THE
STATEN ISLAND FERRY
TAKE NEW YORK'S
BEST BARGAIN
- THE STATEN ISLAND FERRY
“New York, New York
It’s
a wonderful town, the Bowery is up and the Battery is
down....”
New
York’s best bargain?
Well it still has to be the Staten Island Ferry.
It is free and you glide through one of
the world’s busiest cargo ports, not to mention the
greatest skyline.
Join
the 70,000 passengers who use the boats daily and you get a
perfect view of the Statue of Liberty.
Take a car and it costs only $3. Not that every tourist would
think of driving through Manhattan. It looks
frenetic but I tried it once and was surprised how easy it
was. Perhaps I had been put off by earlier taxi rides
 On
previous visits we’d bumped over broken streets in the
battered yellow taxis.
These
seemed gleaming and sleek from a distance because they usually
flashed by too quickly for us to realise just how thrashed
and dented they were.
Newer cabs are now on the streets with improvements like air
conditioning available in the back seat, on the couple we tried
it wasn’t working, but the ride certainly took our mind off
it.
The cabby who picked us up was from Morocco and didn't know the
way to one of the city's largest hotels, however it was
fun getting there, well nearly there!
A wit once told me that difference between taxi drivers in
Frankfurt and in
New York was that Frankfurt
they speak English!
In
Manhattan as you peer down from the hotel, people
below look like ants. The worker ants move in
a purposeful flow into the skyscrapers, the tourist ants scurry
in all directions.
Take comfortable shoes and join them, and when you need a rest
grab a
coffee, take a window seat at a cafe and
‘people watch. '
There
is much to enjoyed and a lot of it is free.
It is easy to get swallowed up in it, absorbed, but when
you want to reflect on the wonder of it all, go down to Battery
Park, (South Ferry Subway station,) take that Staten
Island Ferry ride and enjoy the majestic view.
The 5 mile, 25 minute boat ride is one of this planets greatest
voyages.
LINKS:
New
York City Department of Transportation - Staten Island
Ferry ...
also http://www.siferry.com/
|
ovember 2002
