{"id":1121,"date":"2010-04-19T09:03:34","date_gmt":"2010-04-19T16:03:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/matthewkirby.com\/kirbside\/?p=1121"},"modified":"2010-04-19T09:03:34","modified_gmt":"2010-04-19T16:03:34","slug":"nyc-part-2-of-maybe-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/?p=1121","title":{"rendered":"NYC – Part 2 of… maybe 4?"},"content":{"rendered":"

For part 1, click here<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n

On the first day of sightseeing, we decided to ride the ferry out to Liberty Island and Ellis Island.\u00a0 As a history buff, I was most excited about Ellis Island.\u00a0 The problem was, there were a lot of other people who had the same idea.\u00a0 The line to get tickets was long, but after buying tickets the wait to just get on a boat was still another two hours.\u00a0 To top it off, NYC was experiencing unseasonably warm weather, and waiting outside in the hot sun wasn’t the way we wanted to spend our time.\u00a0 So we bought tickets for another day, and rode the Staten Island Ferry instead.<\/p>\n

\"Staten<\/a>The Staten Island Ferry runs the five miles between Manhattan and Staten Island, and best of all, it’s free.\u00a0 It takes you right by the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, and offers great views of lower Manhattan and New York Harbor.\u00a0 It was a lot of fun.\u00a0 We got out on the water where the breeze was a lot cooler, and just enjoyed the ride.\u00a0 When we reached Staten Island, we just hopped on the next ferry coming back to Manhattan, about an hour round-trip.<\/p>\n

From there we walked up through the financial district, past Wall Street and the New York Stock Exchange.\u00a0 My editor, Lisa Sandell, met us at Trinity Church, a beautiful cathedral where we heard a youth choir sing for a few minutes.\u00a0 It was really wonderful to meet Lisa for the first time.\u00a0 She walked with us to Ground Zero, which was a haunting experience.\u00a0 There is a profound absence there, and it’s not just the physical opening left behind in the density of the city.\u00a0 There is a psychological void there, waiting to be filled.\u00a0 I hope the city will soon resolve the issues and conflicts around the building of a memorial<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>After that, we walked to the Brooklyn Bridge.\u00a0 A few years ago, I watched a documentary about the building of the bridge, and ever since I’ve been fascinated by the ingenuity, the bravery, and the will it took to construct it, a truly monumental feat.\u00a0 So to stand beneath its grand arches, to look down at the water below, was an inspiring experience.\u00a0 I can only imagine what it would have been like to cross that bridge upon its opening, at the time the largest suspension bridge in the world.\u00a0 Okay, I think I might be verging on becoming a documentary myself here, so I’ll move on.<\/p>\n

After that, we walke\"Winnie<\/a>d up through Chinatown and Little Italy, and then rode the subway up to Grand Central Station.\u00a0 From there we went to the New York Public Library.\u00a0 The Children’s Room there has Winnie the Pooh on display.\u00a0 Like, the actual Winnie the Pooh.\u00a0 And Tigger, and Kanga, and Piglet.\u00a0 Even Eeyore.\u00a0 The library has the original stuffed animals that A. A. Milne gave to his son, Christopher Robin.\u00a0 The same toys that later inspired one of the most beloved characters in children’s literature.\u00a0 They look a little threadbare and tattered (it actually appears as though Kanga might have been decapitated and had her head reattached at some point) but that only adds to their significance and charm.<\/p>\n

That night, we went out to dinner at The Spice Market with Lisa and her husband, Liel.\u00a0 It was a wonderful evening full of great food and great company, with plenty of fascinating and entertaining conversation.\u00a0 If you ever meet either of them, you must ask them about the time they shared a train with smugglers on the Trans-Siberian Railroad.\u00a0 I’d try to tell you the story myself, but I know I wouldn’t do it justice.<\/p>\n

More to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For part 1, click here.
\nOn the first day of sightseeing, we decided to ride the ferry out to Liberty Island and Ellis Island.\u00a0 As a history buff, I was most excited about Ellis Island.\u00a0 The problem was, there were a lot of other people who had the same idea.\u00a0 The line to get tickets was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5,11,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","category-travel","category-writing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1mtjQ-i5","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1121\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}