Today we went on the Circle Line tour of Manhattan Island. We had done part of the tour in the past, but one of the bridges was under construction and we were not able to see around the entire island. Our guide was very knowledgeable and entertaining. We departed from pier 83 at 42nd street and started to go down toward the southern end of the island. Right next to the pier occupied by Circle Line is the U.S.S. Intrepid, home of the Intrepid Air and Space Museum. Currently they have a space shuttle display and exhibit on board the aircraft carrier. As we headed south, we passed by the beginnings of downtown, including the Chelsea and the Financial District. We saw the new One World Trade Center in its final stages of construction, then we made a turn at the southern tip of the island to see the Statue of Liberty on both sides of the boat. Rounding the turn to see Staten Island in the distance, we took off up the East River. We got some good views of Battery Park, the downtown skyline, and the Chrysler Building, just to name a few. As we came up to midtown, we saw Roosevelt Island on our left, where we have been staying the last week. We saw the park at the southern end of the island, the old smallpox hospital, and the Blackwell House (built in 1796 and home to some family of Elizabeth Blackwell, the first female physician in the United States). On the Manhattan side, we saw the UN building and lots of other cool sights in midtown, then we were past Roosevelt Island and headed toward the northern half of Manhattan. Two of the interesting things we saw were the sites where the Titanic would have docked and the Lusitania left from. These two docks have been left as they were with old rotting posts. Up into Harlem we got to see a lot of the new luxury apartments being built where New Yorkers are flocking into to get a better deal on a nice apartment in Manhattan. On the other side of the river, The Bronx came into view, with sites such as the new Yankee Stadium and the old site of "The House that Ruth Built" nearby. Another very interesting area was the site of Edgar Allen Poe's New York cottage, which was surrounded by heavily wooded areas. Around the northern tip of the island, we saw where the Columbia sports complex was located, with a large blue "C" painted on the rocks across the river. One neat fact was that the Marble Hill area along the northern side of the Harlem River, is actually a part of Manhattan and votes as such, and it only became geographically lost to the island when the Harlem River was diverted southward. As we made the turn around the northern edge of Manhattan, we went through a turntable bridge called the Spuyten Duyvil bridge and turned southward. The Inwood Park area on the northern end of Manhattan is the last natural landscape left on the island. It is a woodland that was left just as it was when it was seen by European explorers. We got a good view of the Cloisters, which we visited previously, up on a hill south of Inwood Park. Further down the western side of the island, we saw Grant's tomb, the west side of Harlem, and finally down into westside midtown Manhattan. On the New Jersey side, we saw the exploding housing developments of Hoboken and Jersey City, where more New Yorkers are trying to find better cost of living. We pulled back into pier 83 a little sunburned, but with a new experience that was worth the time.
When we got off the boat, it was sprinkling a bit, but we braved the weather and travelled over to Assault and Battery, a fish and chips place that we had eaten at once before the first time we came to New York. We sat in Jackson Park, right outside the restaurant, and had a nice, quiet meal. Then we grabbed some Starbucks and went downtown to the Loopy Mango, a combination yarn store and knick-knack shop, where Katy picked up some bulky organic cotton yarn. After this, we were getting tired, so we went on back to Roosevelt Island, where we chilled out for the evening and had some Indian food with our friends. Tomorrow we are planning on visiting the World Trade Center Memorial and the Metropolitan Museum of Art!
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