Tuesday October 10th

I had wanted to do a cruise around Manhattan Island, and this day looked like a good choice. I had booked the cruise online with Circle Line cruises the night before. At the RV park reception they had mentioned a ferry to get across to the island, and I looked on Google to see how to get there by ferry, and found one going from a place called Paulus Hook (what strange names they have sometimes!) which was about 10 minutes walk away.

I set off, back up towards the train station, then off in a different direction, along a street with four-storey brick terraces, all joined together, and stairs going about half a storey up to the front door. It looked like the set they had on Sesame Street where people would sit on the steps sometimes. I’m not sure if they were apartments, I guess they were, as they would be pretty big for townhouses. Perhaps at some point they were part of a less affluent neighbourhood, but they seemed now to be pretty upmarket, with gardens planted in the small areas between the houses and the footpath.

I got to the ferry terminal and got a ticket for the ferry to a pier on the west side of Manhattan Island, not far from where the cruise started. It was fairly cloudy to start with, and I wondered what kind of scenery I would see, but it cleared up as the morning progressed. We were picked up by a small ferry which didn’t actually tie up anywhere – it just kind of nudged up to the dock and then ran the motors hard while people got on and off, keeping it jammed up against the dock, then backed out and went on. It was quite a nimble and quick seeming vessel – rather fitting in with the feeling of New York I thought.

The ferry trip was pretty scenic, going along the Hudson River with views of the city both sides. It first stopped part way along, on the Jersey City side to pick up more people at a spot called Hoboken with a fancy kind of front to it, and some boats parked in alcoves. From there we went across the Hudson and disembarked. We were right above a tunnel that went under the Hudson, the Lincoln Tunnel, not the one I’d taken, though you couldn’t see anything of it from there. There are a lot of piers on that side, each numbered. This was Pier 80 or something like that, and the cruise was from Pier 82, just a little way further along.

It was interesting to see the Manhattan Island waterfront in more detail. There were buildings on many of the piers, and going along the length of that area was the road I had driven in on, but hadn’t had much time to look around. I was fairly early for the cruise, and made my way to the place. I had bought the option for premier seating, which I gathered meant you had access to some reserved seats on the upper storey of the boat. It turned out not to be very helpful, because the reserved seating was indoors, and I wanted to be outdoors. There were already quite a lot of people on the boat, but I was able to get a seat by the edge, though it was near the enclosed area, so not quite a full view. There didn't seem to be many edge seats left, and I didn’t dare leave the seat I'd got before the boat started, in fear of losing it.

The cruise started at 10, and we had a man with a very authentic sounding New York accent telling us all sorts of interesting things about the buildings and their history as we went by, as well as the piers and bridges. We saw the Empire State Building from a distance, and other unusual buildings like a couple that looked as though they were built on an angle, and one which looked as though it had four giant smokestacks on it, but they seemed to have windows all around them, so probably there were rooms inside them.

Further along we passed what I think was a stadium that had been built over the water, which looked as though it was resting on a lot of huge golf tees, and a statue of a head with a hand on the lips indicating silence, that was several storeys high. Given how noisy New York City was, it didn’t seem to be working!

There were some quite fancy looking old buildings as well by the waterfront, as we headed towards the Statue of Liberty. On the way was the Colgate Clock, a huge clock with the Colgate logo on it. It turned out that was near Paulus Hook, where I had taken the ferry in the morning.

We spent a while near the Statue of Liberty, with the boat turning all the way around so that everyone could get a good look. I had considered a cruise to the statue itself, but it seemed like viewing it from here was a great view of it. I wouldn’t have minded going up into the crown of the statue, but you had to book weeks in advance for that from what I could see, and I hadn’t really booked anything beforehand in the New York stay.

From there we kept going around Manhattan Island, passing the ferry to Staten Island, which was free! This was unlike most of my experience in the US, where it seemed like you had to pay for everything. I gather that there was a lot of pressure to keep it free.

There was also an island which had been leased to some organisation for something like $1 a year, but they had to maintain all the buildings on it. The guide spoke about how rubbish was disposed of on Manhattan island – they had nowhere to bury it, so they put it on large barges and sent it to other places, even interstate I think, where it was buried. We passed one of the rubbish barges on the cruise.

We passed under some impressive looking bridges, including Brooklyn Bridge, which I wanted to walk across later. It was quite sunny by this time, as we passed by a building made in the shape of a squared off arch, and another with two huge pillars with a gap in between them (but each pillar was a building in itself) with more built on top of them, and one of the pillars was at an angle, not square.

There were a couple of power stations on the water, I guess it was easy to use the river for cooling. We passed along the Jersey coast, and the guide spoke about Jersey City, and how it had been cheaper than the New York side, but there was a lot of development, and it was getting expensive too.

We kept going, past the UN building, hearing about how the river sometimes got cordoned off when there were dignitaries there. It was a 60s art deco looking building, which looked rather unexciting in comparison with the buildings around it. We went under more bridges, including at least one that was able to open for large ships, and the guide told us how depending on the tides, the boat didn’t always fit under one of the bridges. On we went past Yankee Stadium, and a large cliff with a huge C painted on it, where college students sometimes jumped off into the water.

We entered into a large channel with one side in the distance quite forested. It looked like some kind of reserve or national park, and it was interesting to see such a large area of forested riverbank so close to the city. I had been on the back of the boat on the upper storey for most of the trip, but toward the end I also spent a bit of time in the indoor seating I’d bought access to, and on the front of the boat, where you got quite close to the water, but it got rather chilly up front!

We docked back about 12.30, and I set off to get lunch then head to back across Manhattan Island again. I walked along one of the roads leading back into the centre of the island (it was 3km (a bit under 2 miles) across, so not hard to walk back to the centre, but it was fairly long, and the subway was helpful to get around from one end to the other). I had wanted to have lunch at a deli. A friend in San Francisco had said, somewhat jokingly I think, that the delis were all run by Jewish people and they would be rude to me, but that was all part of the experience. I found a deli on my way and went in there, but it didn’t appear to be run by Jews, nor were they rude to me, so I felt I'd missed out on the experience! The food was good though. It was more of a cafe than our Australian delis would be.

There was a referendum on in Australia, and voting was compulsory, but not if you were overseas. But you could vote early in a few places in the US, including the Australian High Commission in New York, so I thought I would walk across to that building and vote. While I was getting there I passed through Times Square, which was very flashy with lots of huge electronic billboards.

There were a couple of people dressed as the Statue of Liberty and a Ninja Turtle, who I took a photo of, then they asked me if I’d like a photo with them, for “tips”. I didn’t have much change, and they eyed off a $10 note which I gave them. It was an expensive photo. They were pushing for money for each of them, but that was all they got.

I kept navigating along using Google Maps on my phone, and the GPS was struggling to track where I was going. Sometimes I would walk in one direction to see what direction I was facing, and it would look as though I was going one way, but then my location would change and go back the other way, so nagivation was a bit difficult! I guess it was struggling to get a signal because of all the tall buildings.

I passed the Rockerfeller Centre, where you could go up and get a view from high up over the city. There were people lining up, and I asked how long the wait was. Turns out you had to book in advance, and the next time slot was in the evening. I think even the next day it was booked out during the daytime.

So I kept going towards the High Commission, and came on Grand Central Station. I looked inside, and it was grand indeed, with fancy hallways with chandeliers, and a huge central room with a green ceiling painted with outlines of gold figures, and sculptures by the windows. There were a lot of people around. It seemed it was a bit like Flinders Street Station in Melbourne, where you could catch both local and interestate trains, and there were a lot of platforms, and screens with departure times for trains to all sorts of destinations.

I found the High Commission a little further along, and enquired about voting at the desk. The Commission was just one tenant of a large skyscraper, on one of the higher floors. There was a sign where people voting could line up, but I was the only one at that time, which was great. It was about 2.30, which I had suspected might be a good time. The attendant took me in the lift up to the floor where the High Commission was, and there was another spot where it looked like people could line up, but I went straight in after showing my driver’s license. They gave me a Tim Tam for my troubles. It was interesting to hear Australian accents while I was there, I had got so used to American accents.

From there went back to Grand Central Station, which was just up the road, and took the subway to the south end of the island, where Brooklyn Bridge was. I found the entrance to the walkway that went across it, and started over. There were large crowds of people also walking across, and many street vendors along the sides selling tee shirts, trinkets, art, and all kinds of things. As I got a bit further along these stopped – perhaps there was a limit as to how far along the bridge they could go – but there were still people set up to take your photo for $10, right through the middle of the bridge.

It was a bit hard to get good photos, because the walking path was in the middle of the bridge. There were three lanes of traffic on either side, and a lot of pillars and wires. There were a couple of spots where there was a clear view, and I was able to get photos from there.

I ended up on the other side, in a district amusingly called Dumbo. It was starting to get cloudy again, and there were a few drops of rain, but just a small sprinkle. As I walked across I could see the waterfront a long way down – these bridges were quite high, and they went not just over the water, but over quite a bit of the shore too with buildings below, before connecting to the main road network. I worked my way down to the shore – it took a while to take this street then that one, going down until I got there.

I got to see the bridges from below, and started walking towards another bridge, the Manhattan Bridge, that wasn’t too far away, probably less than 1km (1/2 mile). I had hatched a plan to walk back along that bridge, as I could see that the walking path was right on the edge of it rather than in the middle, and I hoped there’d be better views. I found a building on the shore that had some shops and a toilet, and you could go up a few storeys and look down at the river. The upper storeys seemed to be offices.

Then I started the journey up various streets, looking for a way to get onto the Manhattan Bridge. Again the entrance was quite a distance up and inland. While I was finding it, I saw some people taking photos, and when I looked at what they were photographing, I saw a great view of the bridge looking through buildings.

I started across, and found that while the walkway was indeed on the edge of the bridge, there was chain link fence all the way along, presumably so nobody would drop things on unsuspecting people on boats below. But people had helpfully ripped holes in the chain link here and there, where you could poke the camera out and take photos. This was a double-decker bridge, and trains ran extremely loudly next to me as I walked. There were only a few people crossing this bridge, it was clearly much less popular.

As I got over to Manhattan Island again, there was a very run down looking neighbourhood below me, with graffiti on a lot of the buildings, and I was wondering, with some concern, what kind of area I would be deposited into. I reflected that I really didn’t know much about what was safe and not safe in New York. Perhaps there was a reason not many people took this bridge!

I got a look over to Chinatown from the bridge, which gave me some cause to hope that the area the bridge ended in might not be too bad. There were a few people sitting on bikes near the end of the bridge, and I didn’t feel entirely safe, but thank the Lord there were no incidents, and I exited into a better looking neighbourhood, and found a subway station to get to the centre of the island again.

From there I set out to walk the mile (1.5km) again back to Pier 80 to take the ferry back, because it was much more scenic than the subway, though that was right near me. The ferry cost around $10, while the subway would have been about $5, but it was worth the extra money to get a nice view instead of travelling underground.

I had used the phone a lot that day, and the battery was getting pretty low. I needed it to navigate my way around New York City, and find the right trains. I had put it into battery saving mode and turned on flight mode to try and eke out the battery till I got back. I got to the ferry terminal around 5.45 as the sun was getting low, and waited for the next boat while enjoying the river with the late sun on it. The sun was setting as the ferry went back to Paulus Hook a little before 6.30, and it was beautiful to see the sun lighting up the buildings, though I couldn’t get very good photos because I was inside the ferry, and the windows were a bit dirty or steamed up.

Paulus Hook had a beautiful view of the New York City skyline across the river, which was still being lit up by the sunset, a lovely sight. I stayed there for a while as the light faded, and my phone gave up as I took a few last photos, leaving me without a map. Thankfully I found the street that took me back to the main road to the RV park and found my way back ok.

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