Port 103 New York City, New York!!
Hello, everybody!
On the morning of the 4th of July, 2022, we are finally out of the fog as we sail into New York’s harbor! The sun is coming up as we approach!
Manhattan slowly comes into view, despite Long Island’s attempts to block it from view.
As we get closer the distinctive buildings can be identified, such as the new One World Trade Center and the Empire State Building!
Carolyn, one of our Around The World Ambassadors, joins Joy for this great flying hair shot!
Then Paul, our other ATW Ambassador, joins us! Paul and Carolyn are wonderful musicians and helped make this entire voyage more enjoyable! I miss them already!
The ship passes under the Verrazzano Narrows Bridge. It is interesting listening to the bridge “buzz” with the traffic passing over it as we pass under it!
We approach Lady Liberty! She is beautifully illuminated by the morning sun!
I have goosebumps thinking about my great great great great (is this enough?) grandfather, Charles Aldridge, passing this Lady on his way to Ellis Island from Ireland in the 1800s!
Next is Ellis Island itself! Beautiful!
The financial district glows with the morning sun’s backlight reflecting between the buildings!
Lackawanna is a ferry terminal colocated with the Hoboken train station on the New Jersey side of the Hudson! We’re getting closer to our pier!
The sculpture of Water’s Soul stands out on the waterfront. Say what you want about the meaning here, but I’m pretty sure this is New Jersey’s way of asking New York’s Pier 40 ball fields directly across the river to keep the noise down!
I heard about the Little Island Park on the news a long time ago, but I did not know how it is supported over the river! This is incredible!
The Intrepid Museum is very close to our pier! The Space Shuttle Enterprise is here, under that big shed on the end of the aircraft carrier! I won’t have time on this trip to tour the museum and see Enterprise, but we’ll be back, I’m sure!
Finally we arrive at Pier 90, Berth 4!
Before we started this voyage 6 1/2 months ago, we booked a tour through the ship to visit the 9/11 Museum and see the One World Observation Deck. Just before Lisbon we were notified our tour was cancelled – the ship couldn’t get tickets! We booked our own tour through Viator! We have to get to the One World Trade Center by noon.
We finally get off the ship and head in to town. The subway stop is at Broadway, and we begin seeing what shows are playing at the theaters! Hugh Jackman in the Music Man? Excellent!
Then of course, CBS!
We’ll see more later. Time to go underground!
About 15 minutes later we pop up inside this incredible shopping plaza! The subway station is at one end where we came up. The other end is the PATH (Port Authority Trans-Hudson) train station to New Jersey!
We wander around the North Tower Pool. This is spectacular! Photos do not do this justice. You should come see it for yourself!
On our way to our meeting point we pass the St Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church. The original church was destroyed in the 9/11 Tower collapse. Apparently the rebuild was not completed for many years and was an eyesore until recently. It only holds 200 people, and they are having a special 4th of July event, and have hundreds of chairs outside, with big screen TVs everywhere!
The World Trade Center Sphere is in the park being used by the Greek Orthodox Church. It’s pretty amazing to see this! It’s not quite a sphere anymore!
We have a little time for lunch before our tour, so we pop in here for a slice of pizza!
Then we meet Adan, our Viator tour guide! This guy is incredibly prepared! He has a satchel full of laminated pictures he pulls out at every stop to illustrate what he is telling us. This spot really hit me! See the subway fence in the lower left of his picture? That is the subway fence that is directly behind him. That’s how this intersection looked that fateful day!
Adan tells us the incredible building before us is the World Trade Center Transportation Hub and is supposed to be like a dove held in a child’s hand so one wing is not fully extended. Then he tells us the wings were supposed to be able to go up and down, but they didn’t have enough money to make it happen.
Hmmm, this sounds familiar! I do a quick search and find out the architect is – are you ready for this? – Santiago Calatrava! Remember him? Valencia’s Science City, the Hague’s Eyelid, and bridges? He has a pretty solid track record of coming up with designs that are supposed to move, but don’t!
It’s still a beautiful building! One World Trade Center looks great from this angle, too!
We head inside and Adan offers to take photos for us!
Back on the street I have another goosebumps moment. Adan shows us the Burger King behind him was the makeshift headquarters for the NY Police Department in the aftermath of 9/11.
Adan leads us over to Firehouse 10, the “Ten House”, with Ladder Company 10 and Engine Company 10. This house was the first firehouse to respond on 9/11, just because they are right here!
They were the first to enter the North Tower. Six of their own were lost in the collapse.
They also display the full 343 who were lost that day. Adan surprised us with a Fire Department Maltese Cross “343” pin so we will remember! (I am sorry I goofed an put in 135 in my original post!)
The wall of Firehouse 10 is covered with a beautiful 60-foot long bronze relief, the FDNY Memorial Wall. This left half is “Dedicated to those who fell and to those who carry on.”
This right half says “May we never forget.” The burning twin towers are in the middle of the two panels.
One last image Adan shares with us – the firemen raising the flag!
Then he points out the window. The area where the blue rental bikes are is where that flag raising took place! The edge of the building on the left below is the same edge shown on the left side of the picture above!
This glass canopy of the Winter Garden was crushed by the debris and took year to rebuild. All of the palms were killed, and these are new! Beautiful, huh? You would never know this was damaged!
This pool is called Eleven Tears. It is in the American Express building in remembrance of eleven American Express employees who were lost in the Twin Towers.
This intriguing piece of art is called the XO World Project. Interpret “XO” to be like hugs and kisses! This is inspired by the kid’s game of ball and jacks. The “jack” is crossed arms, the sign language symbol for love, and the “ball” is the world. I’ll let you take it from there. I love it!
We take another walk by the two Tower Pools. Underneath the name panels you can dip your hand in the water and spread it over the names as an affirmation of remembrance. We also learned that the 9/11 Commission places a white rose on the names of people who have a birthday on that day!
Our next step in the tour is to go into the 9/11 Museum. I have a lot of photos of the visit, but I will not post any here. I think it is best to leave it for you to see should you ever go there. It is interesting. It is saddening. It is amazing! I recommend checking it out!
From there we head to the One World Trade Center to visit the One World Observatory!
I remember seeing on television a news figure being taken on this tour. They didn’t show the elevator ride, but they did discuss that the elevator walls are movie screens! What I didn’t know is that on the way up you see a history of the develpment of Manhattan, starting with swamp land, then early buildings. This is St Paul’s Chapel, circa 1925! It’s wild seeing the headstones in the cemetary, and the few trees grow in seconds! The short buildings get replaced by taller buildings! On and on for the brief 47-second ride to the 102nd floor!
We see a quick movie then a briefing on their tablet system that will tell you about all of the buildings you are seeing! We don’t buy into it (only $15) because we don’t plan to spend too much time here.
I’ll fast forward to show you this is what St Paul’s Chapel area looks like now!
Looking south we see Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty in the middle of the bay. Staten Island is in the distance and the Bronx is on the left! Battery Park is visible straight ahead!
Trinity Church is very distinctive in the middle of the monstrous high-rise buildings around it! Amazingly, Trinity Church was not damaged when the Towers fell!
Straight down we see the St Nicholas Church, the two Tower Pools, the 9/11 Museum, and the World Trade Center Transportation Hub! My apologies for the streaks across the image – the sun shining in the windows on this side made the air vents reflect in the glass!
Looking to the east we can see the Brooklyn Bridge, the Manhattan Bridge, and in the distance, the Williamsburg Bridge! Downtown Brooklyn is looking pretty grown up! I still haven’t been over there to visit!
Then to the north, looking uptown! The Empire State Building is still holding its own, but the Chrysler Building is hard to find anymore! It’s there on the right side. Trust me!
We ride the subway back uptown to find, da da dah! Hard Rock Cafe! Then we have a leisurely walk back to the ship.
We see where the Phantom of the Opera is playing! And on the right, Into the Woods!
OK, I’ve shown a lot of bicycles in Europe. Here, there is just one. But it’s not the bike, it’s the bike stand that is fascinating here!
Then I see Neil Diamond’s “A Beautiful Noise” here! In high school I fell in love with this song. I bet this is a great show!
We see very few taxis until we turn this corner! There are a hundred cabs parked along this street! We discover the yellow shop on the left is a garage for the cabs.
Back at Pier 90 we discover a lounge inside called The Liner Club! Joy takes a peek in the door! Not much in there – a check-in counter, some chairs. Apparently still a work in progress.
I did tell you today is the 4th of July, right?
In the Waves Grill there is a special dinner to celebrate our Independence Day! This cake is in the dessert line. At first blush it is beautiful. Then the details take hold. Hmmm, stripes are wrong. Hmmm, stars are wrong. Gotta remember, the crew is not from the United States! We appreciate the effort!
For the first time ever the New York fireworks display is not on the Hudson River where we are berthed! They moved it to the East River which is on the other side of Manhattan! From the ship we do get to see fireworks, though. This display is from Ellis Island! So we enjoy what we can see!
Fortunately the smoke drifts to the east, so we can still see the fireworks clearly!
Looking east, occasionally we can see some of the fireworks being launched on the other side. See the peppering of purple lights on the left, center and right? That’s all we get to see of the big fireworks!
Happy birthday, America!
Day 2 in New York is our day to finally disembark! Bittersweet day. We made it 196 days! But now we leave a lot of crew who have become our family. Wah!
Having cleared customs we and our bags are on our way to LaGuardia Airport for our flight home. Here is my final gratuitous photo of Insignia!
The nice part about Insignia air is that give us 1st class domestic flights!
Once we’re home, reality returns! So here is the first meal I cooked for us at home! Grilled ribeye, grilled corn on the cob, and a nice mixed greens salad with a great cabernet sauvignon!
We bid goodbye to our fabulous crew on Insignia! We bid goodbye to a lovely small ship!
We made some good friends with whom we intend to stay in touch and visit!
There are things about cruising and people we will miss, and things about cruising and people we will be happy to forget and be done with!
Thank you for following this blog for the past 6 1/2 months, for sticking with me despite the excessive photos! I have one more post coming that will give a post-mortem rundown on the cruise. But this is the LAST of the ports of call! I will still be happy to answer any questions you may have about any of the ports or any of the activities in which we participated.
