Monday, June 13, 2016 – What we saw on our way into Manhattan (New York City) was a beautiful country side that we didn’t expect. 
Most of the photos shown in the blog post were taken by Roy and I. When I didn’t have a good photo of something I wanted you to see I got one off the internet. I hope today’s blog post gives you a good feeling for what we saw and experienced in our New York City adventure!
Up we came from the below ground subway system for our first glimpse at New York City! A very exciting moment. Its huge buildings made me feel very small. A little bug in a huge city.
Here are a ton of photos in the order in which we saw them. 
Our first stop the September 11, 2001 memorials and museums. A map showing the layout. It was a beautiful peaceful experience.
Aerial view of the pools and the museum – from the internet.
You are welcomed to the outdoor pools by this sign. It is beautifully landscaped with lots of trees and many sitting places for people to enjoy.
The names of 2,983 victims are inscribed on 76 bronze plates attached to the parapets of the walls of the memorial pools: 2,977 killed in the September 11 attacks and six killed in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. The names are arranged according to an algorithm, creating “meaningful adjacencies” based on relationships—proximity at the time of the attacks, company or organization affiliations (for those working at the World Trade Center or the Pentagon) and in response to about 1,200 requests from family members.
The South Pool represented the South Tower. The North Pool represented the North Tower. This is the North Pool.
A beautiful white rose was stuck into one of the names.
The new World Trade Center is an amazingly beautiful building. It’s difficult to get it all in one photo!
The majority of our time (and the majority of our photos) was spent touring the September 11 Memorial and Museum. The tickets were $24 each. Roy’s a 65 year old so he got in for the senior rate of $18. 
The first part of the museum was a timeline of the events that occurred on September 11, 2001. Throughout the museum was video after video of television footage and individuals camera footage from throughout the day. I was so enveloped in all the sights and sounds that it brought me back to watching for the first time. A very powerful and moving exhibit.
We want to go to the Pentagon and the field in Shanksville, PA to see the other two sites hit by the terrorists. The times and locations of the four attacks are shown in this photo.
The museum collection houses more than 10,313 artifacts, including 2,136 archival documents and 37 large artifacts like first responder vehicles and monumental steel.
The collection also includes photographs, audio and video, personal effects and memorabilia, expressions of tribute and remembrance, recorded testimonies and digital files and websites related to the history of the World Trade Center, the events of September 11, 2001, and February 26, 1993, and the repercussions of these attacks. More than 2,900 artifact donors have given to the museum collection and more than 1,970 oral histories have been recorded.
In a separate set of rooms, there were photographs of each of the 911 victims who lost their lives. In a central room within those rooms, there was a video playing of the family talking about their loved ones with photos of their loved ones on the screens around the room. 
The Statue of Liberty with many scraps of artifacts attached to it.
Since the Memorial and Museum are on the site of the original World Trade Center there are many actual parts of the building to be viewed. 
These box columns provided structural support for the twin towers and created their distinctive facades. What remained of the columns was cut to a level elevation, leaving the remnants seen here.
Many exhibits throughout showed artifacts such as these belonging to those who died.
Going through the museum should be a requirement of every American. It’s been so long since these attacks that some have forgotten what the Al-Queda terrorists that hid amongst us did. I prayed while going through it that we would not need to have one of these memorials built as a result of something ISIS does to our country. The Orlando shootings were an all too stark reminder of what these terrorists are capable of.
A hot dog street vendor, one of many we saw walking around the streets of New York City.
We stopped at a small New York pizza place where we could choose the toppings for our pizza which they baked in a brick oven. We were ravenous after walking so much and we gobbled that delicious pizza up!
One of the Subway Station signs we saw during a time of great confusion!
Inside the subways – see our last blog for more subway photos. 
The subway system is exactly what pictures and movies show it to be. We saw real subway tiles. Lots were plain white and some were colored creating pretty pictures underneath the city. You really have to pay attention when down there and we could see how people fall into the subway tracks if not paying attention.
What doesn’t show up in the movies (that I can remember) is the filth that exists down there. I saw sweepers and cleaners but it didn’t seem to do much good. Needing to use the bathroom and not knowing what was there I did. Ick…. Filth everywhere, dirty mop strings on the floor. I couldn’t bear to touch anything and had to wash my elbow that did touch the wall one time.
The subway didn’t smell and wasn’t overly crowded. On the way back there were many more people in the subways than on our way there. The subway trains go very, very fast and when passing another one going the opposite direction it’s wild!! Information I found says “New York subway trains can reach 55 mph as well, but rarely get over 30 mph.”
Some of the individually grown community gardens in Battery Park. We saw these vegetable and fruit gardens in other parts of New York City. 
A look back at the city from Battery Park.
Along the river front in Battery Park. Roy still sits down a lot and I always grab the camera when he does!
Inside the Staten Island Ferry building looking out. 
From inside the ferry building on Staten Island. We enjoyed some Dairy Queen ice cream while on the island. We rested for a bit there before boarding the ferry for the ride back to New York.
The water that the Staten Island Ferry travels over is Hudson River and the Upper New York Bay. Liberty Island is situated well on the New Jersey side of the water line with Liberty Island itself part of f the State of New York and a part of New York City. This means we left from New York, went into New Jersey and then back to New York!
This is the building on the New York side where the Ferrys dock. 
The city from aboard the Staten Island Ferry. It’s a free 25 minute boat ride each way. From Manhattan to Staten Island back to Manhattan.
One of the Staten Island Ferrys. They leave every 25 minutes all day and night long. 
Ellis Island (where legal immigrants are welcomed into the US) from the Ferry.
The extremely amazing Statue of Liberty. We tried to buy tickets to either just go on the island, go inside the statue but not up to it, or go up inside to the crown. They were all sold out for several weeks in the future. 
The group of tall buildings on the left is New Jersey, in the middle is Manhattan and all the buildings on the right are Long Island. 
We truly had an amazing time while in New York City in the boroughs of Manhattan and Staten Island. Most of what we saw was Manhattan. We were on Staten Island only within the Ferry station which was a very large building itself.
We saw the crazy taxi drivers, lots of people walking FAST with sneakers on along with their fancy suits! Lots of bicycles, food everywhere from street walk hot dog stand vendors to every size restaurant of all types. We chose to see the two pools (North Tower Pool and South Tower Pool), the 911 Exhibit which resides between the two pools, Wall Street, Broadway, the Statue of Liberty, the Staten Island Ferry, and Battery Park. This was quite an ambitious undertaking but we did it!
By the time we got to Wall Street and Broadway, our cameras were dead so no photos of that. There is so much more there but we will be happy to see what we did. I’m glad we choose to see the things that were most important to us the first day.
Ya’ll come back now, ya’ hear!
I chose the scripture below because it has had an NYC connection for me for many years. On September 11, 2001, we all experienced a huge amount of anxiety when the terrorists attacked. Our student worker at Southeastern Louisiana University was a young Christian woman, Alanna O’Connor Traylor. She typed this scripture and taped it to the filing cabinet next to her. Reading it helped all of us so much and I was very thankful that day for the small measure of calm she provided with this scripture. Even after she graduated and was no longer our student worker we kept that scripture taped to the filing cabinet. Only God could calm us on a day like that.
Click on the links below to go there!
Wacky Wonderful Wednesdays published on Wednesdays
Some Things I Learned About Dementia published randomly
BECAUSE HE LIVES 