NYC 3 [Downtown Manhattan]

Today, T was able to take the day off work and join me to play in downtown Manhattan.

We first visited The National Museum of Mathematics . It was a fun interactive place, and it was great to see lots of young people exploring and learning. We played with some of the exhibits, then acknowledged our limitations and left the place to young plastic minds.

We stopped for lunch at Eatily , an Italian-themed food court, then continued walking to Chinatown . T explained to me that an immigrant community has always existed adjacent to City Hall and other city government buildings. While the ethnicities had historically shifted with each wave of immigrants (e.g. Irish, Jews etc., Chinatown is pretty entrenched and seems here to stay. It is a vibrant neighborhood, with all of the usual color, fish markets and Chinese-signed shops. Both locals and visitors were out shopping, eating and just hanging out in the neighborhood.

We continued on to take a look at the Brooklyn Bridge. As with most of these bridges, It is possible to walk the entire bridge, should one wish to do so. On our way to visit the 911 memorial, we stopped by the Trinity Church graveyard. The churchyard is the oldest in NYC - you can see headstones from the 1700s - and is home to the gravesite of Alexander Hamilton, Robert Fulton (inventor of the steamboat) and other historic memorials and monuments.

Our terminal destination today was the 911 memorial . The focal points of the Memorial are two pools, each nearly an acre in size, that sit in the footprints of the former North and South Towers . The museum itself is located within the archaeological heart of the original WTC site and incorporates some of the original foundation, a staircase and a wall. The entire site fittingly sits in the shadow of the new WTC. The pools are very peaceful and moving. The museum consists of an outer space containing some large artifacts and and inner space that comprises the central documentary area. They’ve really made an effort to collect every last bit of information, every last story and every last artifact. Because of that, the displays are quite overwhelming. The walls are densely covered with photos and text, and many video screens document events before, during and after the attacks. It was all a bit much and we moved through it rather quickly. Nevertheless, I was pleased to finally visit the memorial and have an opportunity to pay my respects.

To close out the day, we headed back uptown to meet my friends T and J at ABC kitchen . We had a great meal and a wonderful couple hours of conversation.

Tomorrow will be a museum day.