“May your adventures bring you closer together, even as they take you far away from home.” – Trenton Lee Stewart
I spent most of last week with my friend in NYC. She and her husband live on their boat in Jersey City with a wonderful view of lower Manhattan. Donny had business in Wisconsin so I came to keep Pam company. We had a lot of great girl time.
Wednesday afternoon we took the PATH from Jersey City to Manhattan. We actually started each day catching this train. Our first destination was Broadway and Time Square. It's very touristy, but so much fun to watch people, smell the food carts, watch the street performers and do a little shopping.
It's a sensory overload in Time Square
Free concert in Time Square
After enjoying the sights around Time Square and listening to part of a free performance by the Harlem Quartet, we headed uptown to Lincoln Center. The American Ballet Theatre was presenting the BAAND Together Dance Festival. It was a week of outdoor dance performances that brought together five of the city’s most iconic dance companies. The performance we saw was wonderful.
The World Trade Center. Day or night it's a beautiful place to visit.
The Oculus is The World Trade Center's transportation hub. It's also a beautiful shopping center full of high end stores.
The Freedom Tower, The Oculus and The 9/11 Memorial Museum.
Our second day started with coffee on the back deck watching the harbor come to life. They have a great spot to watch large yachts come and go. Our plan today was to catch the Staten Island Ferry. It gave us a good view of lower Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty. We had lunch on Staten Island, did a little shopping and spent the rest of the afternoon exploring lower Manhattan. We had dinner at a little hole in the wall Mexican food joint in Jersey City close to the boat.
The green dot shows where my friend's boat is...what a great location.
The view of lower Manhattan from the Staten Island Ferry. The ferry dock is to the right.
The view from Staten Island looking back towards Manhattan.
Lower Manhattan at night
On Friday we took our bikes to Manhattan and rode along the Hudson River Greenway, first to Little Island, then to Chelsea Market for a little shopping and lunch. Our next stop of the day was the Edge located in 10 Hudson Yards. It's the newest way to see NYC from above and what a view we had. Our final stop of the day was at the Vessel, but unfortunately we weren't able to enjoy the view from it. After a full day of exploring we took a ferry back to Jersey City and relaxed on the back deck of Pam's boat.
Hudson River Greenway offers spectacular water views and sunsets. The 11-mile bike route runs along the Hudson River from the southern tip of Manhattan at Battery Park up to the Bronx – with dedicated bike paths that are closed to cars.
Little Island is a new, free public park pier within the Hudson River Park, it gives visitors a unique green space unlike any other in New York City. It opened on May 21, 2021 and rises from the remnants of Pier 54. Little Island sits on a site that has played a pivotal role in the story of the Hudson River and its surrounding communities. In 1912, survivors from the famed Titanic disaster arrived safely at Pier 54.
Chelsea Market was constructed in the 1890s and was originally the site of the National Biscuit Company (Nabisco) factory complex where the Oreo cookie was invented and produced. Located in the heart of New York City’s Meatpacking District it was redeveloped in the 1990's and has a collection of lively marketplaces where one can shop the region’s finest fishmonger, get the best cuts of meat and load up on artisanal cheeses, fresh produce and imported Italian dry goods.
The High Line is a 1.45-mile-long elevated linear park built on a historic, elevated rail line. It's more than just a park. You can walk through gardens, view art, experience a performance, savor delicious food or connect with friends and neighbors-all while enjoying a unique perspective of New York City. The original lines cut directly through some buildings, creating easy access for factories like the National Biscuit Company, which is now the home of Chelsea Market.
The Edge is the highest sky deck in the Western Hemisphere, with a one-of-a-kind design, it’s suspended in mid-air, giving you the feeling of floating in the sky with 360-degree views you can’t get anywhere else. It opened to the public on March 11, 2020. You can look 100 stories down from the thrilling glass floor or lean out over the city on angled glass walls.
We could see all the way to the Atlantic Ocean.
The Vessel is a structure and visitor attraction built as part of the Hudson Yards Redevelopment Project. The elaborate honeycomb-like structure rises 16 stories and consists of 154 flights of stairs, 2,500 steps, and 80 landings for visitors to climb.
Walking across the glass floor was a little hard at first.
