“Visiting New York”
Over 35 million people visit New York each year. From the Statue of Liberty to Yankee Stadium, New York has hundreds of attractions. New York is best seen either on foot or by double-decker bus. Taking the bus is extremely beneficial for many reasons. First, most New York City buildings are more easily seen from the top of a bus. Secondly, parking costs are avoided as they are very high parking costs. And last, but not least, site seeing busses take you to the attraction and come with a tour guide. However, in order to visit the first attraction one needs to take a ferry.
The first spot that would probably be the best to visit to experience the feel of New York would be the Statue of Liberty. The Statue of Liberty was given to the U.S. as a gift from France for the U.S.’s centennial in celebration of democratic ideals shared by France and the U.S. The statue was designed by Frederic Bartholdi. No one knows who served as the model for the statue but many believe it was Bartholdi’s mother. Fund-raising for the statue began in 1874 in order for it to be completed by the U.S. centennial. However, money trickled in slowly and construction would only be started in 1875, too late for it to be completed by the centennial. Both the U.S. and France contributed to the construction and mounting of the statue: the U.S. paid for the base and placed it on Liberty Island (formerly known as Bedloe’s Island) and France paid for the construction of the statue itself. In August, 1876, the first completed part of the Statue of Liberty, the arm, was put on display at the International Centennial Exexhibition in Philadelphia. The head of the statue was finished in July, 1878, and just missed being displayed at the Paris World’s Fair the month before. Nevertheless, the head caused quite a sensation and a temporary surge in monetary contributions. The influx of funds soon slowed and construction once again put on hold. Franco-American Union came up with the idea to have lotteries to raise the money. The statue was finally completed in 1884 and shipped to the U.S. in the spring of 1885. The unveiling was held on October 28, 1886 and the day declared a public holiday. Liberty was the first statue that people could enter and climb to the top. It was also the tallest structure in New York until 1899 when a building 5 feet taller was completed.
The Statue of Liberty was the first sight thousands of immigrants saw when sailing into New York harbor. Their point of entry into the U.S. was Ellis Island. Ellis Island was a federal immigration station that opened on January 1st, 1892. Though many people believe that the Statue of Liberty was a part of Ellis Island it was not, but it became a sign of freedom and hope for all the immigrants passing by it to go to Ellis Island. On Ellis Island people were checked for disabilities and sickness and out of over 20 million immigrants only 2 million were turned away and had to go back to their home country. One legend of Ellis Island is that immigrants had their names "Americanized" because the immigration officers could not spell them. Ellis Island closed as an immigration center in 1954 and is now there for tourists to come and see.
Staying on the southern end of Manhattan, another New York landmark is the Brooklyn Bridge. Officially opened to traffic on May 24, 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge took 14 years to build and cost 18 million dollars. On inauguration day, 1,800 vehicles and 150,000 people crossed the new bridge. At the time of its completion, the Brooklyn Bridge was the longest suspension bridge in the world at 6,516 feet and crossing 1,595 feet of river. John Roebling designed the bridge but soon after construction began, he injured his foot and died from tetanus. His son, Washington Roebling, picked up the construction but was unable to directly supervise the construction of the underwater piles as he suffered from decompression sickness. As a result, his wife trained herself in engineering in order to understand and execute his instructions during this phase of construction. The bridge was made to be six times as strong as necessary: to the point that when Roebling found out that a contractor had used cheaper wiring than specified, he decided that it would still be strong enough and did not need to be torn down. Roebling was right because unlike other bridges that collapsed, the Brooklyn Bridge was able to stand against very strong winds. Today, the Brooklyn Bridge has 6 lanes for automobile traffic and one lane for pedestrians. It is a major thoroughfare for traffic crossing the East River back and forth from Manhattan to Brooklyn. The bridge became a historic landmark on March 24, 1983. To continue on to another great feat of engineering, head north to the Empire State Building.
The Empire State Building is another architectural wonder of New York. Built in only 2 years, from 1930 to 1932, and standing at 1,453 feet, it was the tallest skyscraper in New York City until 1972 when the Twin Towers were built. Following September 11th and the destruction of the Twin Towers, the Empire State is once again the tallest building in New York. The Empire State building has been a tourist attraction since the day it opened and still one of the first places tourists visit. Another famous New York building and within walking distance of the Empire State building is the Chrysler Building. Construction of the Chrysler Building began in 1928 and it was also completed within two years. At that time, Walter Chrysler was racing against the Bank of Manhattan to build the tallest building in the world. For a while it looked like the Bank of Manhattan would win but Walter Chrysler had the spire of the Chrysler Building constructed in secret and kept inside the building. He put it in place one week after the Bank of Manhattan’s building was finished and until completion of the Empire State building, Chrysler held top honors among New York’s skyscrapers.
Rockefeller Center is made up of 19 Art Deco buildings that cover 11 acres from 49th to 52nd street and 5th to 7th avenues. The complex was named after John D. Rockefeller who leased the land in 1928. Rockefeller originally wanted to build a Metropolitan Opera House and three commercial buildings but was unable to due to the stock market crash in 1929. However, he was steadfast in wanting to make it a commercial district ground was broken in late 1929. The first building to go up, 30 Rockefeller Plaza, was finished in 1939. This building became the headquarters of RCA and now has NBC as a tenant where one can go on a studio tour and see where shows like Saturday Night Live, Conan O’Brien, and NBC News are taped.
A trip to New York wouldn’t be complete without visiting Times Square. Times Square is probably the best known and most visited of New York’s neighborhoods. The area used to be known as Longacre Square and was renamed Times Square in 1904 following the arrival of the New York Times newspaper. To commemorate the renaming of the square, the newspaper organized a fireworks show on January 1, 1904. The fireworks were outlawed by city officials in 1906 and on January 1st, 1907, a ball symbolizing the New Year was dropped from the top of the New York Times building. The New York Times is no longer a tenant, but each year over 750,000 come to Times Square to watch the Waterford Crystal ball drop from One Times Square.
Times Square is also the theater district of New York. Most of the theaters are located from 53rd to 42nd street and between 6th and 8th avenue. Every night, thousands of people attend musicals and plays in Broadway theaters, also known as the “Great White Way”, so named after the lights of theaters. The lights of Broadway and the huge number of neon and television-style signs have made Times Square a symbol of New York. Times Square is the only neighborhood in New York requiring tenants to display bright signs.
A famous image of New York is a photograph taken of a sailor kissing a young girl at the end of World War II. Visitors to the city can also visit an World War II aircraft carrier: the USS Intrepid. Saved from destruction after it was decommissioned, the USS Intrepid opened up as a museum in 1982 at Pier 86 and became a national historic landmark in 1986. The museum is known as the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum and has many displays such as military aircraft from around the world, an aircraft simulator, submarines, boats, the aircraft carrier itself, and space exhibits. The Sea-Air-Space Museum is only one of the many museums in New York. Among them are the Metropolitan Museum of Art, also known as the Met.
The Met is one of the largest and most important museums in the world. It’s collections range from an entire ancient Egyptian temple to early American furniture as well as paintings and sculptures by many different European masters. The Met also has a very important medieval art collection housed in a rebuilt monastery known as the Cloisters and located just north of Manhattan. For modern art, the best museum to visit is the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA). A great museum to visit, especially with children, is the Forbes Collection. The Forbes Collection has a huge array of items to look at, including toy boats, toy soldiers, pictures, and many other things. The toy boat gallery has over 500 tin, cast iron, and paper lithograph boats to look at. Another exhibit one can visit is the over 10,000 toy soldiers set up in fights, marches, jousts, and many other positions. There is also a Monopoly game set up where one can see all the different versions of monopoly and how it has changed over the year. Another museum that kids love is the Museum of Natural History located just across from Central Park from the Met. The Museum of Natural History has an amazing collection of dinosaur fossils as well as dioramas of extinct mammals. Not to miss at the Museum of Natural History is the IMAX theater as well as the Hayden Planetarium.
A trip to New York with children must include the Bronx Zoo. The Bronx Zoo opened on November 8, 1899 with 22 exhibits and 843 animals. This zoo was one of the first ones to move animals from cages into more natural environments. Animals are displayed by geographical zones and separated by moats and other obstructions rather than cages. The Bronx Zoo also has the Congo Rain Forest which at 6.5 acres is the largest man made rainforest in the world.
While in the Bronx, try to catch a New York Yankees game. The Yankees are the most famous team in baseball; they won the most World Series in the history of baseball. The franchise started in 1913 and has been going strong ever since. Watching a Yankees game at the Stadium is an unforgettable New York experience.
New York itself is also an unforgettable experience and visiting the above landmarks would allow one to see and feel New York and its history. So, go ahead and take a bite out of the “Big Apple” in a double-decker bus.
The first spot that would probably be the best to visit to experience the feel of New York would be the Statue of Liberty. The Statue of Liberty was given to the U.S. as a gift from France for the U.S.’s centennial in celebration of democratic ideals shared by France and the U.S. The statue was designed by Frederic Bartholdi. No one knows who served as the model for the statue but many believe it was Bartholdi’s mother. Fund-raising for the statue began in 1874 in order for it to be completed by the U.S. centennial. However, money trickled in slowly and construction would only be started in 1875, too late for it to be completed by the centennial. Both the U.S. and France contributed to the construction and mounting of the statue: the U.S. paid for the base and placed it on Liberty Island (formerly known as Bedloe’s Island) and France paid for the construction of the statue itself. In August, 1876, the first completed part of the Statue of Liberty, the arm, was put on display at the International Centennial Exexhibition in Philadelphia. The head of the statue was finished in July, 1878, and just missed being displayed at the Paris World’s Fair the month before. Nevertheless, the head caused quite a sensation and a temporary surge in monetary contributions. The influx of funds soon slowed and construction once again put on hold. Franco-American Union came up with the idea to have lotteries to raise the money. The statue was finally completed in 1884 and shipped to the U.S. in the spring of 1885. The unveiling was held on October 28, 1886 and the day declared a public holiday. Liberty was the first statue that people could enter and climb to the top. It was also the tallest structure in New York until 1899 when a building 5 feet taller was completed.
The Statue of Liberty was the first sight thousands of immigrants saw when sailing into New York harbor. Their point of entry into the U.S. was Ellis Island. Ellis Island was a federal immigration station that opened on January 1st, 1892. Though many people believe that the Statue of Liberty was a part of Ellis Island it was not, but it became a sign of freedom and hope for all the immigrants passing by it to go to Ellis Island. On Ellis Island people were checked for disabilities and sickness and out of over 20 million immigrants only 2 million were turned away and had to go back to their home country. One legend of Ellis Island is that immigrants had their names "Americanized" because the immigration officers could not spell them. Ellis Island closed as an immigration center in 1954 and is now there for tourists to come and see.
Staying on the southern end of Manhattan, another New York landmark is the Brooklyn Bridge. Officially opened to traffic on May 24, 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge took 14 years to build and cost 18 million dollars. On inauguration day, 1,800 vehicles and 150,000 people crossed the new bridge. At the time of its completion, the Brooklyn Bridge was the longest suspension bridge in the world at 6,516 feet and crossing 1,595 feet of river. John Roebling designed the bridge but soon after construction began, he injured his foot and died from tetanus. His son, Washington Roebling, picked up the construction but was unable to directly supervise the construction of the underwater piles as he suffered from decompression sickness. As a result, his wife trained herself in engineering in order to understand and execute his instructions during this phase of construction. The bridge was made to be six times as strong as necessary: to the point that when Roebling found out that a contractor had used cheaper wiring than specified, he decided that it would still be strong enough and did not need to be torn down. Roebling was right because unlike other bridges that collapsed, the Brooklyn Bridge was able to stand against very strong winds. Today, the Brooklyn Bridge has 6 lanes for automobile traffic and one lane for pedestrians. It is a major thoroughfare for traffic crossing the East River back and forth from Manhattan to Brooklyn. The bridge became a historic landmark on March 24, 1983. To continue on to another great feat of engineering, head north to the Empire State Building.
The Empire State Building is another architectural wonder of New York. Built in only 2 years, from 1930 to 1932, and standing at 1,453 feet, it was the tallest skyscraper in New York City until 1972 when the Twin Towers were built. Following September 11th and the destruction of the Twin Towers, the Empire State is once again the tallest building in New York. The Empire State building has been a tourist attraction since the day it opened and still one of the first places tourists visit. Another famous New York building and within walking distance of the Empire State building is the Chrysler Building. Construction of the Chrysler Building began in 1928 and it was also completed within two years. At that time, Walter Chrysler was racing against the Bank of Manhattan to build the tallest building in the world. For a while it looked like the Bank of Manhattan would win but Walter Chrysler had the spire of the Chrysler Building constructed in secret and kept inside the building. He put it in place one week after the Bank of Manhattan’s building was finished and until completion of the Empire State building, Chrysler held top honors among New York’s skyscrapers.
Rockefeller Center is made up of 19 Art Deco buildings that cover 11 acres from 49th to 52nd street and 5th to 7th avenues. The complex was named after John D. Rockefeller who leased the land in 1928. Rockefeller originally wanted to build a Metropolitan Opera House and three commercial buildings but was unable to due to the stock market crash in 1929. However, he was steadfast in wanting to make it a commercial district ground was broken in late 1929. The first building to go up, 30 Rockefeller Plaza, was finished in 1939. This building became the headquarters of RCA and now has NBC as a tenant where one can go on a studio tour and see where shows like Saturday Night Live, Conan O’Brien, and NBC News are taped.
A trip to New York wouldn’t be complete without visiting Times Square. Times Square is probably the best known and most visited of New York’s neighborhoods. The area used to be known as Longacre Square and was renamed Times Square in 1904 following the arrival of the New York Times newspaper. To commemorate the renaming of the square, the newspaper organized a fireworks show on January 1, 1904. The fireworks were outlawed by city officials in 1906 and on January 1st, 1907, a ball symbolizing the New Year was dropped from the top of the New York Times building. The New York Times is no longer a tenant, but each year over 750,000 come to Times Square to watch the Waterford Crystal ball drop from One Times Square.
Times Square is also the theater district of New York. Most of the theaters are located from 53rd to 42nd street and between 6th and 8th avenue. Every night, thousands of people attend musicals and plays in Broadway theaters, also known as the “Great White Way”, so named after the lights of theaters. The lights of Broadway and the huge number of neon and television-style signs have made Times Square a symbol of New York. Times Square is the only neighborhood in New York requiring tenants to display bright signs.
A famous image of New York is a photograph taken of a sailor kissing a young girl at the end of World War II. Visitors to the city can also visit an World War II aircraft carrier: the USS Intrepid. Saved from destruction after it was decommissioned, the USS Intrepid opened up as a museum in 1982 at Pier 86 and became a national historic landmark in 1986. The museum is known as the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum and has many displays such as military aircraft from around the world, an aircraft simulator, submarines, boats, the aircraft carrier itself, and space exhibits. The Sea-Air-Space Museum is only one of the many museums in New York. Among them are the Metropolitan Museum of Art, also known as the Met.
The Met is one of the largest and most important museums in the world. It’s collections range from an entire ancient Egyptian temple to early American furniture as well as paintings and sculptures by many different European masters. The Met also has a very important medieval art collection housed in a rebuilt monastery known as the Cloisters and located just north of Manhattan. For modern art, the best museum to visit is the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA). A great museum to visit, especially with children, is the Forbes Collection. The Forbes Collection has a huge array of items to look at, including toy boats, toy soldiers, pictures, and many other things. The toy boat gallery has over 500 tin, cast iron, and paper lithograph boats to look at. Another exhibit one can visit is the over 10,000 toy soldiers set up in fights, marches, jousts, and many other positions. There is also a Monopoly game set up where one can see all the different versions of monopoly and how it has changed over the year. Another museum that kids love is the Museum of Natural History located just across from Central Park from the Met. The Museum of Natural History has an amazing collection of dinosaur fossils as well as dioramas of extinct mammals. Not to miss at the Museum of Natural History is the IMAX theater as well as the Hayden Planetarium.
A trip to New York with children must include the Bronx Zoo. The Bronx Zoo opened on November 8, 1899 with 22 exhibits and 843 animals. This zoo was one of the first ones to move animals from cages into more natural environments. Animals are displayed by geographical zones and separated by moats and other obstructions rather than cages. The Bronx Zoo also has the Congo Rain Forest which at 6.5 acres is the largest man made rainforest in the world.
While in the Bronx, try to catch a New York Yankees game. The Yankees are the most famous team in baseball; they won the most World Series in the history of baseball. The franchise started in 1913 and has been going strong ever since. Watching a Yankees game at the Stadium is an unforgettable New York experience.
New York itself is also an unforgettable experience and visiting the above landmarks would allow one to see and feel New York and its history. So, go ahead and take a bite out of the “Big Apple” in a double-decker bus.
