Day 9 NYC

I was on my own today as Shirley had online meetings to attend so I purchased a ticket for the One World Observatory atop the Freedom Tower. On my way there, I passed through the 9/11 memorial park.

The memorial park is beautiful and moving. There’s a large open area with many swamp white oak trees, and two large square reflecting pools where the towers stood. Each has names of those killed inscribed around the outside. Very quiet and evocative. Sadly the 9/11 Memorial Museum had an enormous line so I chose not go in.

Across the street from the memorial park is the Oculus, a mall and transportation hub. Its white ribs are meant to look like the wing of a dove. There was controversy about the building of this structure. It went over budget, it seemed too modern and disrespectful to the 9/11 memorial park so near by but I confess I was fascinated by the building as my photos will show.

The Freedom tower is the very tall tower that appears in the slide show above. The observatory is at the top. First you descend to a low dark tunnel of rock and are shown a short video about the observatory. Then you are whisked up 102 floors!

Watch the elevator show on the way up. I missed the changing year signs at first, but then corrected what I was doing, so watch how NYC grew since it was founded. It was quite remarkable standing in an elevator having a show going on on three sides!

I took quite a few photos from on high, but they were all through glass so reflections mar the clarity. Nevertheless, here’s a few of the better ones.

There was another elevator show on the way back down. The price of the ticket was worth these two elevator rides!

Being an economist and in Lower Manhattan anyway, I had to walk along Wall Street and take a photo of the NY Stock Exchange. Not much goes on there any more as trading is electronic – less romantic but probably more efficient.

The route along Wall Street took me to the ferry to Governors Island which is off the south east end of Manhattan. Governors Island used to be a miilitary installation but is now open to the public. A 10-minute ferry ride – free for seniors on the way over, free for everyone on the way back, foot traffic only – proved an opportunity for lots of photographs.

Walking around the Island provided views of Jersey City then the Statue of Liberty then Brooklyn and finally Manhattan. It was a lovely way to spend a couple of hours hanging out on this little corner of New York.

This evening Shirley and I returned to the New York Film Festival for The Power of the Dog, a Jane Campion film with Benedict Cumberbach and Kirsten Dunst. All three plus the young actor Kodi-Smit McPhee were there and received our applause. No spolier alerts here. You HAVE to see this film. It’s amazing.

To top off this excellent day, I took my 15th negative COVID test in preparation for my flight home on Monday. A great day in New York City! I ❤ New York.