Holiday in Big Apple!

Setting aside the blogs on history, I decided to write on my recent trip abroad that was so very interesting and eventful. On a rainy night we left, my brother his wife and me, on a grand plan to tour the world, which was unfortunately limited to USA and Canada.

We left Bangalore on 23^rd May 2018 early morning, 1.45 am to be precise and landed in New York, via Amsterdam on 23^rd itself by 1 pm. Amazing isn’t it? To have traveled 13,360 kms in 19.50 real flying hours, with a change of flight at Amsterdam with a waiting time of 2 hours, and then to land on the other side of the globe on the same day! Wow, that is definitely a marvel of human invention!

We had booked our hotel rooms right in the heart of New York City, in Manhattan itself, in Comfort Inn Middletown West, which is located at 48^th Street, in between 10^th and 11^th Avenue roads. Excellent location, just 1 km away from Times Square! Hiring a taxi cab at the airport, we reached the hotel, booked into the room and immediately started in search of the places to visit and the means of visiting. Three of us were total strangers and had no one to guide us around. Well, I was the leader of the pack and off we marched to explore the city.

First we walked towards the subway, planning to take the tube, so that we can go around the city. When we saw the ticket vending machine, and people inserting dollars and getting the tickets, not having a clue about how to do that correctly, we beat a hasty retreat and came up to the terra firma. As we crossed the 7^th Avenue, we saw the Big Bus hop on, hop off bus service and booked our tickets for the next day visit and heaved a sigh of relief, mission accomplished.

                                                                                                                        Time Square running Ads

On the way back, without knowing it, accidentally we strayed into the Time Square. It was there itself in the 7^th Avenue. We sat there in the steps and kept gawking at the running colorful advertisements all over the place with childish glee. One could see all the humanity there – black, brown, yellow, white and mixed colors, politely called, differently colored.

We bought hot dogs from a street vendor and ate it with relish. Throughout the four days of our stay in New York, we did that unabashedly – hotdogs, hamburgers, muffins, Mexican rice dish and so on. Morning breakfast was courtesy the hotel - bed and breakfast, so nice and heavy. It was all an adventure, trying to save the dollars that we spent on room rent!

Pleasantly tired we returned to the hotel which was just 20 minutes walk and we popped into our beds for a sound sleep. I was very particular that we don’t sleep in the afternoon of the first day so that we don’t get into the problem of jet lag. Having been busy, walking up and down, we slept off the night.

Next day early morning we left by walk to to 7^th Avenue again to catch the Big Bus for the day trip to see New York City. New York City is formed by interconnecting five islands, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx and Staten Island, which were consolidated in 1898. We got on to the top of the 8 am bus and of the many stops I will narrate only the important ones. We got down at the Empire State Building, bought the ticket and got on to open-air observation deck on the 86^th floor.

Amazing sights and facts awaited us. I was able to spot out the Chrysler tower among the many skyscrapers around. Statue of Liberty and the Hudson River joining the Atlantic Ocean were visible at a distance.

Chrysler tower among others viewed

from Empire State Building

The construction itself, as exhibited there, was with structural steel, reinforced cinder concrete arches, Indiana limestone exterior with chrome nickel steel trim and aluminium spandrels. But the amazing fact is the cost of construction per sq.ft was only $9.20! The total cost of construction including the land price was $40,948,900, while the cost of the building alone was $24,718,000. That was of course in 1930, when the construction was started. Still it is so meagre. May be General Depression had to do something with it. 

                                                                    Liberty Island and Ellis Island from 

                                                                             Empire State Building. 

The building was completed within one year and 45 days. One floor per day was the construction rate! On an average 3500 workers per day worked on the construction. It has 86 floors at 1050 feet height, then up to 102 floors another 250 ft, and from there to the tip, another 230 ft, the total height being 1480 ft. Though it was the tallest building when it was built, it is now the 5^th tallest in USA.

                                                                     Memorial Pools with names of the martyrs

From the giddying heights of Empire State Building, we got down and onto the bus to alight at the 9/11 memorial site. The place where the Twin Towers stood, the Ground Zero, there are two memorial pools with running water cascading like a perpetual waterfall, with the names of all the 2977 people who died on that day in the 9.11.2001 terrorist attacks, inscribed all around the edges of the pools. There are holes around the names where roses and flowers can be placed in honor of the dead. It is heart-rending to see the names of some of the Indians who had died in the tragedy, Alok Agarwal and Chowdhury. The dead will live in the hearts of their loved ones and the visitors like us.

9/11 Museum is a grand one, built like a huge white bird alighting on the ground, with its wings still open. It is a beautiful memorial to those whose lives were taken in an unnecessary frenzy of hatred by some misguided people.

         Like a huge white bird

That evening we spent time again at the Times Square, observing all the customs and dresses of the people assembled there from all over the world and cheekily passing comments. We ate the stuff they sold there and returned to the hotel to sleep and rest.

                 Inside the Museum of 9/11

The next day we were picked up by an eminent student of my brother, who has done very well in New York, having his own company. He very graciously took us around to show around the Big Apple that day. He took us to the Freedom Tower, built in the place of the Twin Towers, which was very close to where we had been the previous day. This is a new tower built in the place of the twin towers and is called the “One World Trade Center.” It shines as a brand new building in blue, beautifully arising out of the ashes of the previous one.

      The Freedom Tower

The names of the dead on 9/11 are inscribed on a wall here too. We pass through a cave where the rocks on which it is built could be seen. As the lift took us to the topmost floor, history of the building and the sky-scrappers around and the construction process of the building, etc., came in quick succession on the walls of the lift as we ascended and almost in split seconds we were at its 102^nd floor, which has an Observation Deck.  

                       Bedrocks under Manhattan

For a second time we had a spectacular view of the buildings around New York City and the Hudson River with the Statue of Liberty and all the paraphernalia. We could see ferries arriving and leaving the shores of Hudson, giving it all a busy appearance.  

     Ferries busying around

In a circular glass pedestal inside the 102th  floor of the Freedom Tower, one can see the vehicular traffic deep underneath on the busy streets of Manhattan. Very scary experience indeed!

We also visited the Statue of Liberty that day, from the side of New Jersey, travelling through Holland Tunnel one way and through Lincoln Tunnel the other way. Both the tunnels run under the Hudson River! marvelous feat of engineering, unthinkable in India in 1927, when the Holland Tunnel, named after the engineer who constructed it was thrown open to the public.  

  

      

State Cruises run by the State to ferry people 

to and fro Liberty Island

       Statue of Liberty

                                    Statue of Liberty was standing on its pedestal in Liberty Island, beckoning every immigrant since 19^th century as they entered the New York harbor, offering them hope and a future. This is a copper statue, 93 meters high, a gift from the people of France to the people of America. It shows a robed woman, representing the Roman goddess of Liberty, known as Libertas, worshiped by the Ancient Romans. She holds a torch aloft in her right hand and in her left hand holds a book, inscribed in Roman numerals July 4, 1776, the date of United States’ Declaration of Independence.  

        Having said that, I would also like to point out that this figure was influenced by the sun god and the ancient Egyptian goddess of fertility Isis and the ancient Babylonian fertility goddess known as Ishtar, both of which were adopted by the Romans as goddess Libertas. Good to know that, isn’t it?

      Museum in Ellis Island                                 Central Railway of New Jersey

       

         

       As we boarded the Cruise run by the State, we also glimpsed the Ellis Island, where 80% of the immigrants to USA were received, inspected and passed through. It was opened in 1892 and some 12 million immigrants had passed through its inspections, before it was closed down in 1954. Presently it houses a Museum of Immigration. We also walked through the Central Railroad of New Jersey, opened in 1889 and abandoned in 1967, after having done its duty of transporting the immigrants and others to all over USA.

       We ended the day with a good lunch at an Indian restaurant and a visit to the Princeton University and treading the ground once trod by the great mind like Einstein, whom our host respected immensely. He also introduced us to his family and graciously treated us to dinner at his beautiful house in New Jersey, before getting us dropped at our hotel.     

Well, New York City and its attractions really dazzled and amazed us. It was nice to have spend two and a half days in visiting the various places of interest within the city, some on our own and some with the help of well-wishers. 

Grateful to God for the wonderful time He gave us in this marvelous city.