Friday, June 24, 1994 - New York

Our first fun day in New York City! The subway to Manhattan is just half a block from the marina, so it didn't take us long to get to the World Trade Center. We crossed the street to St. Paul's Chapel, which is the only Colonial building remaining in Manhattan and also the oldest continually used building. George Washington had a pew there when New York City was the capital of the United States.
We walked a few blocks to the South Street Seaport Museum, which consists of a number of old buildings and ships. Roy especially wanted to visit the four-masted bark, which resembles the model his father made. This ship was built in Germany in 1911. It's 370 feet long and 29 feet wide. For nearly twenty years, it sailed between Germany and Chile, carrying manufactured products to Chile and bringing back nitrate for fertilizers. In 1931, it was sold to England, where it was used as a training school. The museum bought it in 1975, restored it to nearly its original condition, and is now maintaining it. We spent a couple of hours visiting it and then went on a "private" tour of the historic district. (We were the only ones who showed up.) Many of the buildings date from the early 1800's. Ate a quick lunch at a 20th century Wendy's. Then we returned to the bark to watch an amazing movie that was shot in 1929, showing the ship rounding the Horn. The waves were washing over the decks and the wind was blowing 100 knots. The photographer had lashed himself to the main mast to take the pictures. It's amazing that any ship and any humans could survive such a pounding.
Went on another "private" tour, this one of the lightship Ambrose and also of the bark "Peking". Watched a couple of jugglers and then strolled over to the Brooklyn Bridge, which was just a few blocks away. A pedestrian/bicycle lane goes across it, above the vehicle traffic, so we walked to the center and back. The Brooklyn Bridge was an amazing engineering feat for its time. It was built between 1869 and 1883. Many people died or were injured during its construction, including the original engineer and his son. The cables consist of 19 strands of 268 wires. There are 14,000 miles of cables supporting the roadway and two gigantic stone towers. We sailed under it last summer and again last winter. Now we've walked on top of it.
After some confusion as to which train to take, we finally made our way back to the boat, just ahead of the rain that had been threatening all day.