Great Kills Yacht Club is a basics only marina. Restrooms and showers are available. There is a bar onsite but no food. The docks are clean and the harbour host John makes the ease to get to the city easy. It’s reasonable in cost for New York City.
Today is the day we discover New York City. The marina here at Great Kills Yacht Club is unique because one of their members is a harbour host who greets all the Loopers who stay. He’ll drive us to the train station in Great Kills, about a mile away from the marina. Then We’ll hop on the Staten Island Ferry. The train ride is reasonable at $2.75 per person and the ferry is free to all passengers both ways. Great way to get to The Big Apple without the hassle.
John drops us off around 10:30 at the station. It’s everything you know an outdoor train station to be. Peeling paint, a woman calling Scott a pervert for taking her picture and I’m the Biotch with him. Gotta love New York. It’s about a 20 minute ride to the ferry. The ferry runs every 15 minutes or so so we don’t wait long. The ferry carries approximately 1400 people on each of her 2 main decks. Leaving St. George Station on the ferry we head across New York Harbour to the piers in Manhatten. The Statue of Liberty invites us into the harbour.
New York City towers over the harbour, with the new World Trade Center standing tall. The Chrysler Building, Empire State Building are all visible. Brooklyn stands to the right side of the harbour as we approach the piers. New Jersey to the left on the far side of the Hudson River.
For the day we visit the 911 Memorial Reflecting Pool. Each of every person who was killed in the 911 attacks including service men and women, the Pentagon, and the Flight 93 have their names engraved. The interesting thing about the names isn’t that they are in alphabetical order. Before the memorial was completed the 911 Memorial Staff sent letters to all the family members. In that letter they requested information on their friendships, romances, relationships with others that had passed on that day. The 911 staff put together very meaningful insight when choosing where the names shall be on the memorial. They put names of people who had the closest relationships together. That is why names of the people are not simply alphabetical or strickly from where they worked or served. On each of their birthdays the 911 memorial staff place roses in the groves of their names. We have to remember when we visit this memorial that this is where family members have been buried and never found. That surviving family members still visit often to stand where their loved one is.
We decide to jump on a tour bus to see the sights of Downtown Manhatten. We will travel from the Staten Island Ferry to Times Square. In between we will see the various cultural area such as Greektown, Chinatown, SriLankatown, Indiantown, and so many more. Authentic foods are found in these areas. We’ll pass Wall Street, the street that never sees the sun. Those extremely tall buildings are barely a car’s width apart on the renowned Wall Street. A tour bus cannot drive on it because it is so narrow. Times Square is an overindulgent paradise. Sights, sounds, people, lights, massive displays. It’s an overindulgent paradise.
At the end of the day we’re back on the ferry heading back to St. Georges and then Great Kills by train. It’s our plan to stop at “Nonna’s Pizza” and enjoy authentic New York style pizza. We are not disappointed as we are treated like royalty. It was after 11:30 by the time we made it back to the boat. I suppose if you’re going to be up late the best place to do so is in New York.
