Five Days in New York City, August 2005

DAY ONE -- My wife Cindy has her office in Lower Manhattan, or in Downtown (as the locals have it). It's where the financial district is located and where Wall Street makes its home.  Her apartment is within walking distance of the office. Her apartment is on the Hudson River in a new development called Battery Park City.

The boys and I arrived on Wednesday, stepped out of the cab and took in the view of the Hudson River -- which must be a mile-wide at this point—and of the park between her apartment and the Hudson.  In the evening people set up chairs on the grass and watch as the sun sets over New Jersey.

The World Trade Center site is about a ten minute walk from the apartment.  The site covers something like 16 acres.  The following morning we walked there.  For me, it brought home once again the enormity of the crime.  It’s one large pit, an empty construction site awaiting construction.  It reminded me of a battlefield, not unlike that of Gettysburg or Cold Harbor.  I could not take in that in a single morning 3,000 people perished here.

I’ve been reading several books about our nation’s founding fathers recently (including two biographies of Alexander Hamilton), which will help explain where we went next.  It was to St. Paul’s Chapel which is across the street from the WTC site (as you head east).  Looking very small and out of place, it’s the sole surviving church from the colonial period.  It still holds services.  Amazingly, it received no damage on 9/11.  For eight months it served as a resting and eating place for recovery workers following the attack.  Hamilton spoke here (at political meetings) and George Washington worshipped here during the eighteen months that New York served as the nation’s capital.  A pew bearing his name is kept roped off.

If Hamilton and Washington were alive today they still would recognize the network of narrow, meandering streets of Lower Manhattan.  Buildings come and go but the streets are little changed from the time of the Dutch, when the city was called New Amsterdam.  As you move north, into Midtown Manhattan, the streets widen and assume an orderly grid, thanks to another of the founding fathers, Gouverneur Morris, who had the foresight and clout to lay out the streets of Midtown and Upper Manhattan when it was still farmland.

From St. Paul’s we walked south on Broadway toward more reminders of the Revolutionary period, to Trinity Church, which dates from the 17th century.   If you’ve seen the movie “National Treasure” you’ve seen Trinity Church.  It’s where Alexander Hamilton is buried.  Hamilton was the quintessential New Yorker—commercially minded, intense, and go-getting. He was born in the West Indies, but he went to college, joined the army, and practiced law in New York City.

According to one Hamilton biographer, the next place we visited stands as a memorial to Alexander Hamilton—Wall Street.  It was Hamilton’s financial policies as Secretary of the Treasury that systematized funding of the crushing Revolutionary war dept, restored government credit, spurred economic growth, and gave birth to American capitalism.   Hamilton did this before turning 37.

If you’ve never seen Wall Street, it looks more like an alley than a city street. It was here that J. P. Morgan Bank was once located. On the corner of Wall and Broad Street is the New York Stock Exchange. We arrived around noon and stood on the steps of the Federal Hall National Monument, catty-corner to the Exchange, observing the police and the lunchtime crowd of businessman and tourists congesting the intersection.  Seeing the police, at first I thought something bad had happened, but Cindy told me this is how it’s been, as the Exchange is now a target.  Behind us, at the top of the steps, was a statue of Washington. That, and the huge American flag draped across the front of the Exchange Building, lent the scene a patriotic air.

Here, where Federal Hall once stood, Washington was sworn in as our first President (thus the statue).  It was here, too, that the Senate and House of Representatives once met. It was also here, in 1792, that 24 stock brokers signed an agreement to deal only with one another, thus creating the New York Stock Exchange.  Two blocks east of us on the alley that is Wall Street is the site of Hamilton’s law office.

We continued south, this time on Broad Street, until we reached the Fraunces Tavern, yet another holdover from the Revolutionary period, where we had lunch.  General Washington gave his farewell addressc to his officers at this restaurant in 1783.

After lunch, we walked to Hanover Square, a quiet tree-lined plaza that in Colonial times was the city’s original printing-house square.  From there, we walked to 88 Pine, a glass-and-steel high rise with a view of the East River, where Cindy has her office.  After that we walked to the South Street Seaport, once the heart of New York shipping, and the home of the Fulton Fish Market, which still does business. Long neglected, the area has been revitalized and reminded me of Cannery Row in Monterey, California--a blend of tony boutiques and trendy restaurants.  We walked to the end of the pier and took in the view of the Brooklyn Bridge which spans the East River.

That night, I couldn’t help thinking Hamilton would be pleased with his adopted city.  Largely through his finacail policies, New York has become the world's financial center.  Yes, Hamilton’s New York is now known as the city that never sleeps--or stops changing.  Streets are dug up, new buildings replace old ones; products move in and out continuously, subways run 24 hours-a-day.  Everywhere people are talking on cell phones; everyone connected.  Emigrants still make up much of the city’s population; like Hamilton, they’ve come to make it here.

DAY TWO -- We started Day Two riding the Staten Island Ferry.  It’s a free trip and passes near Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. You can visit either island by ferry, but it will cost you, and the lines are long.  And while you’re allowed inside the statue pedestal, the Statue of Liberty itself remains closed.  On the return trip we took in the Manhattan skyline.

From the terminal, we walked past Battery Park, another site dating from colonial times.  We rode the subway up to Midtown to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  If Downtown is about money, Midtown is about glitz.  The media is here, and Times Square, and the Empire State Building, and Park Avenue, and the Rockefeller Center.

On the walk to the museum, we bought fruit from a street vendor.  Bananas, the freshest you can buy, were a quarter each.  That’s the other thing about New York.  They have the finest, freshest fruit we have seen anywhere, all types, types you don’t see anywhere else, plentiful and inexpensive, and the finest looking fish, and great looking cuts of beef. Many of the markets, especially in Downtown, are mom-and-pop affairs, selling items you never see in chain markets.

We had dinner at the museum restaurant, and on the way back stopped at Times Square.  It was around 8 p.m., on Friday night, and the place was jammed with people, many garishly dressed, a place to see and be seen.

DAY THREE -- We spent the day at Yankee Stadium, for a ballgame. We were seated behind home plate, 19 rows back.  Obviously, great seats, with a good, close view of the players.  Five home runs, eleven innings, hot dogs, just your classic Saturday afternoon at the ball park.  The Texas Rangers ended up being Yankee patsies that weekend, losing four straight. “New York, New York” sung by Frank Sinatra blared from the speakers as we filed out.  I smiled.  Here was a guy born in New Jersey, a lifelong Dodger fan, who called Los Angeles home, serenading Yankee fans.  That night, we dined at a Greek Restaurant a few blocks from the apartment, excellent food, reasonably priced.

DAY FOUR -- We walked through parts of Greenwich Village and Chelsea, and browsed Chelsea Market, a waterfront warehouse converted into small stores and a variety of eating places.  From there we rode the subway to the New York Museum of Modern Art.  That night, we ate in and had spaghetti (Bill’s favorite meal of the trip).

DAY FIVE -- We began our final day riding the subway back up to Midtown, where we had lunch.  Bill is an unabashed fan of Donald Trump (“you’re fired”) and wanted to see Trump Tower, so it was there we went.

From Trump Tower it was a short walk to Central Park, where Bill and Scott found a large natural rock formation to run up and down -- and drive Cindy and me crazy.  It began raining lightly as we headed east across the park, toward Strawberry Fields.  The rain held us up as we stood under the trees, and we exited the park missing Strawberry Fields.  But we did see The Dakota, the apartment building where John Lennon lived.  Other famous residents have included Judy Garland, Lauren Bacall, Leonard Bernstein, and Boris Karloff, whose ghost is said to still haunt the place.

We headed north on the subway to Harlem Heights, where a Revolutionary battle was fought, and where Alexander Hamilton made his country home.  Called the Grange, it’s not exactly Monticello, but like Jefferson’s home, it sits atop a hill with a commanding view.  When it was built, it sat on a 32-acre farm, and its bay windows had a prime view of the Hudson River to the west and of the Harlem River to the east.  Hamilton built the columned mansion as a retreat and planted trees and tended to the gardens himself.  It was his first real home and he loved it, and was able to spend some time with his family here.  Unfortunately, he had but two years to enjoy it.

When Alexander Hamilton died (from a wound received in a duel), New York declared it a day of mourning.  The funeral procession made a near circle of Lower Manhattan—past St. Paul’s Chapel, Federal Hall on Wall Street, Hanover Square, the Battery, stopping finally at Trinity Church (all places we had visited over the previous days).

Today, Hamilton’s house sits between an apartment and a church, having been moved from its spot atop the heights.  Now under the auspices of the National Park Service, there is a plan to move the house again, to nearby St. Nicholas Park.

We took the subway back to Lower Manhattan, and had dinner at Fresh Mex, which looked promising but was mediocre.   The next day, Cindy returned to work and the boys and I flew home to Chicago.

There you have it, New York City as we experienced it, August 10-15, 2005.