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| Access to a basement on a sidewalk |
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| View of Manhattan from the Brooklyn Bridge |
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| Small bronze sculpture in one of the subway stations |
From there, we made our way to St Paul's Chapel, which is the longest running public venue in NYC. It originally contained pews such as we saw in the churches in Boston, but they have since removed the pews and have moveable seats so they can change the style of their worship meetings. George and Martha Washington used to worship there while the larger Trinity Church (in the Financial District) was being rebuilt after the Great Fire. It became a haven for rescue workers after 9/11, and amazingly only suffered 1 broken window in the event itself, despite being so close to the World Trade Centre.
Then, we went to the African Burial Ground National Monument, and this time Pita and I also did the NPS Junior Park Ranger badge. Approximately 15,000 free and enslaved Africans are buried in the burial grounds, which are about 6.6 acres. About 40% of those buried there are under 2 years. It was rediscovered in 1991, and was designated a National Monument in 2006. A memorial was opened in 2007 and the visitor centre was opened in 2010. Reading about some of the stories of the African Americans was sad - children having to work, including heavy manual labour from the age of 5 or 6; runaway slaves being advertised in local papers with rewards on their heads; children born to one free African American and one slave were still considered slaves.
After a slice or two of pizza (huge slices, from an 18" pizza, so quite filling), it was back on the subway to the High Line, in the Meatpackers district. It was an old above-ground railway, which has been turned into a walkway and green belt. Even in winter, it was lovely to walk along, so I can only imagine how nice and how popular it would be in the warmer months.
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| Making use of space for parking cars |
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| A spot of colour in a tree in the Chelsea district (not real) |
On another subway, then it was up the Rockefeller Centre to Top of the Rock for views over NYC. We were there for later afternoon and early evening, so got to see the lights coming on. Amazing! It didn't seem like we were 70 stories up in the air!! Last stop before leaving there was the Lego Store - Pita, Marjo, Karl, Robin & I all did a quiz and got to make up and keep a mini figure as a prize! We saw people on the ice-skating rink, but it really was getting too late for us to join them at that stage.
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| The top! |
Whilst there, Marjo received news that Opa had had a fall and was not well, so that put a bit of a damper on the rest of the evening, which was taken up with us getting back to the apartment for dinner (pasta) and Marjo arranging travel back to NZ as soon as possible.
Another late night.
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