BATTERY PARK
A gull in Battery Park
The East Coast Memorial, which faces the Statue of Liberty, honors 4,601 missing American servicemen who lost their lives in the Atlantic Ocean during combat in World War II. This bronze eagle holds a wreath over a wave which symbolizes the act of mourning at a watery grave.
I had read somewhere that wild turkeys live in Battery Park. Sure enough: this one was being chased by little boys running around the sun-speckled grass.
These two girls had the best time playing with the jets of water from the fountain. One liked to sit on the water spouts, the other ran around in her pink socks, both squealing with delight.
A toddler-sized fountain for the littlest ones.
A sari, a Mickey Mouse cap, and a Spiderman costume.
STATEN ISLAND FERRY TERMINAL
A woman saw me taking the picture below. "I never can get it all in on my camera phone", she said. "It's a beatiful building." And then perhaps because it was another September day and the sky was again a clear blue, she added, "I miss the Towers."
For the first anniversary of the September 11 attacks, sunflowers were planted around the city. On the morning of the anniversary, they appeared all around the World Trade Center site, their stems woven into the surrounding chain link fences. Perhaps this flower is remembering too.
FERRY RIDE
Even if the trip wasn't free, the views of the Statue of Liberty would be worth the trip to Staten Island.
Tourists ready with their cameras to snap a picture as the ferry passes by Liberty Island.
It is easy for me to forget, living as I do in a world of electronic screens and transmissions that there is another world, of solid and floating steel, just a few miles out in the harbor.
STATEN ISLAND
I confess: I haven't ventured far enough onto Staten Island to lose sight of the ferry terminal. The views of Lower Manhattan across the water and the boats passing in the harbor are plenty fascinating and keep me riveted to the broadwalk along the edge.
"It's on a Tuesday again this year." I hear that again and again, especially in these last few days of summer, even on this holiday weekend when everything is caught in the still dazzling rays of the sun. How could anything bad happen when the light hits the water just so? Maybe it's just me listening for it but over and over I hear it. "See that empty space between the buildings? That huge-ass gap? That's where the Towers once stood..."
POSTCARDS MEMORIAL
Many of the people who perished at the World Trade Center were from Staten Island. A memorial called Postcards looks across the water to where they once worked. Their names, their occupations, their companies, their birth dates are all listed on the stones representing each of them. The date the memorial was dedicated is listed. But nowhere is listed the one thing they have in common: the day all of them died.
BASEBALL STADIUM
Behind the memorial, the songs of Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen and the movie "Grease" swirled gently in the breeze. And as the shadows began to get long, boys in their favorite baseball uniforms and people in t-shirts and shorts began trickling into the gates of the stadium.
BACK TO MANHATTAN
The seven o'clock ferry was washed in golden sunlight on its journey back to Manhattan...
...making the sights all that much more spectacular.
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