Last night’s Broadway adventure turned into a rather late evening, which made this morning’s early alarm particularly unwelcome.
But we had a date with a very famous lady.
Lady Liberty.
And apparently, she doesn’t care how late you were out the night before.
We had reservations to visit the Statue of Liberty, which meant getting ourselves downtown during the dreaded New York City morning rush hour.
Now, after our initial struggles understanding the subway system, I was fully prepared for an underground experience resembling a cattle stampede. Thousands of aggressive New Yorkers pushing, shoving, and fighting their way onto trains while we stood helplessly clutching our phones.
Instead?
Not a big deal.
Either New Yorkers sleep in, or we’ve somehow become competent subway riders overnight.
We found the right platform, boarded a train heading in the correct direction, and got off exactly where we were supposed to.
I’m beginning to think we’re getting the hang of this.
Of course, now that I’ve said that, we’ll probably end up in Queens tomorrow.
We arrived downtown with plenty of time to spare, so we wandered through the Financial District.
What a fascinating maze of streets.
Unlike Midtown’s relatively sensible grid, Lower Manhattan seems to have been designed by someone who dropped a bowl of spaghetti onto a map and decided to build roads wherever the noodles landed.
Narrow streets wind around buildings, turn unexpectedly, and occasionally seem to disappear altogether.
Somehow, we found ourselves at the New York Stock Exchange.
And once again, television has been lying to me.
The building is beautiful, with its grand columns and imposing facade. It reminded me a little of Petra in Jordan, with that dramatic classical architecture rising above you.
But it’s so much smaller than I imagined!
Between Rockefeller Center yesterday and the Stock Exchange today, I’m beginning to suspect that New York’s television crews are secretly using the same camera tricks that made the Hobbits look tiny in The Lord of the Rings.
A little farther along, we encountered another famous Wall Street landmark.
The Charging Bull.
Now, I knew about the bull. I’ve seen pictures of the bull. What I didn’t realize was that apparently one of New York’s most popular tourist activities involves crawling underneath it and grabbing its balls.
There were people lined up to do exactly that.
Apparently, it’s supposed to bring good luck.
Matt and I considered the situation.
Neither of us had had enough coffee to start our morning fondling livestock.
So we moved along.
Eventually, it was time to board the ferry to Liberty Island.
And what a wonderful experience.
There’s something almost surreal about approaching the Statue of Liberty from the water. You’ve seen her thousands of times in photographs, movies, and television shows, but watching her grow larger as the ferry crosses the harbor is something else entirely.
The skyline of Lower Manhattan rises behind you, boats crisscross the water, and suddenly there she is.
One of the most recognizable symbols in the world.
And what struck me was how international the experience felt. People were rushing around taking pictures and speaking dozens of different languages. I’d wager that 80 percent of the people around us weren’t even from the United States.
Which, when you think about it, is rather wonderful.
Here we were, visiting a monument that has welcomed generations of immigrants to America, surrounded by people who had traveled from all over the world to see her.
But before I get too sentimental, we need to discuss something.
Humidity.
I live next to the largest ocean on the planet. You’d think I’d have a fairly good understanding of moisture.
Apparently not.
Seattle has rain. New York has air you can practically chew.
It’s sticky. It’s heavy. It clings to you.
And this would become particularly important in about 377 steps.
You see, we hadn’t just booked tickets to visit Liberty Island.
We’d managed to score the coveted crown tickets.
That’s right. We were going all the way to the top.
First, you climb the 215 steps to the pedestal.
By the time we reached that level, our calves were already filing formal complaints.
But the views were spectacular. Manhattan, the harbor, the boats, the surrounding islands—it was absolutely worth the climb.
There is, however, one slight problem with viewing the Statue of Liberty from her pedestal.
You don’t really get to see much of the statue.
Unless you’ve always wanted to look up Lady Liberty’s dress.
Which, apparently, we did.
But we weren’t finished.
Oh no.
From the pedestal, there are another 162 steps to reach the crown.
And these aren’t ordinary stairs.
They’re a narrow, winding spiral staircase that seems to have been designed by someone who deeply resented the human knee.
Round and round and round.
Up we went.
And remember that humidity?
By the time I reached the crown, I looked as though I’d just climbed out of the Hudson River.
I was a soaking mess.
But we’d made it!
We were standing inside the crown of the Statue of Liberty.
And the view?
Well.
Let’s just say that if you’re climbing purely for the scenery, the pedestal is probably your better investment.
The crown is fascinating, and it’s certainly an experience to look out through those little windows. But after 162 additional steps and the loss of approximately three gallons of bodily fluids, the view isn’t dramatically different.
Still, we did it.
We climbed all 377 steps.
We stood inside Lady Liberty’s crown.
And that’s something we’ll always be able to say.
Assuming our calves eventually recover.
After making our way back down, we were hungry, exhausted, and ready to sit somewhere that wasn’t a staircase.
So we stopped at the island cafeteria for lunch.
Was it a culinary highlight of New York City?
Absolutely not.
Was it food, served with chairs, where we could rest our aching legs?
Yes.
And at that moment, that was more than enough.
Unfortunately, while standing in line, I came to a realization.
We were running out of time.
Our original plan had been to visit both Liberty Island and Ellis Island before heading to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum later that afternoon.
But between the ferry schedules, the crown climb, and our increasingly desperate need to sit down, there simply wasn’t enough time to give Ellis Island the attention it deserved.
Something had to give.
And unfortunately, it was Ellis Island.
I was disappointed. It’s such an important part of the immigrant story, and I would have loved to explore it properly.
But sometimes traveling means making choices, and we had a reservation we didn’t want to miss.
We did, however, meet a lovely family from Chicago who spent much of our time together telling us how wonderful their city is.
They were excellent ambassadors.
By the end of the conversation, I was practically ready to book airfare.
So apparently, Chicago is now on the list.
It’s funny how that happens. You travel to New York to see the Statue of Liberty, and somehow leave planning a trip to Illinois.
After returning to Manhattan, we made our way through the Financial District toward the 9/11 Memorial.
And somewhere along that walk, the mood of the day began to change.
The memorial itself is extraordinary.
Beautiful, stunning, and haunting all at once.
The enormous reflecting pools sit within the footprints of the two towers, water cascading down into dark openings that seem to disappear into the earth. Around them are the names of the people who lost their lives.
It’s a place that almost demands silence.
We’ve visited places like this before.
Pearl Harbor.
Hiroshima.
Places where terrible things happened, where lives were lost, and where history was forever changed.
But this felt different.
Perhaps because this one is personal.
September 11 wasn’t something we learned about in a history book.
We lived it.
We remember where we were. We remember watching the impossible unfold on television, trying to understand what was happening.
And in many ways, we’ve been living with the consequences ever since.
Much like Hiroshima, there was the world that existed the day before.
And a different world that began the day after.
We wandered the memorial grounds, taking it all in, before stepping into the Oculus.
And what a remarkable contrast.
After the solemnity of the reflecting pools, the Oculus feels almost like walking into a cathedral of light.
Its enormous white ribs soar overhead, sunlight floods the open space, and the entire building seems to lift your eyes upward.
It’s beautiful.
Then it was time for the museum.
I’d had mixed feelings about visiting.
Part of me wasn’t sure I wanted to experience September 11 all over again. Another part felt that, being here, I needed to.
I’m glad we went.
But it wasn’t easy.
The museum is extraordinary. Thoughtful, beautifully designed, and absolutely haunting.
You descend deep beneath the city, into the foundations of the buildings that once stood above you.
Down into the enormous spaces where the towers stood.
And then, room by room, you begin to relive that day.
The photographs.
The voices.
The personal belongings.
The stories.
The recordings.
The ordinary moments of an ordinary morning that suddenly became anything but ordinary.
Nothing is hidden. Nothing is made comfortable.
The museum confronts you with the human reality of what happened, and the emotions come in waves.
Sadness.
Disbelief.
Heartbreak.
And then, about three-quarters of the way through, something unexpected happened to me.
I became angry.
Not a passing frustration, but a deep, unsettling anger.
I didn’t want to relive that day anymore.
I didn’t want to hear another recording, see another photograph, or be reminded of another life cut short.
And my thoughts began moving beyond September 11 itself, to everything that has happened since.
The lives lost that day.
The families forever changed.
The wars that followed.
The fear. The suspicion. The divisions.
All the things we surrendered, willingly or otherwise, in a world that suddenly seemed much less safe.
So much loss.
And I found myself wondering how much of what we lost we will ever get back.
I don’t know whether that was the reaction I expected to have. It certainly wasn’t the one I anticipated walking through the doors.
But perhaps that’s what makes this museum so powerful.
It doesn’t tell you what to feel.
It simply asks you to remember.
And sometimes remembering hurts in ways you weren’t prepared for.
There’s a quotation on the wall of the museum that I don’t think I’ll ever forget:
“No day shall erase you from the memory of time.”
It’s such a simple statement.
And yet, after walking through those rooms, seeing those faces, hearing those voices, and confronting the enormity of what happened, it carries an extraordinary weight.
I think that line will stay with me for a very long time.
When we finally emerged from the museum, we wandered back into the Oculus.
Earlier in the day, I’d been struck by its beauty. The enormous white ribs soaring overhead, the light flooding through, the sense of standing inside some futuristic cathedral.
But this time, we were quiet.
It reminded me of how we felt leaving the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum in Japan last year.
There wasn’t much to say then, either.
Sometimes you visit a place and leave full of stories, observations, and things you can’t wait to tell someone about.
And sometimes you leave carrying something you haven’t quite figured out how to put into words.
This was one of those times.
We found our way back to the subway and headed toward the hotel.
It had been a very long day.
We’d navigated rush-hour trains, wandered through the Financial District, climbed all the way into the crown of the Statue of Liberty, and spent an emotionally exhausting afternoon confronting one of the darkest days in American history.
My feet hurt. My calves hurt. And frankly, I think my brain had reached its daily limit.
So we decided that tonight didn’t need another adventure.
A little Thai food somewhere near the hotel, a quiet evening in our room, and the chance to put our feet up sounded just about perfect.
New York will still be there in the morning.
And tomorrow, we’re heading to Brooklyn!
There will be bridges to cross, neighborhoods to explore, pizza to eat, and, knowing us, probably a few wrong turns along the way.
But tonight, I’m thinking about that quotation on the wall.
No day shall erase you from the memory of time.
Some places you visit to see the world.
Others change the way you see it.
Day Three in the books. Tomorrow, Brooklyn.