After having spent three weeks on a repositioning cruise, from the Pacific to the Atlantic, our final stop was New York City. We get up early because how often in your life do you get to sail closely past the Statue of Liberty? She stands in the early morning hours, holding her torch high after we sail under the George Washington Bridge. The brainchild of a French politician and supporter of Lincoln, the statue was designed and created by French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi. It has been standing in the New York harbour since 1886.
As a writer of children’s books, I ran an online magazine for children’s writing for many years. One day I received a poem written by 13 year old Stephanie from New Jersey. She wrote the poem shortly after seeing the devastation of 9/11 on TV. I sent it to Laura Bush, a teacher/librarian living in the White House who then wrote to Stephanie about her powerful poem:
Harbour View
I stand here in the harbor,
my torch held up high.
I could not stop the planes
that came and passed me by.
My children are in danger
as I watch them run and hide.
The Towers soon collapse,
while some are trapped inside.
I try to shout out warnings,
but do not have that choice.
Although my name is Liberty,
I was built without a voice.
Once we’ve docked in the harbour, after one final breakfast at the end of our three week cruise along the Pacific Coast of Mexico, to Costa Rica, through the Panama Canal, along the coast of Colombia and to several Caribbean islands, we leave our stateroom and re-enter the real world - if downtown Manhattan can be classified as the real world.
We can actually walk from Pier 88 to our hotel, which is less than a block from Central Park. We’re happy to get the exercise and the spring weather is great. New Amsterdam… we gaze up at the skyscrapers that stand shoulder to shoulder on this “island” which the Dutch traded for trinkets and buckets about 350 years ago…
So, we’re really here - in the Big Apple. How did New York City ever get that name? Well, apparently around 1920, a New York City newspaper reporter named John Fitz Gerald, whose covered the horse races, heard African-American stable hands in New Orleans talking about the fact that they were going to “the big apple,” referring to New York City whose race tracks were considered big-time venues. Fitz Gerald soon began mentioning ‘the Big Apple’ in his newspaper columns when referring to the city. By the 1930s, jazz musicians adopted the term to indicate New York City as home to big-league music clubs. And so ‘the Big Apple’ became synonymous to something desirable, something bigger and better, a reward to be claimed. And now we are here, in the Big Apple!
Even though it is only 10 AM, our room is ready. The hotel is unusual: it seems a cross between a rinky dink old building and a hip, modern hotel. A large empty lobby, tiny guest rooms. Some parts are renovated but the window is old and single pane. We hear all the sirens of New York all night long. But the place is half a block from Central Park. The hotel’s location is great and it suits our purpose just fine: a clean room with a good bed in the heart of NYC.
Only when we arrive back one night and spot police tape around a door just down the hallway, do we have doubts.
Right next door to the hotel is a fabulous eatery, a cross between an old fashioned diner and a trendy restaurant, Fluffy’s has amazing breakfasts, anything you could think of for lunch and good coffee, plus gorgeous pastries at good prices.
We walk to Broadway, stroll cross Time Square. I love the weirdness, the wildness of NYC. Everything is possible in this city that never sleeps. I don’t either.
On Broadway you can buy last minute tickets to shows. We’re tempted to go see The Lion King again because it is so fabulous but we’ve already seen it twice - once on Broadway.
My favourite is a visit to the New York Public Library with its famous lions. We visit the children’s library and I sign the copies of my books they have. And we admire the original Winnie the Pooh, Eeyore and Piglet on display. How cool is that?
The next day we planned on renting bicycles to see all of Central Park. But a cold wind helps us to decide against bikes and to just walk. We end up walking 10 KM - criss cross through the park, past the Met and the Guggenheim, along lakes and statues and the beautiful carousel. What a fabulous foresight the designers had who decided, well over a hundred years ago, to set aside this land for a public park. And how awesome that greed never turned it into yet another high rise here or a condo building there. 840 acres (340 hectares) of public lands where people hike, jog, ride, stroll. Squirrels chase each other, birds sings. You can almost block out the sirens and the honking rows of yellow taxis here.
For the very last night of our holiday, we find a lovely Italian restaurant with out-of-this-world-pizza. Best pizza I ever had. So we sit in this little hide-a-way Italian place in Manhattan with pizza and wine and toast: to our next trip!
