I'm sure you've been waiting on pins and needles with bated breath for the next installment of our three day excursion in the Big Apple. Remember when we arrived, we purchased a CitySights tour? Well the tour include a Circle Line, 75 minute cruise along the west side of Manhattan to the Statue of Liberty and back. The day couldn't have been more perfect: cool, and bright and sunny there was a foggy mist over the harbor, which if you're a romantic like me you'd find it enhancing, not obscuring. After our usual breakfast at Cafe 28, we hailed a cab to take us over to pier 83 at West 42nd St.

We arrived a little early, which I prefer to arriving late, and as luck would have it the lines were super short. That gave us the opportunity to check out the recently returned USS Intrepid. The retired Navy aircraft carrier had been refurbished and repaired , first in Bayonne NJ, and finally at Staten Island, NY and returning to NYC's pier 86 on 2 Oct. 2008--just prior to our arrival. It's scheduled to open for tourists on Nov. 8th, 2008. So while D. went to get herself a cuppa joe, I wandered over to get a closer look at the Intrepid.









When the tour boat started to load, we mosied over to get in line. We needed to show ID and get our picture taken. The ID for security reasons and the photo for money making reasons. There was no obligation to buy but upon return the pix were available for perusal, and pray tell, what tourist would refuse to buy a souvenir photo of their NY'Hudson River cruise?

Leaving the Intrepid behind we began our boat ride south down the Hudson river. There was plenty to see and our guide was quite knowledgeable. I won't bore you with dozens of photos but I'll include a few to pique your interest and perhaps motivate you to come to NYC yourself to see the sights that you may have only heard about or "seen pictures of."

NYC sky line. Notice two dark towers center right in the foreground. These are air shafts for the Lincoln tunnel. There are two corresponding towers on the NJ shore.

The city of NY is turning many of it's old piers in to parks. This pier with the netting around it is a golf driving range. Previously it was well know as the pier where the survivors of the Titanic disaster disembarked the Carpathia.












Seem like quite an empty space here in the NYC skyline!

*The Colgate Clock is an octagonal clock in Jersey City, New Jersey, United States, promoted as being the largest clock in the entire world. It is situated in front of the site of the former headquarters of consumer products conglomerate Colgate-Palmolive, which until the 1980s was based out of Jersey City. It is fifty feet in diameter, faces the Hudson river harbor, and is clearly visible from Manhattan's west side.

The current Colgate Clock was built in 1924 to replace an earlier, smaller clock designed by Colgate engineer Warren Day and constructed by the Seth Thomas Clock Company for the centennial of the Colgate Company in 1906. That clock, second only in size to its replacement, was relocated to a Colgate factory in Clarksville, Indiana, where its future is now unknown as the factory is closing.

As of 2005, the Colgate Clock stands on an otherwise empty lot; all of the other old buildings in the complex were razed in 1985, when Colgate left New Jersey. There are currently plans to move the clock^{[citation needed]} in order to use the lot it stands upon for other purposes. The lot is in the downtown area, and the clock itself is 100 meters away from the Goldman Sachs Tower, the largest skyscraper in the state of New Jersey. The construction of that building in the early 2000s forced a minor relocation of the clock southward to its current location, and a significant reduction in the size of the Colgate advertisement attached to it. Goldman Sachs now maintains the clock.

*(from Wikipedia)

Leaving the southern tip of Manhattan for:

Ellis Island.

The hospital on Ellis Island. (You knew I'd get a shot of that, didn't you?)

AND

The Statue of Liberty.

On the return leg we passed, or they passed us, I'm not sure which, the Staten Island Ferry.

Did you know that it's free to ride the Staten Island Ferry? Yup, it sure is. And it's a cheaper way to get out to see the Statue of Liberty.

Cruising back to pier 83 we passed alittle closer to the NYC shore giving folks the opportunity to get pictures thay may have missed going out. Our guide mentioned that to get back to mid-town Manhattan we could take the # 42 bus or the # 50 bus. D. wasn't up to buses nor the subway so it was decided that we would catch a cab to the South Street Seaport. We picked up our souvenir photo and were looking around for a taxi when a nice young man approached D. and offered us a Limousine ride. D. asked what the difference was for a limousine rather than a taxi. He told her that the limo was a fixed fare whereas the taxi was a metered fare. He went on to tell her that the limo fare to South Street Seaport was $40.00. She looked at me, and I just shrugged my shoulders. I thought it a bit pricey, but said, "hey it's your money." Since we were taking the West side highway it didn't take long and the fellow was quite talkative, (D. had complained earlier that the cabbies didn't talk at all), and the limo ride was comfortable. D. asked if the $40.00 included the tip, and he agreed, with a chuckle, that yes that would be acceptable. After we got out and she paid she asked me, as we walked away, what I thought a cab ride would have cost. Considering how fast we got there, I said, "oh, probably &12.00 or so."
Even so, I don't think she had any regrets.

The first order of business at the South Street Seaport was Lunch.
This piece is getting a little longish so I'll leave off for now while we eat and people watch. Did I mention that there were a lot of stylish women in NYC?

We ate at the Pacific Grill:

We have three more things to do today. Next is:

Tata