Europe 2016: Sightseeing in New York , 9/11 monument

^{Thursday 8th September 2016}

After a bit of a sleep in we were up at around 8 am, and soon off in search of breakfast. On the way past reception I stopped to inform the staff that we had only one bedside table in our room. She promised to send someone up to investigate. When we returned this evening nothing had changed and I was informed that all rooms in this hotel have only one !!!! Very strange place here, and they claim to lead the World.

Our Hotel

Where is the bedside table ?

Our next challenge was to order breakfast. We found a little café that looked like they provided what we were looking for, 2 eggs any style, with bacon, ham or sausage for around $5. So when we ordered poached eggs we were a bit surprised that any style does not include poached. We were told we could have fried, scrambled, sunnyside up or overeasy. We opted for fried sunnyside up, but were then asked did we want fried or sunnyside up !! Whatever, we had sunnyside up, who knows how they cooked it.

Our Breakfast spot

Soon a large plate appeared covered in potatoes, 2 eggs cooked perfectly and ham and 2 slices of toast, quite a meal. We left most of the potatoes but it was all good.

Now it was time to get on our bus, but we were not going through yesterdays exercise of sitting on the bus going nowhere for hours, so we walked for one hour from West 54^th Street to West 21^st Street to get into an area where the traffic was not as bad. The same distance on the bus yesterday took us a little over 2 hours.

Completed in 1902 the Flatiron Building was revolutionary for its time, being a steel framed building

We caught the next bus near the Flatiron Building and are headed for the World Trade Centre to look at the Memorial Museum for 9/11 and also the new buildings there. The Memorial museum was not far from the bus stop, just a short walk past Saint Pauls Chapel which is very close to ground zero, and survived with no damage, not even a broken window.

The Bell of Hope

“London presented the bell to City of New York one year after 9/11. The Bell of Hope stands in the churchyard of St. Paul’s Chapel as an enduring memorial, rung on occasions when the parish pays tribute to victims of terrorism. Following the tradition of the FDNY’s salute to fallen comrades, the chapel’s clergy tolls the bell in four sets of five rings. The bell has been rung following the London, Madrid, and Mumbai bombings, and for the Virginia Tech shooting victims, and on 9/11 anniversaries.”

(www.911memorial.org)

Besides the massive new skyscraper (One World Trade Centre or Freedom Tower) , the first building you see on the way to the museum is the new Oculus Building, a stark white building with a very innovative design. Frank Lowy liked it so much it is now occupied by what seems to be a newly opened Westfield shopping centre. An integrated retail centre and transport hub, the building is also the rail station for the area.

Oneworld Trade centre / Freedom Tower

The Oculus Building

Behind Oculus are two memorial pools and the Memorial Museum.

Memorial museum

The queue at the museum wasn’t overly long, so we lined up and were inside within 15 minutes. The exhibition is both confronting and extremely well presented. We spent several hours there (with a lot of other people).

The Slurry Wall that protected to original WTC from flooding from the Hudson River remains intact

These beams were impacted by one of the airplanes

Remains of escape stairs survivors used

The remains of the TV communication tower that was on top of the building

The remains of one of the lift motors

Remains of the Box Column bases after the buildings collapsed

This Fire Engine didn’t fare well

There were many personal tributes and lots of replays of the communication that was going on with the authorities at the time of the incident which really just demonstrates how confused communications were and how slow the response was. A lot of what is in this excellent exhibition was not allowed to be photographed

It was now around 1.30pm, and time for lunch. Back on Broadway there was a nice park lined with food vendors, so we headed off in that direction. As we entered the park, we ran into 2 Aussies we had met on the ship. They recommended Sam’s Falafel stall, so that’s where we went and the Falafel Sandwich (pita bread), was generous and very tasty.

After sitting in the park to eat our lunch, we went to the nearby famous discount department store, Century 21. It was cheap and full of mostly stuff you wouldn’t buy.

It is bus time again, as we have a fair way to go to get back to where our hotel is. We are thinking about doing another loop on the bus this afternoon in a different direct, but by the time we get back to our nearest stop at the Rockefeller Centre it is already nearly 3.30pm, so we headed back to the hotel.