Aug 10-12 - Exploring Manhattan

To get to Manhattan from Liberty Landing, we took the Liberty State Park Ferry, "Little Lady". This ferry ran sort of every half hour, except when it took on gas or broke down or just ran late. Despite the little problems on occasion, it was a wonderful service and we thoroughly enjoy the ferry rides.

Our ferry landing place was next to the Financial Trade buildings and a few blocks from ground zero, which is now a giant construction site.

This picture is interesting because it shows a few of the older buildings in with the new.

It didn't take long to locate the subway entrances. This led to our first surprise about NYC. When we were leaving the Chesapeake, we were told by several people, "As soon as you leave the Cheasapeake, you will not find any more nice people....nice will be over" We were constantly amazed by the helpfulness and graciousness of the NYC people. We would be studying a map of the subway system and someone would ask if we needed help. We had a couple of people actually walk us out to the street and up a couple of blocks to show us which way to go. People would frequently strike up conversations on the train. Instead of nice being over, we discovered a whole new world of nice.

In a couple of days, we had figured out the subway system. We also discovered a Whole Food Store within walking distance of the ferry. We grabbed our trusty cart and headed our for some provisioning.

The traffic in NYC is completely crazy. The parking fees are even worse. We would pass signs at parking garages..."Special...1/2 hour....$12.95", "Special....1/2 hour $14.95" Eeek!!! It looked like it would cost $500-1200 and up to park a car in the city. We started to converse with many people about car ownership in NYC. What we learned is that none of the folks with whom we chatted owned a car. One fellow told me that no one in their right mind would drive in the city during the week and since most New Yorkers work five days a week, owning a car for two days' a week was an unaccptable luxury. What they do for that big shopping or the weekend getaway is Zipcar...http://www.zipcar.com/index . You apply in advance for the service. There are cars parked all over town. When you want to use a car, you call or go online to reserve one for an hour or days. Your zipcard opens up the car you've reserved. New Yorkers are wild about this service. I noticed on the zipcar website that the service is also available in San Francisco.

The view from Liberty State Park across the Hudson to Manhattan was fabulous. We would frequently walk down to the river to enjoy the panoramic and dramatic NYC skyline. Here are a few pictures looking from Liberty State Park to Manhattan.

Lower ManhattanMidtown Manhattan. The tall building is the Empire State Building. The smaller lighted peak to the right is the Chrysler Building. One of the big New York City ferries