Friday morning Sam and I ate at COSI (no, not the Columbus, Ohio museum), a really bad choice we’d find out considering the wealth of decent food our friends would later recommend – and places just a few blocks away we’d later find. After finishing our wilted salads and tiny half sandwiches we boarded the subway and headed to Battery Park. We couldn’t figure out where to go at first and we were worried about missing the boat as we could see the ferry loaded and long lines waiting. We had a 2pm Crown tour and were warned online that we needed to be in line by 1:30 after picking up our tickets for will-call.
At 1:15 we discovered the circular “old fort” looking building and were directed to the will-call window, which was completely devoid of other people, while the regular line stretched outside the building. We encountered the same experience at the dock. A line of would-be ferry catchers four humans wide stretched back a few hundred yards from the boat. We, however, were whisked into an parallel roped empty area for “reserve ticket holders” past the throngs of uncomfortable (it was humid that day) bored waiting people.
We went through a round of airport style security and then boarded the boat. From will-call to standing on the top of the ferry was all of ten minutes. We were actually on the boat before 1:30 and the boat (which leaves when full, not at the exact time listed) took off around 1:25. If you ever go to the statue of liberty – book in advance and online – the wait for those other poor people couldn’t have been less than 90 minutes.
After stepping off the boat we headed around to the back to start the crown tour. We had to put all our belongings except for our cameras in lockers before entering.
Upon entering we experienced no wait and actually had the place nearly to ourselves. We discovered that this was due to the fact that only 240 people per day can go up to the crown.
The crown is accessed only by climbing up a spiral staircase of 354 stairs. It was very steep and cramped. A man and his uncle were following us up, but only the younger man made it all the way as the climb was too difficult.
At the top we were alone except for a security guard in the small space. Most of the windows were locked, but there were a few we could stick our hands out of and take photos.
The above photo was taken from inside a window (you can see the streaks on the glass if you look closely. Taking photos outside the windows was a completely haphazard endeavor, as the windows were only open about six inches. That’s enough to stick your camera out there, but not enough to actually get an idea of what you are photographing. That is why these few photos seem to be random parts of the statue; it was “stick your arm out and press the button” and hope you come back with something useful.
Below is a shot of the stairway from the top.
Unlike what we’ve all seen in GhostbustersII, the foot space inside the crwon is very small, about the square footage of the average apartment bathroom (with two sinks).
The interior of the statue is very interesting. It is a mix of new and old steel supports with the stairway and various security systems in the center. Below is a photo of Lady Liberty’s face from the inside.
Below is a photo looking up her skirt.
We also walked around the observation deck at the base of the copper part of the statue.
Then we spent 40 minutes or so walking around the base of the statue on the grass.
We took our time at the base and got back to Battery Park around 5pm. We walked to Wall Street for a few minutes before walking uptown into Little Italy. Sam wanted to take a photo with the bull. There was actually a huge crowd of tourists by the bull (tour buses were parked nearby), so it was quite a feat of photographic skill to get the below shot off.
The first pizza place in Little Italy we tried turned out to be cash only, and we didn’t have enough, so we had to turn elsewhere. We would later be told by J that this pizza place was really great.
Instead we picked the next place that had great Yelp reviews, Florio’s. We ordered a pizza and spaghetti with meatballs. I went towards the bathroom and a restaurant employee ducked in ahead of me. Apparently he had a lot of business to transact in there. Another man that was waiting behind me eventually decided to use the women’s bathroom instead. When the employee was done he exited and darted to the back (he looked like a dishwasher). He forgot to flush. Our waiter walked by at the same time and I said “oh, um, either your employee forgot to flush or it’s clogged.” He rolled his eyes and leaned over (this place was small) to flush the toilet and said “there…” as a big appetizing chocolate cannoli (except it wasn’t chocolate.. and it wasn’t a cannolli..and certainly wasn’t improving my appetite…) swirled around in front of us. I’ll save an eviscerating commentary on New York food service, but suffice it to say, my experience in Los Angeles (and certainly Ohio) would have been to take something off the bill, or at least be apologetic under such circumstances.
I wish I could say it was because of my appetite, but we both found the food extremely bland. We scraped the cheese bits off our pizza, gulped down the big spaghetti noodles, paid and left. Out on the street we walked through the Little Italy street fair. I’ll blog about the food available here later as we walked through again with J and M on another day.
After getting through the street fair we stopped at Ciao Bella for Gelato.
Walking up Mott street we passed by St. Patrick’s and noticed the door was open. Some kind of private service had just finished, and I stealthily move around inside and took photos of the 200 year old church.
We finished the night by visiting Times Square, which seemed even more “electronic” than it was when I visited four years ago. Sam stood in awe of this police horse for a while.
I know the big red steps weren’t there in 2007 and the large non-traffic area was new as well. I tried to take some long exposure photos, but the red steps vibrated because they were on top of one the busiest streets (above one of the busiest subway stations) in the country. Even if I could have got the camera stable, there was a steady succession of other tourists clamoring for the space I occupied, and they were content simply standing in my view when they couldn’t get there.
As we started to walk back to M’s apartment we noticed that the big Forever 21 display had a camera on the crowd. We tried to take pictures of ourselves on the screen, but then a giant woman came into the picture and sat on us… so we decided to have a bit of fun… Below is the wide shot – and below that is a close up.
This seemed to give everyone in the big crowd a laugh. Getting that shot was actually quite hard as I had to position the camera close to the ground crouching without looking at the camera’s screen – and keeping my eye on the big screen at the same time.
