDNY.



The weird thing about this place is that there are absolutely no doors into it from the front, other than the garage doors. So there is little chance to interact with any of the firemen there, many of which were extras in the show. In fact, there is a sign on one of the windows saying that if you want to report a fire, go down the street to a fire box and pull the alarm!






Eveyone now knows about the former World Trade Centre area of New York. Nowadays, the Port Authority is in the process of rebuilding the buildings, inlcuding 1 WTC, also known as the Freedom Tower.

The building currently is about 1/2 way done, and when its complete, it will be 105 stories (WTC buildings were 110), with a 5 storey spire to reach the same level as the original, but built to a height of 1776 ft, representing the birth of the nation.





In regards to the original Twin Towers, there is now a memorial to the buildings, and those that died in them. You must first obtain a ticket (limited amounts are provided each day), then wait your turn (all have a time on them) before you can enter the site. Snaking through the streets, you end up at a security check point where everything metal (belts and watches) are removed, and you pass through a metal detector. Once your approved, you finally enter the area of the towers. I must say that they did a great job with the memorial. Its very simple, but done well. Two large areas, in the footprints of the original buildings, are surrounded by a wall with all the victims of the collapse.



Inside the square is a waterfall down each wall. In the evening, these are lit up from below. Once the water hits the bottom it travels into a smaller, dark square in the center, before vanishing from site.







Between the two buildings is a museum for artifacts recovered from the site, inlcuding pieces of the original girder system.



With this history, the amount of security you can see even now is amazing. The Top of the Rock has a full metal detector system to get in. The Staten Island Ferry has sniffer dogs that randomlly check people, and were always in use when a bike was brought in.
And then there is the police. I have never seen so many cops in my life! Now not are all normal NYPD, as they share uniforms with Traffic, Parking, Transit, and every other type of cop in the City, but they were everywhere.

These are a long line of cars travelling through Time Square,



Not to be confused with the 8 or nine cars parked on the sidewalk in the same area!



Or the couple of mounted unit officers I saw around the corner!



I asked one officer about the "extra" things on his badge, and he explained that it represented actions done above and beyond the normal day to day police job.



And at the OWS, the police are very present, with both side streets full of police vehicles,



While uniformed officers were in plan view around, and sometime in the park itself. Very different from the Occupy Toronto park, where the police, usually only bike cops, are off to the side, down the street, and not really visible to the passer by.



And of course, what trip would be complete without Lady Liberty. There are two ways to do this economically. One is the Staten Island Ferry,



which is a 24 hour a day, FREEEEEEEE ferry from the Island of Manhattan to Staten Island. From the ferry you can get great view of Manhattan,



along with a pretty good view of Lady Liberty. And again, its FREEEEEE!!!






The other method is NY City Water Taxi. This has a hop on hop off service for 25 bucks, which travels from the Intrepid Museum south the Financial District, then to Peir 17, across to Brooklyn, and then goes out and stops beside the Statue, before returning to the original site.





And with my vacation over, I put the city in my rear view mirror,



and headed back home, eager to return to this great city once again!

Hello New York

With some vacation time due to me, I decided to head south and east, to the coast of the US. I have always wanted to see New York City, and this was my chance.
Crossing the border in Niagara Falls, I drove down to North Bergen, in New Jersey. The Super 8 hotel had a shuttle service, costing 3 bucks, which would take me from the hotel to the Port Authority in New York, all within less than 1/2 hour.

One of the first things I did was hit the Brooklyn Bridge area.



This is a very famous area for great pics, so I had to check it out, both during the nite and the day. It was also my first experience with the famous New York Subway, with it's iconic entrances!









Another great thing to do is walk across the bridge. There are ped and bike lanes, and even volunteers working the bridge to ensure that people don't get run over by the speeding bikers.





Along the route, people have added locks to the various cables used in the bridge construction.



Also down here was the Peir 17 area, which inlcuded tall ships and lots of shopping and eating.



There is also a monument to the Titanic sinking, with a commerative light house.



An information plaque lets people know what the light house if for.



As I started heading north, on Wall St,



I found this monument to the Vietnam war.



Further north is the famous bull of Wall St. The suprising thing was this was secretly placed in the area one nite by its creator. It was then seized by the police, before a public outcry lead the City to return it. Its now fenced off due to the Occupy Wall St activities.



A few blocks later, I find the OWS camp. A public park has been taken over by protestors, who have been camping there for weeks now.





I got a kick out of this Lego scale version of the OWS site, right down to little signs on the lego protestors!



Back in mid town, I discovered Time Square, cause after all, any trip to New York has to include Time Square, the home of neon!



One thing that suprised me about this area is that its not really a square! Two streets cross each other in a large X shape, and the "square" is the space where these two roads meet. Recently they have closed down half of the street to cars, allowing people to sit around the patio chairs/tables.

There is also an area which is similar to a bench seating area.





Some of the characters in Time Square included this guy with his three, food colouring dyed rats!



And the world famous Naked Cowboy was also out and about.



Also in the mid town area were these famous areas:

The David Letterman show,



The Hello Deli, made famous by Dave,



30 Rock, home of Top of the Rock, where you can see the entire City from the observation deck.





Some of those checking out the view included these two guys!



The Rock complex also includes NBC studios.



Just across the street from 30 Rock is the famous Radio City Music Hall.



Grand Central Station was also something that had to be seen, after its stared in so many movies and commercials.




Heading west to the Hudson River is the Intrepid Museum, a World War 2 area carrier, also used during the Vietnam War, which you can explore. Also on hand were a WW2 submarine and a SST British Airways Concorde, on loan from British Airways.
A number of aircraft are displayed on the flight deck, including an A-12, which became the SR-71 Blackbird.













A quick hop on the subway brought me to FAO Schwarz,



a toy store made famous in the movie Big, especially the great piano scene!



A large candy section is also in the store, but overall, I found it much to expensive.



Outside the toy store is the south end of Central Park. A statue of Union General William Tecumseh Sherman was at the entrance to the Grand Army Plaza,



while in the park are examples of Manhattan schist, the rock that makes up the island of New York.




Across the street is the Plaza Hotel, which is a pretty cool looking building!



Part 2 to follow....