Exploring Battery Park & World Trade Center

This weekend was our first weekend of exploring NYC. It was also the first time I ever saw a rat in the subway…it wasn’t as big as I imagined luckily. Jon and I went downtown and I saw where all of the federal buildings were. It’s about a 25 minute commute from the apartment. It was pretty quiet down here which was nice, and there’s a fountain in the middle and lots of benches to sit.

We then got on the subway and went further south to Battery Park. I’d never heard of this place, but everyone at work suggested I should go there. There’s a bike trail that goes through it and up the west coast of Manhattan, but we are going to save that for a cooler day.

Battery Park is one of the furthest south points of Manhattan, and has a great view of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. We just saw it from the shore, if you squint really hard you can see it in the background here.

Battery Park was originally a fort in the 1600s, and then later they filled in the ocean. Jenny Lind from “Greatest Showman” actually sang at the Battery when it was a theater. Now it’s mostly a park and place to get tickets to see the Statue of Liberty. You can also see at hint of the World Trade Center from Battery Park.

My favorite building in New York is the World Trade Center, it’s so tall and pretty. One day I’m going to go to the top and see an amazing view. We walked to it from Battery Park because it wasn’t far and it was so nice out. I’ve seen WTC before back during my first visit to see Jon.

The fountains are so breath taking, and it’s just crazy to think about what happened here 17 years ago. It’s a perfect memorial.

There’s an underground mall right next to it that’s really cool, we stopped in to take a look and it seemed like it went on forever. All the stores are on the outside and there are wings that aren’t visible in this picture. It’s HUGE!