New York - July 2007
New York is one of those cities we always love to visit. It seems to sizzle with it's own personality - vibrant and busy, but with lots of wonderful parks and quite places to sit and relax and read a good book or have a wonderful meal. Coming to the the city by water is always a thrilling experience. When approaching from the south through the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, you can see the city's skyline from a distance and you can just about make out the outline of Lady Liberty standing tall and proud off to the left of the city. She's in the picture below - really. I've circled her in red so you can pick her out.
Before you know it, you are under the watchful gaze of the lovely Lady herself - her golden torch held high inviting you into her favorite city.
New York harbor is always busy with traffic. It is one of the largest commercial ports in the country, so there are lots of ships moving about as well as a steady stream of pleasure craft - both sail and power coming and going from the city. Add to that the ferries and water taxies that are constantly crossing from one side to the other - and you can see how it might get a little crazy sometimes.
The day we arrived, there was even more activity than usual since they were shooting action scenes for some upcoming movie. We never did find the name of the movie - but it involved several helicopters as well as a Coast Guard cutter and chase boat. It was pretty interesting to see them re-enact the scene several times to shoot it.
The black helicopter shown below was one of those being filmed - they passed by really close to our boat, which is how I got such a good shot of them. The one to the right was the one doing the filming. The round ball in front houses a stabilized camera.
On our way through the harbor, we passed close by Ellis Island - where thousands of immigrants including my grandparents first entered the country.
We arrived in New York just before the Fourth of July and were lucky enough to get a mooring ball for a week at the 79th Street Marina This marina is located on the west side of Manhattan, only a few blocks from Central Park. We found out about this marina when some very good friends of ours, David and Kate on their sailboat 'Troubadour,' stayed here a few years ago. We flew out from California to visit with them for a few days and figured that one day we'd stop here with our own boat once we were on the east coast.
The marina is in a great neighborhood with several wonderful delis. 'Zabars' was only a few blocks away with its amazing selection of cheeses, meats and fish. They are known throughout Manhattan for their wonderful food and especially for their freshly smoked fish. YUMM!
There are parks large and small scattered throughout Manhattan, but the crown jewel is definitely Central Park. The park encompasses 843 acres right in the center of the city. With an estimated 25 million visitors annually, it is reputed to be the most visited city park in the country. The park was designed by landscape architects Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux. The state appointed a Central Park Commission to oversee its development. In 1857 the commission held a landscape design contest and Olmsted and Vaux proposed the winning design. In preparing the design, Olmsted visited several parks in Europe to gather ideas. He was particularly impressed by Birkenhead Park near Liverpool England, which opened in 1847 as the first publicly funded park in the world.
Birkenhead's other claim to fame, of course, is that it is the birth place of that famous explorer and now captain of the 'Tardis,' Jeremy Bell.
We spent many a day during out stay in the city wandering around this vast park. The picture to the left below is of the castle in the center of the park. The picture to the right is of the statue of Alice in Wonderland by one of the lakes in the park.
Model sailboat racing on the pond in Central Park.
They were having a 'Shakespeare in the Park' festival while we were in town. Free tickets for 'Romeo and Juliet ' - interestingly billed as 'Free Love in the Park.' The only caveat was that there were a limited number of tickets and you had to wait in line for them. No problem, thought we. What we didn't realize was that the line long - very, very long. Folks wanting the tickets got in line the day before - setting up a line of sleeping bags and mini-camp sites that that snaked it's way along the parks walkways stretching at least a mile by the time we got there. We soon realized that we were in the presence of some hardened Shakespeare lovers and had absolutely no chance of scoring tickets for ourselves. We later learned that the average price for good seats at a Broadway play has easily reached the 3 digit mark, so I guess if you're a poor student and you want to see a play - you grab your knapsack and sleeping bag and head off to the park.
Picture of turtles sunning themselves in Turtle Pond in the park - and a shot of the NY skyline as seen looking across Turtle Pond.
One of the most interesting things for me to see when visiting a city like New York is all of the wonderful architecture and intricate stone carvings on many of the older buildings - like the carvings on the archways of this building near the marina.
More carved archways. I really love the carvings of faces and figures - each one different. The one to the right below had a carving for each of the signs of the zodiac.
Another carved archway. I don't remember where this was, but each of the carved tiles had a different figure or flower in it.
I constantly find myself looking up when we're wandering through the city. Good thing I have Jeremy nearby, or I'd probably have a broken nose - or worse yet a broken camera - from walking into a light pole! The picture to the left is of the spires of St. Thomas Episcopal Church. The picture to the right is of the Lyceum Theater.
Check out the roofline of this apartment building off of Broadway or the interesting curved facade of the building to the right. Much nicer than the bland condominium boxes that we've seen springing up all along the east coast these days.
The picture below is of the golden statue by the fountain in Rockefeller Center. We had a VERY expensive lunch here one day. Made the mistake of not looking at the menu before we sat down. Guess that's how he got so rich!!
The picture to the right is of the very busy Times Square. Most of the 'billboards' at the end of the street are actually large digital screens.
Statue of Christopher Columbus and a globe sculpture on Broadway
The Fletcher-Sinclair House, in the upper east side of Manhattan, is another beautiful old New York landmark . It was designed and built by architect Charles Pierrepont Henry Gilbert in 1899 as the home of Isaac and Mary Fletcher. The house was purchased by Harry Sinclair, founder of Sinclair Oil and Refining Co., in 1920 who sold it to Augustus Van Horne Stuyvesant, Jr. in 1930.
Stuyvesant was a descendant of Pieter Stuyvesant (c. 1612 - 1672), who served as the last Dutch Director-General of the colony of New Netherland (later to become New York) from 1647 until it was ceded to the English in 1664. A major figure in the early history of New York City, his accomplishments included the construction of the protective wall for the city along what is now known as Wall Street. He was wounded in battle in 1644 and his injured leg was amputated and replaced with a wooden peg - from whence we have the term 'Pegleg Pete.'
William Dzus purchased the house in 1953 as a new home for the Ukranian Institute of America.
A man and his dog taking a rest in town. Yep - the dog is sitting on the seat next to his buddy. Guess he figures if it's good enough for people, it should be good enough for him.
I spotted this elephant in the woods in the picture to the right near the United Nations complex.
A mola quilt in the lobby of the United Nations. Erica - this one's for you!!!
Woven tapestry also found in the lobby of the United Nations.
We wandered around the grounds of the United Nations which contains many interesting sculptures. The one on the left is of a man turning swords into plows. It was a gift from the USSR in 1959. Wasn't that right at the height of the arms escalation during the 'cold war'??
The one to the right is of Irish immigrants coming into the country.
I'm not really sure what the sculpture in the picture to the left below is supposed to portray. It looks very much like an ancient soldier attacking some sort of modern machine.
The knotted gun in the picture to the right was a gift from Luxemburg in 1988.
New York's garment district. That's a huge needle and button in the picture to the right.
We got tickets at the half-price ticket booth one night for 'Spamalot' one night. It's actually a Broadway show based on the Monty Python movie 'Search for the Holy Grail.' It was really good, but our seats were up in the 'nosebleed' section. We were pretty much up with the light engineers in the rafters.
The day we got the tickets, we were not necessarily planning on staying in the city and going to a show that night. We were wearing our usual boating 'uniforms' of shorts and t-shirts. Once we got the tickets, we realized that we didn't really have time to get back to the boat and change before the show. We did ask, and were told that there was no 'dress code' for the theatre and we'd be OK to come as we were. Having said that, we realized that we were close to the garment district and decided to do some last minute shopping. To quote MasterCard:
Quick dinner at a local 'fast food' Chinese restaurant - $10
New jeans and sweaters at a very inexpensive shop in the garment district - $40
Tickets for a Broadway show (nosebleed section, mind you) - $80
Having a 'night on the town' in NYC - PRICELESS!!!!
Being English, Jeremy decided to try out for the cast. Fortunately, they didn't need any more Englishmen with that dry sense of humor that they all seem to be born with. The picture to the right is of Jeremy wearing his stylish new sweater and getting horns from a puppet in the play 'Avenue Q.'. Only seemed fair, since he's always giving horns to everyone else!
Parking - New York style. You can park on an elevated ramp for a reduced fee. Of course you have to hope like hell you don't need your car during the day.
We took a ferry over to Ellis Island while we were in New York and I was able to locate the travel documents for my maternal great-grandparents. It was so thrilling to be able to find the records of their travels when they first came to this country and to realize that I was 'stepping in their footsteps' on the island.
I knew that my grandmother had come over to this country twice with her family when she was quite young. She had told me that they came over the first time from Denmark when her sister was just a baby. They ended up going back to Denmark, but returned to the United States about a year later. I was able to locate the records for both transatlantic trips - one in 1910 and one in 1915. When I found the records, I was surprised to learn that my great-grandfather actually first came to the United States several years earlier, when he was still single. I found the records for that trip as well after a lot of digging. It seems that in those days, it was not unusual for a man in Denmark to change his surname when he married or when he started working. Before he married my great-grandmother, his name was Frederik Madsen Frederiksen - but after he married, he changed his name to Frederik Madsen Olsted - which is the name that I knew.
I got the information on all of their trips to the United States at the American Family Immigration History Center on Ellis Island. Several years ago, a group of Mormons undertook the daunting task of transcribing the information on thousands of passenger manifests for ships entering Ellis Island between 1892 and 1924. The result is that you can search the database of over 22 million passenger names for your relative's records and then link to scanned images of the original manifests. You can also get a picture and information about the ships that carried your ancestors to these shores.
My great-grandfather arrived on Ellis Island the fist time when he was 23 on August 30, 1901. He came over from Denmark on the ship' Island.' The Island was built in 1882 in Copenhagen, Denmark and was 313 feet long. She carried 1,000 passengers - 50 first, 50 second and 900 third. She ran under the Danish flag for the Copenhagen to New York service.
He returned to Denmark in 1903 and married my great-grandmother Amanda in 1905. Five years later, with a 4 year old child (my grandmother Wanda) and an 11-month old baby (my grandmother's sister Agnes), the family made it's way to America for the first time on the SS Hellig Olav which arrived at Ellis Island on September 6, 1910. The Hellig Olav was built in 1902 in Glasgow, Scotland. She was 515 feet long and carried 1170 passengers - 130 first, 140 second and 900 third. She was built for the Scandinavian American Line and, like the Island, was built for the Copenhagen to New York service.
The family returned to Denmark in 1914, only to return to the United States on the SS United States on April 16, 1915. The SS United States was also built for the Scandinavian American Line for the Copenhagen to New York service. Built in 1903, she was 515 feet long and carried 1670 passengers (130 first, 140 second and 1400 third).
Grandma said that they always traveled in second class. Couldn't quite afford first, and her dad was not about to book them in third! Grandma had a wonderful hand-cranked Singer sewing machine which she used to teach me how to sew. She said it was her mother's and traveled back and forth with the family each time they crossed the Atlantic. She's gone now, but I still have her old sewing machine - safely stowed in a friend's garage while we are out traveling (thank you, Julie!!). Grandma also said that on the second crossing, she felt she was old enough to wander about the ship by herself. She said that she made her way to the bow one day when they were traveling through some pretty tall waves. She said she just held on and pretended that she was on a ride in an amusement park. She always loved the water and owned a couple of boats over the years, including a 30 foot Chris Craft that she took by herself on a trip from Miami down to Key West sometime back around 1950. Guess that's where I inherited the salt-water that runs though my veins!
This is the view of Manhattan from Ellis Island today. I'm betting it looked a lot different in the early 1900's when my family first arrived.
Returning to Manhattan after our trip to Ellis Island, we wandered around to South Street Seaport. The Wavertree shown in the picture to the right was built in Southhampton, England in 1885. By the time she was built, she was almost obsolete, being superseded by the new steam-engine driven ships of the day. The Island, built in 1882 and the first boat that my great-grandfather crossed the ocean in, had a single-screw compound engine in addition to her sails.
Looking on the map one day, we realized that Grant's Tomb was not too far away - located along the water about 3.5 miles north of the marina. The Riverside park extends pretty much the whole way, so we packed a picnic lunch and set out. We finally found the tomb - so now we can answer the age-old question of 'Who's buried in Grant's Tomb?' The answer, of course, is no one. Ulysses S. Grant and his wife Julia are entombed there - but no one is 'buried' there. It's a beautiful memorial to Grant and honors him as a general and a president.
We found this oddly incongruent mosaic bench outside and surrounding the Tomb. When we asked about it, the National Parks guy just sort of sadly shook his head and said that the town decided to put it there several years ago. It doesn't really fit - but he said that some people seem to like it.
Working our way back south down Riverside park we found the Fire fighter's Memorial in New York. This was dedicated on September 5, 1913 as a memorial to the city's firefighters who lost their lives in the line of duty. The fire department suffered it's largest loss on September 11, 2001 when 343 firefighters lost their lives responding to the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center that fateful morning. In the weeks following the tragedy, this monument became a vigil site and a shrine for those in mourning.
George Washington bridge - Yippee!! Our boat insurance cuts in half when we cross under this bridge going north!!!
Yonkers - home of the Otis Elevator company
We were anchored for the night off of Nyack New York when we spotted this full rainbow off the stern of our boat. It was so close I couldn't get it all into one photo, I had to take two and 'glue' them together. There was a very faint second full rainbow a bit later, but unfortunately it was too faint to show up in the pictures I took.
Two boats on the Hudson River - a beautiful gaff-rigged sailboat and Mustang
Sally who belongs to two friends of ours (Roger and Sally) whom we met at the
Roger's Point Drinking Boating Association last year. It's a
great club - and we are always happy to stop by and say hi to our new friends
from New York whenever we pass by.
We stopped in at the city of Kingston on our way north to the Erie. Saw an interestingly painted tugboat on the way in. I'm pretty sure I've seen that tug before when we came through New York City last year. Kind of hard to miss.
The city of Kingston is interesting in that it's divided into three parts - which were actually two separate towns that eventually merged into one. There's the Rondout area, which is down by the waterfront where we stashed the boat while we were there and there's the Uptown section which is larger and has more of the historical buildings. Kingston is, so I read in a 'walking tour' guide, the only city in the country to have an intersection (Crown and John streets) with original 17th century stone buildings still standing on each corner.
Pretty roses spotted in a Kingston garden.
Updated Sept 19, 2007