The Big Apple - Redone

After logging back in to start on a new post, I discovered that Blogger had deleted the majority of this post except for the opening paragraph! I am beyond pissed! It took quite a bit of time to get this posted and I am NOT happy to have to do it again. It was saved various times as Bill was able to bring it up on his laptop and I had to do quite a bit of spacing editing. This seems to be a commonplace problem with Blogger and I am not sure why Google does not address it! I will be using Microsoft Live Writer in the future to avoid problems such as this.
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/blogger/thread?tid=55355e11a41acf3a&hl=en

Bill's next Target store was in Stamford Connecticut which is only across the Long Island Sound from New York City so we decided to take a day and get an idea of what the city offered and if we would like to come back at a later time to explore an area or an attraction in more depth. As we are not really into the art or museum locations we were able to ignore a very large amount of the typical tourist destinations.

Our day began with a commuter train ride from New Haven, Connecticut to Grand Central Station. Grand Central was, to be honest, quite grand. I was amazed at the sheer size as well as the rather ornate ceilings and walls. http://www.grandcentralterminal.com/index.cfm We then had to walk a short distance to the northwest side of Times Square to meet up with the tour bus. Our tour guide, Faith, was a native New Yorker currently living in Brooklyn and boy did she have the accent to go with it!
http://www.allnewyorktours.com/Body.asp?tour=NYC-B0045&Page=TourDetails

We made various stops including Strawberry Fields, the 2.5 acre part of Central Park West that is dedicated to John Lennon as he lived across the street.

The Dakota Apartments where John Lennon lived and was shot and where Yoko Ono still lives today.

The tour continued with drives near the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building and Trump Towers.

We visited Wall Street and saw the preserved part of the original wall that was used as a stockade. Maybe if it were still in use today the brokers and bankers would have through twice about screwing us over and almost bringing the country to its knees! It was also the only place where we saw armed police in commando type gear -- they started after 9/11 when Wall Street and the surrounding blocks were closed to vehicle traffic and I'm not quite sure if it was to protect us from the stockbrokers or the stockbrokers from us!

There is also a statue of George Washington on the steps of Federal Hall as that is where he was inaugurated and not in Washington DC. I am not quite sure why the stopped the practice as it is painfully obvious that more than ever the shots are called by Wall Street and the rich!

I would like to spend more time exploring nearby Trinity Church and it's cemetary which is to the left front of the building. http://www.trinitywallstreet.org/

Part of the tour consisted of a boat ride around New York Harbor. We saw Brooklyn and Manhattan as well as the Brooklyn and George Washington Bridges and the New Jersey side of the harbor. Of course, the tour took us by Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. The next time we are here we will be taking the boat ride and tour of both Ellis Island and hopefully go up into the Statue also.
http://www.nywatertaxi.com/

All in all it the visit turned out to be much like our visit to Disney World. It would have been awesome about 20 years ago as New York has a vibe that I really can't say I have felt anywhere else. But now with the traffic and people everywhere it is a nice place to visit - once in a while or course - but we definitely would not want to live there! Here are a few video scenes from our visit with the sounds of who else but Ol' Blue Eyes...