Around The World In 80 Waves

Manhattan island is the central borough of the five that make up New York City. (The others being The Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island.) After a short boat tour of the harbour area, I was armed with my tourist map and some comfy trainers and thought the easiest way to see everything on the island was start with Battery Park at the southern end, where you catch the free ferry to Staten Island, and then zig-zag my way north checking out places of interest along the way until I got back to my Jazz on the Park Hostel on 103rd St. Those of you who know New York will have already realised that is far easier said than done. As the crow flies it is 7.5 miles but I reckon I must have done nearer to 20, with backtracking, wandering round inside places and generally getting lost! Today in order I saw:

• Battery Park
• Ellis Island
• Statue of Liberty
• Brooklyn Bridge
• Manhattan Bridge
• Williamsburg Bridge
• Seaport Historic District
• Heliport
• Wall Street
• New York Stock Exchange
• Ground Zero of 9/11
• The building site of the new memorial plaza
• City Hall
• Court Buildings
• Chinatown
• Little Italy
• New York University
• Broadway
• Greenwich Village
• 5th Avenue
• West Village
• Meatpacking District – not a euphemism before anyone asks!
• Elevated Walkway
• Empire State Building (the picture is looking back from here at the new Freedom Towers currently under construction on the site of the old twin towers)
• Madison Square Gardens
• Grand Central Station
• Chrysler Building
• United Nations
• Time Square
• Theatre District
• Diamond Disrict
• Rockefeller Centre
• St Patrick’s Cathedral
• Marilyn Monroe’s Subway Grating
• Metropolitan Museum of Art
• Guggenheim Museum
• Central Park

I have to say that despite crossing the whole of the island I have to say I am disappointed not to have seen any of Tony Soprano, Carrie Bradshaw, Robert De Niro, King Kong, Jay-Z, Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen or any of the cast from Friends. Not even Spiderman! I do however have a much greater appreciation of how hard The Warriors’  task was in getting back to Coney Island which is going the other way. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MV4cgs-bPic)

My feet are killing me.

🙁