Got up at 6am, and got on a plane at 8:30. The flight was a little bumpy, but otherwise uneventful. I sat next to a nice lady from New York, returning with her (probably 18-22 year-old) son. We chatted a bit from time to time, but mostly I read "Domain Driven Design Quickly", listened to a little U2 and slept some.
When the plane landed, I found a taxi and told him (trying to appear confident): "126 Water Street, Holiday Inn Express". The drive took me through...well...who knows where, but a few dirty and dilapidated NY outskirt cities. It made me grateful for where I live. As cool as it is to be in New York, the garbage and run-down buildings made be glad to live in Layton, and near Salt Lake, where things are much cleaner. I understand now why I've heard people comment on how clean Salt Lake is.
Anyhow, 50 minutes and $50 later I arrived at my hotel. After checking in, I asked, "Is there a concierge?" Since I have no idea where I am or how to get anywhere. The reply, from the same guy that just checked me in, came, "No, but I can help you with whatever you need." My concern with this response turned out to be warranted, when every question I asked him was answered by the man at the desk searching Google and telling me what he was reading. It was like my own personal voice recognition Google agent with built in text-to-speech. So...I asked for a map with subway routes and with that map and my trusty Android, I set out.
I started by walking immediately to the Hudson River a block away and as I approached I could smell that distinct smell of the sea that I love. As I approached the river I snapped this...somewhat boring...picture of a ferry.
I turned to the right and kept walking since I knew that was the direction of the Statue of Liberty even though I had no intention of going (and didn't go) there tonight, but that was one of the few things about New York that I knew about so it felt natural to walk that way. I shortly arrived at the Staten Island Ferry. This picture of the Ferry station was taken a little later as I headed back to my hotel.
I decided I ought to make a decision about where to go, so I decided to take a look and see how far I was from the World Trade Center. I new it had to be close since I knew I was staying in the financial district. So I went inside the ferry station and found a seat. My objective was to be looking at a map as discretely as possible so as to appear as little like a tourist (and a target as possible). With the help of my map and my phone (and no help from the "concierge"), I managed to find the World Trade Center and got there without any trouble via the subway (except for wasting $2.50 on the wrong type of Subway ticket before buying a 7-day pass for $29).
Of course...I say got "there", but "there" is mostly just a big construction site with big fences around it making it impossible to see in. I asked a few "official looking" people (such as traffic and construction folk) if there was a visitor's center or museum or something and was mostly left staring at disinterested faces who gave vague, un-useful directions. I did manage to stumble across a memorial center and went in and took a picture of this fireman's helmet from 9/11. Kind of a cool picture I thought.
At that memorial center I was able to finally get some helpful information about where I could view the WTC site better. He directed me to a building next to the American Express building where I could go up to the second floor and look down into the site. As I was walking there I was shocked to realize that this year is the 10-year anniversary of that tragic event. I realized that because a guy had told me that it is hard to see into the site from anywhere because of all the construction since they're trying to the site done for the anniversary. It didn't dawn on me until a little later that it was the 10-year anniversary. I can't believe it has been that long. I still remember the feeling of awe and horror as I watched those two towers fall to the ground. At one point as I was walking along the street I realized this had to have been one of the streets that we saw so many images on the news of with people running from those huge clouds of dust and debris as those buildings came down. It's still a shocking memory today.
This image is the view of the site I was able to see. The big rectangular shape, that you can see about half way up the image towards the back, is one of the two memorials that is in the footprint of one of the buildings. There will be two of these (one for each building). These will be essentially 30-foot waterfalls, dropping from ground-level into the interior of that rectangle and dropping down 30 feet into the ground.
Here is another image that shows the architectural plans for the memorial site. You can see the two waterfalls in the center where the old WTC buildings used to be. This is almost the same view I had that I took the picture above from except that I was down much closer. In the picture above you can see the frame being built (behind and to the left of the red crane) of the big tall building on the left of this model.
As I was leaving where I took the picture, I noticed a man explaining to a group of people some things about the site. I think he was a tour guide, not sure if it was a paid tour or not, but as I walked up he was mentioning that American Express had lost
11 people in the 9/11 attacks and that they built a neat memorial to those 11 individuals. And he said, "come this way and lets take a look"...so I "went that way to take a look." It was a neat monument. The video below shows the memorial. It is an 11-sided pool with the names of the 11 individuals inscribed on each side and a few words from loved ones inside the pool for each one of them. In the video, you'll notice small splashes in the pool. These are "tear drops" falling from all the way up at the sealing. The memorial is titled, "Eleven Tears".
I then decided I better go get something to eat and head back to the hotel before it got too late and too dark...didn't want to get lost (or mugged) my first night in NY. So I looked up the Brazilian Churrascaria (Brazillian BBQ ala Rodizio Grill) I had heard about, Churrascaria Tribeca. And, again trying to be discrete, found the restaurant on my Android and then found the subway route to get there. It was delicious (and expensive! $60 just for the meal!). The beef ribs were as big as my forearm and had to be wheeled out on a cart. The "succulent pig" (they're words, not mine) was as big as my leg and also was wheeled out on a cart. It was very good, although, probably not $60 good. So there you go, I had $50 to spend on dinner and managed to spend $80. You can thank me later, Kris. I suppose it's worth including this picture of the red/green (more meat/I'm stuffed) card.Well, when I started this post I said it was 8:30 and it felt like 11:30. Now it is 11:30 and it still feels like 11:30. Weird. Here are a couple of final pictures, this is a picture of my hotel room. It is quite small, but very nice and most importantly the bed is very comfortable! Good night!
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