Bobbe's Trip to New York City

Bobbe recently took a trip to New York City. Here is her post about her adventures there.

I recently visited New York City. Over eight million people live in New York, making it the most populous city in the United States. New York City is in the state of New York, so it can get confusing sometimes when people say “New York” to figure out if they mean the state or the city--but I will use it to mean the City. I visited Manhattan Island, which is actually only one of five “boroughs” in New York (Queens, The Bronx, Brooklyn, and Staten Island are the others). Manhattan is not very big, but a lot of people live there and even more work there. Manhattan is a little smaller than Bainbridge Island near Seattle, but only about 20,000 people live on Bainbridge Island and 1.5 million people live on Manhattan. For a comparison, the City of Seattle has a population of about 620,000 people--with a lot more room!

One of the first things I noticed about Manhattan is that there are so many high-rise buildings. Most of these buildings have offices and some have condominiums or apartments where people live, but some of the tall buildings have other functions. Since I like to visit other countries, one of my favorite sites in New York was the United Nations Building.

I visit the headquarters of the United Nations.

193 countries are members of the United Nations. In the New York headquarters, people from all of those countries come together in the General Assembly, which tries to deal with international problems such as disease and hunger. The United Nations was created to try to help countries work together to solve disputes by talking about them instead of going to war.

Since New York has so many people, it is a challenge for people to get into and around the city. The automobile traffic in New York can be very heavy, but if everyone drove a car, traffic would be even worse. Instead, a lot of people ride in taxis.  Most cities have taxis but in New York there are many more. Taxis are also easy to see in New York because they’re all yellow.

I observe a street full of taxis.

Fortunately, New York has a very good transportation system for moving lots of people. New York has the most famous railroad station in the United States: Grand Central Station, which is very beautiful (and very busy) both inside...

The inside of Grand Central Station.

...and outside.

The outside of Grand Central Station.

New York also has a subway system which transports people all around Manhattan--and Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx--in cars that look like railroad cars, but operate on tracks inside tunnels under the street, and even under the water. Every few blocks on the street there are stairs down to the subway.

Here is one of New York's many subway stations.

After I descended the stairs and figured out which subway line I wanted, I walked through the tunnels to the area where I could board my subway.

Here is a car on the New York subway.

The 34th Street/Herald Square Subway Station is very close to the Empire State Building.

When it was built in 1931, it was the tallest building in the world. It wasn’t until 1972 when a building taller than the Empire State Building was built in New York--the twin towers of the World Trade Center.

Unfortunately, the World Trade Center towers collapsed in a great tragedy on September 11, 2001, which is also known as “9/11.” I won’t go into what happened on that day here, but not only did the towers collapse that day, but a lot of people died. On the site of the old twin towers, there is a Memorial that I visited.

Here I am at the 9/11 Memorial.

A new office tower, called One World Trade Center, is now being built near the 9/11 Memorial and it has now passed the Empire State Building in size.

I pose in front of the One World Trade Center building, which is under construction.

The World Trade Center area is located at the southern tip of Manhattan Island, in the area called “downtown.” If you walk north from downtown, you get to an area called “midtown.” All along the way are lots of tall buildings. Even though New York is very crowded with so many people, after you walk through midtown I found a wonderful and big park, Central Park, right in the middle of Manhattan.

Here is a beautiful lake in Central Park.

I saw people doing the same things they do at parks everywhere: they walk, run, and ride bikes. I also saw some people traveling around the park in a different way: in a horse-drawn carriage.

Here is a horse-drawn carriage in Central Park.

Although a lot of New York’s most famous sites are in Manhattan, many important sites are in New York’s other boroughs. The New York Yankees play baseball in the Bronx and the Mets play in Queens. Long ago, the Los Angeles Dodgers were the Brooklyn Dodgers. They were named “the Dodgers” because about 100 years ago people who walked on the streets in Brooklyn had to be careful of the streetcars, which ran above ground. Now there are no more streetcars because the subways are all underground, and the Dodgers don’t play in Brooklyn--but the name of the team has never changed. Staten Island is the only New York borough that does not have high-rise buildings.

I really enjoyed New York. It is a very busy place because there are always lots of people around!

--Bobbe