We had a whirlwind day in New York City! We booked 2 nights at a Holiday Inn in Staten Island. We took the free shuttle from the hotel to the ferry. Then we took the Staten Island Ferry to Manhatten. The ferry went right by the Statue of Liberty on the way over.

We stopped by the raging bull statue and walked down Wall Street. There was construction all around the New York Stock Exchange building so I didn't get a clear picture of the entrance. They were celebrating the 1st day of public offering of Blue Apron on the stock exchange. Then we went to Trinity Church. Alexander Hamilton is buried there. We made our way over to the 9/11 memorial site. It was shady with a lot of trees. The empty footprints of the towers with running water were at the center of the site.

We decided to go to midtown at this point. We hired an uber driver to take us to the New York public library. Rasheed was our driver and he got us there in great time. He only clipped one delivery truck with his mirror. The library was beautiful inside and very interesting. There were many secluded rooms with private book collections for researchers to use. After the library we walked to Times Square. There were people everywhere,stores, and performers. There were also barricades and several police keeping watch carrying machine guns with extra magazines.

We then headed over to radio city music hall and Rockefeller Center. As we were standing outside Rockefeller Center a man handed us his city pass booklets. His family was leaving that day, 3 teenagers & 2 adults. They had passes to the observation deck of Rockefeller Center! We went in to redeem the tickets and got an assigned time to go up. We had some time to kill before we went up. So we decided to walk to Central Park.

On our way there we walked by Trump Tower. It was surrounded by barricades and armed police, but people could go in. So we did. Secret service agents were operating scanning machines scanning bags. We got our bags scanned then walked around the lobby. Then we continued on towards Central Park.

As we approached Central Park we were asked over & over again if we wanted carriage rides. We had a glimpse of the park then it was time to head back to Rockefeller Center.

Before we went to the top of the building we watched 3 short videos about the history of Rockefeller Center. Then we went to the top. The view was spectacular! We had great views of the Empire State Building, Central Park, World Trade Center and the rest of the city. When we left the building Martha Stewart pulled up in a car and walked in! Lin got a few pictures.

We began making our way back towards the ferry. We walked to Grand Central Station. From there we hopped on the subway back to Wall Street. By then it was rush hour and the trains were extremely crowded. People were trying to squeeze in so tight the doors couldn't shut so they had to jump off. We walked around Battery Park and ate dinner. Then we boarded the Staten Island Ferry. Our hotel shuttle was waiting for us when we got there. It was a great day!