Day 15 - NYC On Foot (mostly)

I waited until just after 9:00am before beginning the day's outing, so as to miss the worst of rush hour.

New tower, over half done.

I started the day's walking tour from the Rector St subway station, down near the southern tip of Manhattan. From there I walked up to and around "Ground Zero", the World Trade Centre currently under reconstruction. In the course of this circumnavigation I had a look around both the Visitor's Centre and the 9/11 Memorial Preview Site. (The actual Memorial Site is due to open on the 10th anniversary next month). Many of the stories and tributes are still very moving this long after the event. One of the new towers has passed the 54th floor half way mark.

From there I walked passed City Hall and across the Brooklyn Bridge, pausing for the odd photo here and there. Paused for some even photos too of course! :-) The walkway runs down the middle of the bridge, above the traffic. It is 1.8kms across and I was a bit worried by the badly corroded paint and signs of rust to begin with, but it became evident from about the half way mark that the bridge is actually undergoing an extensive restoration (starting from the Brooklyn side) that is not due to finish until 2014. At the moment it is only carrying traffic to Brooklyn, all traffic the other way has to use the nearby Manhattan Bridge.

Anyway, once in Brooklyn I explored along the waterfront and then wandered up into Brooklyn Heights and on to Brooklyn City Hall. Some lovely old brownstone houses in this part of town.

By now I decided it was time to head back to Manhattan. In order to explore some new areas I caught the subway back to Canal Street and started a walk through Soho and Greenwich Village. Lots of flash looking shops in Soho that I had no problem resisting the invitation to spend up in (never been one for fashion labels). Of course there were lots of little shops selling the usual range of NYC memorabilia, which does not include lizards however! I passed through Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village, which was crowded with people taking in the late afternoon sun, or trying to stay cool in the shade.

At Union Square on 14th Street, having just walked 20 blocks, I decided to skip the next 20 and catch the subway to 34th Street, which is near the Empire State Building. But been there, done that already - twice in fact. Instead I continued along Broadway up to Times Square. I guess Times Square is always busy, but it seemed even busier than I remembered. Perhaps because it is still the summer school holiday season here. I also don't remember half of Broadway being given over to a bicycle lane and a pedestrian refuge, complete with street scaping and seating (that would be the pedestian bit, not the cycleway!). From Times Square, on 42nd Street, I zigged and zagged a bit through the Diamond and Theatre districts (not tempted by either of them either) all the way up to the bottom of Central Park on 59th Street where I decided that enough was enough and caught the subway back to the hostel.

A ghostly image and the Manhattqan skyline

However, leg weary though I was, my day wasn't over yet. After about an hour an a half to rest up and have some dinner (and, fortuitously, allow a thunderstorm to pass over), I headed back to the Brooklyn waterfront to get some panoramas of the the famous Manhattan skyline and the Brooklyn Bridge by night. Quit a few others doing the same, so it is obviously a popular spot.

Finally back at the hostel again just after 10:00pm (the subway trip home took 27 minutes with one perfectly timed connection) I really enjoyed my shower to wash off the day's sweat and ease my weary legs. Don't know how many kilometres I walked today, but it would have been a few.