Saturday – walking around southern Manhattan

In the morning I caught the train to Long Island City, the western most part of the borough of Queens, and met there, as arranged, the cousin of a friend. She showed me around the area – new waterside parks, demolition of old buildings, new apartment blocks, nice views of Manhattan. She lives in a block that has been built into and around the bottom half of an old building. There are old steel girders visible in the new brick work. Quite attractive.. Her apartment is lovely.

We went on the East River ferry to Wall St. Lovely weather and views. Wall St is in the southern part of Manhattan but used to be the barrier between the early Dutch settlers and the ‘natives’. – the wall It is now quite a funny little narrow street. Several apartment blocks have appeared since 2008 when several banks and businesses went bust. Like every New York neighbourhood, it is changing.

We walked to the start of Battery Park on the southern tip of Manhattan . That is not strictly correct. Everyone talks of NSEW ( as in Upper West Side, north of Houston) , but Manhattan, the long skinny bit of island , lies NE to SW. For the rest of the day we walked and talked , with photo stops and food stops. We followed Battery Park round to the west , looking at the new One World Trade Centre under construction ( my info is about 18months old and it could have changed it’s name) , a memorial to the potato famine in Ireland, several other monuments, parks being used by people, absurdly long queues of people waiting for the boat to Statten Island,, till it became the Hudson River Park. We had lunch at a place by the river with a view and a leaking roof.

Then we walked through Tribeca , through Chinatown, through Little Italy ( coffee/ tea and biscotti stop) , through Lower East Side ( looked at Katz’s deli - unpleasantly crowded and Russ and Daughters, - small, crowded but pleasant. I will go back for my bagel with lox and cream cheese) . We kept on walking ( and talking) through East Village and Gramercy Park and gave up at 23rd street. By walking through the areas one after an another , it was easy to see the differences between the areas. We caught the subway back to my area, had dinner at a nice Italian restaurant that had been recommended to me and then went our separate ways. It was a lovely day – great company and interesting sights.