The Battery Park & The Statue of Liberty

I know that most people take a tour out to the Statue but we didn’t want to spend 3/4 of a day on a boat restricted to the schedules so we did decide to view the statue from The Battery. You can get a decent view on a clear day of it.

The history dates far back before the 1500s and of course starts with the first inhabitants of North America, and on Manhattan it was the Lenape and Munsee Indians which is actually where the name “Broadway” comes from. Fun Fact!

Then it was visited by the French, then the English and the Dutch…with the land changing ownership and the area changing its name and functions many times over the years to come and without going into a history lesson…it become the first federal processing center for immigrants in the late 1800s.

Today this park serves as a public park with a promenade, the ferry tickets sales center to The Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island and hosts many events and exhibits.  As well as serves the public with breathtaking harbor views, perennial gardens, bike paths, an urban farm, and a carousel.

Charging Bull

As we make our way back up Manhattan on foot our next stop was the Charging Bull.  Even as early as we were in the morning and with the air being so brisk, the amount of people attempting to get their Instagram moment was insane. There was no way I was standing in line to take a picture, so this is the best I have. LOL It’s not about Instagram worthy moments for me, sorry people…just a digital diary.

The Charging bull is a 3 ton bronze sculpture of a bull that is intended to be representative of New York’s financial industry.

Fun Fact:
Did you know that the sculpture was actually dropped there illegally by the artist outside the Stock Exchange building? It was removed by NYPD that day but it was later relocated to where it stands today.

NYC Stock Exchange & Wall Street

Just up the street is the NYC Stock Exchange, obviously a famous building. It’s in almost every movie about money and the United States. It’s a landmark building on Wall Street and is where one of the world’s leading stock exchanges happen.

9/11 Memorial Site

After grabbing a giant New York Bagel that weighed 5lbs for sure…we walked up towards the 9/11 Memorial Site which was about 10 blocks away.

I am not sure how you can visit this park without feeling mixed emotions. It’s tragic reason for existing is emotionally draining, yet the space is a beautiful memorial dedicated to this moment in time that hit the world with a gut punch.

I never realized that they made both towers’ foundation into a North and South Pools. The Memorial’s twin reflecting pools are nearly an acre each and feature the largest man-made waterfalls in North America. 

The 9/11 Memorial is a tribute of remembrance, honoring the 2,977 people killed in the terror attacks of September 11, 2001 at the World Trade Center site, near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and at the Pentagon, as well as the six people killed in the World Trade Center bombing on February 26, 1993.

The Memorial & Museum took on a multi-year process to verify and arrange the names that are inscribed into the Memorial’s bronze parapets. All inscribed names represent 9/11 attack homicide victims: people who died as a direct result of injury sustained in the attacks on September 11, 2001, including the impacts of the planes and the building collapses.

Brooklyn Bridge

Our last stop of the day was to go check out the Brooklyn Bridge. Sadly the weather wasn’t cooperating for us this day and it was extremely foggy so we weren’t able to get any great pictures of the bridge, plus it WAS PACKED with people. It is unbelievable how much tourist attention these landmarks get…Yeah yeah, I know, I was there too, but the difference is my time is more important to me than sludging along like a herd of cows trying to get the perfect picture. So…we walked up to the entrance of the bridge and took a few minutes to appreciate it’s legacy and then carried on our way to find some food.

The iconic Brooklyn Bridge connects Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn Heights. It is known for its stone arches, the Brooklyn Bridge supports six lanes of vehicles (no trucks) and a shared pedestrian and bicycle path. As of 2018, an average of over 116,000 vehicles, 30,000 pedestrians and 3,000 cyclists travel over the Brooklyn Bridge each day.

Construction began in 1869 and was completed in 1883. At the time, it was the longest suspension bridge in the world. Because of the elevation of the span above the East River and the relatively low-lying shores, the rest of the bridge, sloping down to ground level, extends quite far inland on both sides of the river.