"The Most American of American Cities " a New York City Travel Page by mrclay2000

New York City is simply one of the most vibrant places in the world. For visitors with endless time the city is an enchanting collection of neighborhoods and districts wherein one will discover something new every hour of every day for months on end. For those with limited time, say for instance those visiting for a week, the city's vibrancy will tend to get in your path as you work your way through its mysteries. The mere act of standing in line to buy tickets for the Statue of Liberty might require fifteen minutes but before you know it the entire afternoon has disappeared before the boat returns you to the landing. The long subway ride to certain out-of-the-way meccas like Yankee Stadium or St John the Divine will gobble up entire mornings. A helicopter tour might consume seven or eight minutes in the air but an hour or more on the ground in pre-flight preparations and processing. Spending your nights across the Hudson in New Jersey? Expect to slog through a full hour each day just trying to get back onto the island. Exploring the entirety of Central Park will exhaust your feet and camera from sunup to sundown. City blocks are fairly short but waiting at the crosswalks every few minutes amid a hundred other pedestrians can tax the nerves. Once you've encountered so many of these obstacles you'll ask yourself if it's worthwhile to eat up another entire day just to say you've visited the Bronx Zoo or seen the city from atop the Empire State Building.

On the other hand, there is nothing like New York City in the rest of the country. Let's say you return to Manhattan from the Statue of Liberty at 8:00 a.m. You want to spend the afternoon at Central Park and you don't mind walking the 90 blocks to get there. Your mind surveys Battery Park with a mere glance at Castle Clinton and the war memorial. The skyscrapers begin shortly, overshadowing the gem of the National Museum of the American Indian and the tiny dot of green space called Bowling Green, the city's first park. A huge bull ushers you to the financial district, where pedestrians are actually traders abuzz with the language of "buy and sell." Trinity Church sits amid these financial towers, and St Paul's Chapel welcomes you farther north. The Woolworth Building, once the tallest in the world, heralds the open common of City Hall Park. You will sense that you've emerged from a forest of steel and glass into a prairie of stone and marble. Farther north you'll hear talk of depositions and trials by those surrounding the courts of law. Gaze at the Supreme Court Building, the Surrogate Building or Centre Tower North and you'll forget what a skyscraper is.

All this walking has made you hungry, and now you're in Chinatown and Little Italy. You buy a cheap trinket and a cheap meal, and you're ready again for the streets. You spin first for Soho, then the Lower East Side before getting back on course. By some chance you visit Washington Arch, the Flatiron Building and the Empire State Building as you work up Fifth Avenue, all the while craning your neck at the majesty around. The New York Public Library, Rockefeller Center and St Patrick's Cathedral engage your attention. You pass the Trump Tower, reaching the Plaza Hotel a few minutes later, and now you're at Central Park, but now the day is almost gone and there's a host of walking left to find an empty bench. You find one, and twilight descends on Manhattan. For all your exertions there is no better reward than seeing the lamps glow from the woods while the sea of humanity lies just outside the perimeter, not winding down their day as you are but merely entering another phase.