View of Downtown Manhattan and Ground Zero (site of former WTC twin towers)
Skyscraper and Statue of Liberty
I happen to visit New york city (NYC) for a couple of days on mid-september following the Joint Molecular Imaging Conference at Providence, Rhode Island in USA. I was really amazed with this city for more reasons than I imagined. My first experience at NYC started while riding the subway train from JFK to Penn station. As it was evening hours the train got filled up as it neared to NYC. It was short ride though since I had to move to Providence immediately without getting out of station. On the way back, I took my time in exploring NYC along with my friend K.th. Just after exiting the Penn station, I had a view of my first close-up look of a skyscraper (photo attached). Gosh! what a sight! After realizing that we are on 34th street, we decided to walk to the accomodation at 47th street. As it was already morning 10am, my worry of walking under the sun was effectively culled by the shadowy sky scrapers. According to the travel plans we visited central park in the first afternoon, later headed to American museum of natural history. The visit to central park brought me back to the familiar semblance of vegetation on this man-made spectacle of concrete jungle. Well, later I was not surprised to learn that even the central park is an artificial construction. The museum had some spectacular dinosaur fossils and a wide variety of zoological creatures that would interest any animal-lover, but not me! The evening exploration was Empire state building, where in crowd was so much that it took few hours to reach the top. Once on the summit, the night view of NYC was glorious and still fresh in mind. The city of skyscrapers glows in all its splendor. That was just awesome!!
The next day, we went downtown Manhattan to Ground Zero, the site of former Twin towers. While the construction work for new towers is thick and fast, it blows up my mind imagining the supremely tall structure (more than twice the height of two green roofed buildings in photo) being grounded. How cruel must be the heart of sinners? The next destination was to Statue of Liberty and Staten Island. Looking the downtown from those islands is absolutely brilliant. Post-lunch, we headed to midtown via MTA bus, getting a glimpse of fast-paced life in Manhattan. A visit to Rockefeller foundation was made later. The evening walk on Times square was the most memorable as the whole area glitters in huge neon light structures dazzling all the skyscrapers lining the street.
Having seen the man-made marvel city, I couldn't resist buying books about NYC growth and Twin tower tragedy. Besides the edifices, I marveled at the ethnic diversity of the city. People of all races reside, work and survive. It truly is a melting pot. It is a must-visit location for any traveller, but barely will it satisfy only with one visit!
