Immediately she gets up, Victoria books and prints our tickets for the 9/11 Memorial and the USS Intrepid. Today we are really organised! Thankfully the shower is in much better condition – Victoria is the first one in it so there is not the usual soaking wet floor and assortment of body hairs that we normally find. Anything I find, following her in, belongs to her, and as her mother, this is fine.
It’s hot and humid but overcast when we set off so it’s safe to walk around without worrying about getting burned. Victoria has an English rose complexion and I keep forgetting that she is not used to the sun like I am.
We take the subway to the 9/11 Memorial but get off at a different stop which disorientates us a little. Instead of the entrance being straight in front of us, we follow a circuitous route but get there eventually, passing about 50 builders taking a tea break. I’ve never seen so many many people in yellow hard hats and jackets not doing anything. I’m tempted to take a photo but think better of it.
Entrance to the memorial is free of charge but you need a ticket for a time slot so that it doesn’t become overcrowded. The queues are not bad and we are just held up by the security checks more than anything. We zigzag around until we are in the grounds of the memorial. I don’t know what I expected. I have not seen any photos, but it isn’t quite this.
The huge site features two enormous waterfalls and reflecting pools, each about an acre in size, set within the footprints of the original twin towers. In the Memorial Plaza hundreds of white oaks have been planted, and one is planted separately, the Survivor Tree, the only tree on the devastated site to survive the destruction wrought by the collapsing towers. Around the pools, victims names are carved into sombre grey granite. In a place as busy, noisy, and in your face as New York, standing here and remembering, you feel a million miles from where you are, and even as I try, inadequately to convey a description of the place, I have tears in my eyes just as Victoria and I both have as we walk around. I have to say that I think it inappropriate for people to have photographs of themselves at the memorial (it screams of “look at me at the 9/11 Memorial'”) although maybe that’s me being a little sanctimonious, especially as I take photographs of the memorial itself , but it just doesn’t feel right.
All around the site, work is continuing. It’s easy to forget that it was not just the twin towers that were devastated but other buildings surrounding them that were destroyed by the collapsing buildings. These are in various stages of erection, and the tallest, World Trade Centre 1 will, I think, be completed next year.
A museum is also nearing completion. The building is complete but internally it is still work in progress. When it is finished it will house, amongst other things the twisted remains of metal work that was all that was left of the twin towers.
The whole site has been done sympathetically … until you come to the Visitor Centre. Half of this is a storyboard with film and survivor interviews … and the other part is a gift shop. Tasteless. I know the money goes to the 9/11 fund but donations alone would be better – surely? Why would anyone need a souvenir?
There are no toilets on the site so Victoria and I go on the hunt, finding the Hilton Millennium just around the corner. We take the lift up to use the facilities and are faced with balconies opening up to the WTC site. It’s from here that you really begin to understand just how far reaching the devastation was.
The inside of the hotel is unlike anything Victoria and I have seen. Very modern, very weird actually and at $500 a night, expensive too. Still, their loos are nice and the weirdness of the place lifts our mood.
We head off in search of food and end up in Joe’s Gourmet Diner, maybe not gourmet but bloody good. We settle on hot sandwiches which are delicious but walking back to the tables we find loads more food we could have chosen from if we had realised it was there.
Fortified, we trek back on subway and foot to midtown and the USS Intrepid, an aircraft carrier which has been turned into a museum and has a Cold War submarine, Concorde, a space shuttle and many fighter jets and helicopters amongst its exhibits.
We go on the submarine first; Growler it is called. It’s fascinating to see the cramped conditions that 95 men would live in for 3 months. The conditions must have been disgusting with little water and no privacy. I can’t bear to imagine the smell!
From the submarine, we go to Concorde but not in it as this would have cost an extra $22 each. It is now only small private party entrance because tourists were destroying this lovely plane by taking bits away with them. Why do a small minority have to ruin it for everyone else?
On the way we stop at a dispensing machine to get some water and being short on cash Mike uses his credit card but puts it in the money slot instead of swiping it and the bloody machine takes it. How can a machine that is designed to accept dollar bills do that? Peering in Mike can see the card but his attempts to get it out only result in it being pushed further in. While we are there a woman does exactly the same thing in another machine but this one won’t take the card – I wish we had chosen that one!
Worried that the card might just pop out for someone else, we get one of the security guys to put an ‘out of order’ notice on it and phone the firm who owns the machine. They say they will try to get someone down before the museum closes, and we go off still worrying, leaving our number with them. Of course, the rest of the afternoon is ruined for Mike who is now distracted by the thought of someone else getting his main credit card.
On the flight deck of the Intrepid are fighter jets (not just American but British, German, Israeli and Russian too) and helicopters. Some of them are so small and cramped it’s hard to imagine how uncomfortable they must be to be in.
It’s hard to believe that this carrier could hold a few hundred planes even though I know their wings fold back or up. The hangar must have been a sight to behold. Now it is a museum.
We enter the space shuttle bubble, something that we have paid extra to do and I have to say I am distinctly disappointed. I presumed we would be able to go into the USS Enterprise, but no, we climb a staircase, take a look from a bridge in front of it and go down again. Boring. You couldn’t even get a good angle to take a decent photo!
It’s a long walk back to the subway and when we get there Mike takes a train back to the boat while Victoria and I decide to wander around the shops for a while. Mike has hardly left us when I suddenly remember that I have the boat key and Victoria tries to ring him before he gets to the subway. While she is waiting to get through I have a frantic rummage through my bag and discover that I don’t have them. Did I give them back to him. We decide to wait until he call us and carry on shopping!
We have done so much walking and it is so hot that I need to buy some lightweight comfortable shoes so we head to the Skechers shop in Times Square (via Sephora of course) where I am successful. As usual Times Square is throbbing with people and as the sun starts to go down, the huge advertising screens look even more spectacular.
Eventually we have had enough of the bright lights and get on the subway back to 79th Street. Without Mike, the lure of the Designer Shoe Warehouse right there at the subway exit proves far too great a pull for Victoria and I and a happy hour is spent trying on without buying before we decide that Mike will think he is dying from starvation and walk back.
We get back to Jeannius and I hurriedly defrost some scallops. We are still eating our way through the $175 worth of seafood from Cape Cod!
Given that the drinks company has not called Mike back regarding his credit card, he decides to call the UK and cancel it. Thankfully they agree to send a replacement out to us in the US to one of our friends in the Chesapeake Bay.
Dinner is laced with enough garlic to ward off the whole of New York’s vampires and rats and not long after eating it we are all in bed, me with my feet up on the ceiling – no doubt Victoria is doing the same.
Another brilliant day!
Position: 40 deg 47 min N, 73 deg 59 min W
Distance so far: 2335 miles
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