Day 2: Lady Liberty to Magical Matilda

Saturday dawned bright and slightly overcast in the Big Apple this morning and so after a miniature sized sleep-in it was off to brave the Subway to head down to South Ferry station: destination Battery Park to get tickets to visit the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. The subway ride was a hoot.. the terminus station at South ferry is a short station, so if you are sitting in the back 5 carriages of the subway you cannot get off at the station. The guard announced this in the most convoluted way possible and so Chris and I got off at each station and moved one carriage further forward each time to avoid getting stranded. He kept saying the wrong carriage numbers however and then lost his nut at the stop before South Ferry and dozens of people came running down the platform to get into our carriage. Signage would surely have made the job easier??

Once we found our bearings we went off to buy the ferry tickets, cleared airport like security with all metal and belts off, and then waited to go out to Liberty Island. The last time Chris and I were in New York Lady Liberty was shrouded in scaffolding, but not today. There she was, resplendent in her copper gown and gold flickering torch. The audio set recounted some of the important characters responsible for her construction and location and it was just fabulous to wander around the base and muse as to how enormous she must have looked in the late 1880s when the tallest building on Manhattan was a mere 3 storeys tall. The Lady is certainly grande!

After Liberty it was off to Ellis Island, which was the Immigration clearing house for immigrants to the US between 1890 and 1955 with the peak flow up to 1924. We saw interesting and moving displays, some of which told us that racial intolerance in the US has been as bad as it is in Australia. We also spoke to a very interesting National Parks Officer about Jewish migration from Eastern Europe which is one of Liz's particular interests. We had a sandwich with luminescent American cheese on it for lunch before hopping back on the ferry to Manhattan.

By this time Battery Park was a seething mass of humanity and it was time to catch the subway from Bowling Green up to Fulton to go to the 9/11 Memorial. There is a lot of construction still happening around the large block that was the World Trade and so snaking through the streets was a challenge as some of them are closed off. But we found it and what a moving monument it is.  Two huge square pools with "bottomless" wells mark the foot print of both towers that fell on that day. They are surrounded by the names of victims and have 30 foot sheer drops of waterfalls that disappear even further into the endless depths. It is like the the tears and the sadness will never end. In spite of the huge numbers milling around the Memorial, I was overcome by a real sense of calm and sadness. Tears welled as Chris found the name of Father Mykhael Judge, the Chaplain to the New York Fire Department and the first recorded casualty of 9/11. This man has an amazing story: and the church of St Francis where he was stationed is visible from our hotel. Think we might go there tomorrow night for Mass. 

As it was so nice this afternoon, we went off in search of the Highline and found the Chelsea Markets on the way! What an eclectic collection they are: food, home-wares, some fashion, it is all there.  A brief afternoon tea stop with reasonable decent USA coffee, Hazelnut flavoured, was in order before finding the Highline at W16th Street.



It is an abandoned rain line that has been converted into an aerial walk way and fringed with gardens, grasses and some seating. We walked a long length of it, all the way up to 30th Street and then did the drag back up from 11th to 7th and to a rest at the hotel. It was only a short rest though, as we needed to change and hit the Subway again, destination Times Square and our Broadway show, Matilda, on W44th Street. We needed a quick dinner and found a lovely Italian Restaurant Sardi's, just opposite the Schubert Theatre where Matilda is playing. Sardi's has been in the theatre district since 1927 and the whole room is surrounded with caricatures of actors and other glitterati who have dined there. We spotted many including Maggie Smith, Sean Connery and Barry Humphreys to name a few. Chris chose a sweet vegetable tofu curry and I had the vegetable lasagne... both delicious and then it was across the road to the Schubert for Matilda.

What a fabulous theatrical treat that was. Our tickets were in the nosebleed section but that did not matter at all.  We were very impressed with both the production and the performance and think that Tim Minchin is a very clever man!! Show over we fought off the crowds back to the Subway, alighting at Herald Square for the short walk home. It was a big day... tired but the day was great.