17th October (2)

Ellis Island was brilliant - a superb social commentary on the era of massive immigration into the USA. One thing which surprised us was that, despite setting up a thorough check of all the hopefuls and putting some of them through misery while their applications were processed, only 2% of the people were turned back and repatriated.
Jean

Friday 17th October 2008

Another early morning swim. Another bus to the city. This time, the subway to the south and the Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island ferry. The statue, left, shows some of the immigrants coming to make a new life.

The weather was beautiful and brought out the crowds, so we had to queue for over an hour to get onto the ferry.

16th October (2)

The highlight for me was the Empire State Building with the wonderful views from the top (although it took half an hour to reach that vantage point from the bottom). It was a little hazy but the experience wasn't lessened because of this.

Perhaps the lowlight of the day was having to queue for an hour to acquire half price tickets for a Broadway show - Equus, with Richard Griffiths and Daniel Radcliffe. That in itself wouldn't have been so bad, but when we turned up at the theatre and produced the tickets, we had been given ones for The Phantom of the Opera. Not so bad for Dave, but musicals are not really my favourite!

Thursday 16th October 2008

After clearing the leaves in the pool we took an early morning swim.

Took the bus into NY and did some sightseeing, including Grand Central Station (left) where we lunched. The interior was beautiful.

We followed that with the Art Deco of the Chrysler Building - all lovely, but in particular the lift doors!

Jean