First Trip With Our Princesses April 2012 - Day 20 Exploring NYC: Ground Zero, Brooklyn Bridge etc

[moosha]

Day 20 - Thursday 26th April 2012 - Exploring NYC: 9/11 Memorial, Brooklyn Bridge, Brooklyn Heights, TriBeCa, SoHo, NoHo / East Village

This morning Mat popped over the road to the Crumbs bakery to get pastries and muffins which were very tasty, we ate them at the dining table in the suite before setting off

We boarded the early open-top bus downtown again at Times Square. This was to be our last trip on the bus which was a bit sad, we would definitely recommend using these buses to get around the city as they're a great way of seeing the sights without getting worn out, and good to spot places that you might fancy visiting again. Our tour guide this morning was a very old guy who spoke in a monotone and was quite difficult to follow. He told us some interesting facts, but halfway downtown I got fed up with his voice and had to remove my earphones

More interesting was the fact that the overhead traffic lights were so close to our heads on the bus, and the old tour guide seemed to know instinctively when to duck, despite the lights usually being behind him



We got off the bus in the financial district and saw the Wall Street bull statue which had NYPD protection as it was seen as a target for the Occupy Wall Street protestors and also so many tourists want to touch it. As an aside, we saw so many NYPD officers in the city while we were there. It seems they have so many police officers that they don't know what to do with them. We saw a good few managing the traffic on the busy streets, but on streets where there are traffic lights already doing a perfectly adequate job of managing the traffic. The police man or woman is standing there just waving the cars along that are already being directed by the traffic lights. We felt very safe with NYPD on what seemed like every corner, it just seemed there were a lot of them

We walked up through Battery Park and Robert F Wagner Park for a bit which was very pleasant as we had the green areas of the park to our right and the Hudson River to our left



We saw this globe statue which used to stand in the World Trade Center and is now a memorial





We also saw the Statue of Liberty across the river, the closest we got to it all trip as we didn't fancy taking a boat out there in the freezing cold





We were struggling with our bearings a bit and as we were heading for the 9 / 11 Memorial which we were booked on at 10 am, we were a bit concerned that we were never going to make it in time. Eventually we found it and joined the line of people waiting for the memorial to open. As mentioned a few days before, only a limited number of tickets are released for each time slot and you have to pre-book. Therefore I wasn't expecting to stand in line but it was just because it hadn't yet opened. There were an awful lot of volunteers staffing the memorial and they were great at getting people moving in the right direction when it opened at 10. We had to go through airport security with coats, belts etc off and all bags going through a scanner

Finally we walked out into the new memorial which we thought was very well done. There is a lot of open space and some trees which were saved and replanted from the original WTC. The new Freedom Tower was well on its way to completion, and while we were there had become the tallest building in Manhattan as the construction had now overtaken the Empire State Building



There is also a museum which was not yet open, I think it is delayed because of issues surrounding how it is being funded. I'm not sure I would actually be able to enter the museum anyway judging by how sad I found St Paul's Chapel and this memorial

Obviously the main part of the memorial is the massive fountains on the sites of the two towers. We walked all the way around both of the fountains, looking at all the names and paying our respects. The towers covered massive areas, it was helpful to get some perspective on the size. Freya walked around with me, and Mat had Seren. He tried to explain what had happened on 9/11 to her in very simple detail, so she could get some understanding of the importance of what we were visiting. Walking around the fountains was of course unbelievably sad, I did find myself in tears again, especially reading a name on the memorial that was followed by 'and her unborn child'







Once we felt ready to leave, we had a bit more of a wander around the financial district. We were impressed with the pretty South Street Seaport so stopped to take some photos





We stopped for coffee and a yummy macaroon at Financier Patisserie, a cafe I would definitely recommend. The plan from there was to walk over the Brooklyn Bridge and spend some time in Brooklyn. On our previous visit, we had got onto the bridge easily outside City Hall subway station, but we were coming from a different direction and there was quite a bit of building work going on around this area. We walked around for what felt like ages trying to find a way to get onto the bridge. We could see it, we just couldn't find a way to get onto it. Eventually we asked some NYPD officers that were hanging around under a flyover (see - they were all over the city) and they gave us directions

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[moosha]

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Yay! We made it onto the bridge.



The only issue was that they were doing maintenance on the bridge and there was metal hoarding all along the pedestrian side so you couldn't see Manhattan. Luckily, this only ran up to half way, so eventually we could see that fantastic skyline. You can see the end of the hoarding in the bottom right of this photo









It was quite crowded on the bridge, and stupid tourists were wandering along the cycle lane much to the annoyance of local cyclists who were quite vocal in their complaints

I had made sure that we had clear directions as to where to go to find Brooklyn Heights when we got to the other side of the bridge. Last time we had stepped off the bridge into a park, thought 'this doesn't look right' and jumped on a subway train back to Midtown. This time we were determined to see a bit of Brooklyn. I was confident we were going the right way, despite Mat saying over and over again 'this can't be right.' We kept going and I must admit I did have a moment of doubt when we seemed to be walking for longer than the Rough Guide route seemed to suggest, but then eventually we were in amongst the Brownstones and shops of Brooklyn Heights and the street names matched up with those in the Rough Guide. I was very proud of myself for navigating us to the right place

The familiar sight of us pounding the pavements:



Brooklyn Heights was lovely



We had planned to pick up bagels for lunch from Montague Street Bagels and take them to the Esplanade, so that's what we did



We didn't do the area justice, it was very pretty and I would definitely return to do some more exploring, but our tummies had decided it was lunch o'clock. We followed the road to the end, where it went into The Esplanade. There were lots of benches so we sat down and ate our bagels looking out across the river at the breathtaking Manhattan skyline. This was the view from our bench:



It was cold and a little drizzly, but the bagels were the best of the holiday (perhaps the moment had something to do with that) and it was my favourite half an hour or so of our entire time in New York. The area closest to the bridge, Brooklyn Bridge Park, has been redeveloped but out where we were sitting is just an old disused industrial port, yet to be developed but we still loved it



We walked along the Esplanade a bit, towards the bridge, looking at this beautiful photo of what the view from here used to be:



There were also a couple of these amazing plaques on the walkway:



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[moosha]

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We took a couple more photos of lovely Brooklyn Heights...



...vowing to come back on our next trip, and then found a subway station to head back to Manhattan as we didn't fancy walking back over the bridge

We took the 2 train to TriBeCa, an area we hadn't visited before, and the girls had another of those messy Dora the Explorer ice creams and then let off some steam in the excellent playground at Washington Market Park. We were expecting them to be rubbing shoulders with the likes of Robert De Niro's children, as he lives in the area, but sadly no Bob today. In fact the playground was pretty quiet which was great for the girls being able to charge around



While Seren and Freya were happily occupied, we tried to come up with a plan for the rest of the day which seemed to be based around purchasing more delicious food. It started to rain so we dragged the girls off the climbing frames and walked into SoHo which was lovely but we didn't go into any of the amazing shops. We carried on into NoHo / The East Village which looked unbelievably different from our last visit seven years before. When we had come in 2005, they were just starting on the regeneration of this area and it was incredibly run-down, especially along The Bowery, but in an exciting way. Last time we had seen NY punk venue CBGBs all graffitied among other shut-up and run-down buildings, but CBGBs is now a men's boutique and none of the other buildings are the same either. Mat took Seren into the boutique as they have some old punk memorabilia displayed, but he felt pretty depressed about the gentrification of the site and the area. He discussed this with the guy behind the counter in cool record shop Other Music which we popped into for a few CDs as we had in 2005. They had a little natter about how rubbish it is that this once edgy, punk, artistic area had now lost its identity in the gentrification

We walked towards St Marks Place which certainly still had its edge and I felt a little uncomfortable with the children walking along the street past the shops and tattoo parlours there. We had come this way to buy falafels from Mamoun Bakery which we took back to the hotel in the evening, but they weren't really anything to write home about, despite being described as the best falafels in the city in the Rough Guide. Our next stop was Pommes Frites which was close by and well worth the trek. It's a very small little cafe that sells Belgian style fries which are pretty nice on their own but what makes them special is the range of yummy sauces to accompany them. We had a garlic mayo and a mango sauce and they were delicious. We scoffed three portions of fries between the four of us and then walked the rest of the way home. We felt satisfied but in need of something sweet so stopped at Baked by Melissa for a selection of mini cupcakes which we enjoyed back at the hotel before bed

It had been another busy day and had rained pretty much all afternoon and drizzled most of the day but we were having such a good time in New York and were sad that the next day would be our last full day

Day 21 is here

[collybird]

Another amazing day!

I'm impressed every update with your stamina. So sad that your holiday is drawing to a close but you must have been absolutely shattered by the end of it!

You are giving me such an itch to return to NYC, this year is the first time since 2009 we don't have any plans to visit (as of yet!).

[mick]

Another good day, your girls do really well with all the sight seeing, our two would have had plenty to moan about at that age now 35 & 39

[moosha]

Originally Posted by collybird

Another amazing day!

I'm impressed every update with your stamina. So sad that your holiday is drawing to a close but you must have been absolutely shattered by the end of it!

You are giving me such an itch to return to NYC, this year is the first time since 2009 we don't have any plans to visit (as of yet!).

See more...

Thank you. It's only now that I'm writing it up that I realise how much we did. It was pretty full-on and took a little while to recover

NYC is definitely addictive, I'm so glad we're going back in a couple of months to see some of the things we missed. And then I'll have my sights on a Christmas trip in a few years time. Hope you get to visit again in the not too distant future too

Originally Posted by mick

Another good day, your girls do really well with all the sight seeing, our two would have had plenty to moan about at that age now 35 & 39

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Thanks. Just writing up the next day (our last full day) and *spoiler alert* I think we covered the most ground and visited the most places on that day, so we're building up to the big one But the girls do get a treat at the end of it after being dragged around the city all week

I guess we are probably training Seren and Freya up so that when they're the same age as your two, they'll be putting their own children through the same 'boot camp' style holidays

[Lisa29]

Great day again.

You did so much walking, your girls really did well. Your family is really an inspiration and is making me think that hubby may be right in that the girls might like somewhere other than disney! in a couple of years time that is!

[moosha]

Originally Posted by Lisa29

Great day again.

You did so much walking, your girls really did well. Your family is really an inspiration and is making me think that hubby may be right in that the girls might like somewhere other than disney! in a couple of years time that is!

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Aaw, thank you Lisa. Seren and Freya did very well with all that walking, and luckily didn't complain much

I think we will always come back to Disney as it's so special to us, in fact Mat and I were trying to imagine 'grown up' Florida holidays once the girls have flown the nest only earlier on today. But yes, there are so many other places to see in the world and it's definitely worth trying a few when your little ones are a bit bigger. Even if they never quite match up to the magical Florida holidays

[disney owl]

another great day

[mrsbigbeak]

Great day , fab pics