New York City Trip

Last Monday, Susan, Hannah and I made an educational/enrichment visit to the Julliard campus in New York City. We completed a nice tour of the school, learning more about the music, drama, and dance programs offered. At this point, Hannah is just in the information gathering stage. She knows that she wants to dance and get a solid education. Whether she'll want to dance for a career is undetermined.

Adjacent to Lincoln center, Julliard is just a short walk from Central Park and the wonderful homes on Central Park West. After the conclusion of our tour, we stopped at a local deli and purchased subs (heros), sodas, and fresh tomato and mozzarella salad before walking to Central Park. Once inside the park, we found this cool rock outcropping to be an excellent place for our little impromptu picnic.

Following our picnic, we hopped the subway for Ground Zero. Having never taken the subway before, we didn't get it quite right. Rather than reaching Ground Zero, we found ourselves in Chinatown. As we walked, Susan and Hannah were continually assaulted by women hawking knock-off purses, clothes, and wallets. "You want Gucci?" repeated over and over and over again. We eventually walked our way to Ground Zero.

About Ground Zero: Susan and I had visited the site about one year after the attacks. New York was a different place then. Soldiers and concrete barriers were everywhere. Today, fences erected as a safety precaution make it hard to see too much from the ground. One can still get a pretty good bird's eye view from the Winter Garden in the nearby World Financial Center. I am amazed by the sheer size of the footprint. Those two buildings were absolutely massive. The current construction project to build the memorial is enormous.

For more information about what they're building at Ground Zero, check out this site.