The Big Apple

Have you ever wondered why NYC is called The Big Apple? I haven’t until just now when I decided to use it as a title.  I will go google it for you…

<brief pause for googling and to refill my iced tea>

And the answer is…well, there are actually three thoughts regarding the origin of the name The Big Apple:  the first refers to a horse racing term, the second to a show business term, and the third to a tourism ploy dating to 1971.  You can read more about it here if you’re interested.

Last weekend, Maddie and I took a long anticipated trip to The Big Apple with her school’s music department.  Maddie has wanted to go to NYC and see the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building for a very long time, and we have just never gotten her there on our own. So when we got the flier back in the fall telling us about this opportunity we jumped at it!  (Well, actually, I didn’t realize it was such a popular trip that you needed to get your reservation and deposit in as fast as you could and we kind of missed the chance and were put on the waiting list.  I know!  Bad parent!  Luckily someone backed out because we found out we were going around late November.)

Anywho, we got up around 4:30 in the morning and sleepdrove ourselves to the school.  We climbed on our bus, settled in, and headed to Gotham, The City That Never Sleeps, The City So Nice They Named it Twice,  or, as I like to call it, The City With Lots of Cupcake Shops.

Here’s our first glimpse of  the Statue of Liberty from the bus window!

And that’s actually about as close as we got to the Statue of Liberty, because this tour unfortunately had other destination ideas in mind, which we were also very excited about, but still….we will have to go back another time and get a little closer to Lady Liberty.

Anywho, the bus dropped us off near Battery Park.  We all used the bathroom and Maddie and the other kids got their first glimpse of the many sidewalk salesman who follow around groups of tourists.  They opened up their blanket-covered shopping carts to show us the fine purses they had for sale.  We didn’t buy any, although a mom on one of the other buses did look through them! 

A local tour guide met us at Battery Park and took us to our first stop, which was Ground Zero. There was quite a line to get in to Ground Zero, and a bag check/body x-ray too, but once we made it inside the park, it was all worth it.  I got a little choked up, which Maddie never realized because I was wearing sunglasses and I worked to keep my voice steady.  Ben was born a month before 9/11. On September 11,   twenty month old Maddie was eating breakfast in her high chair, Ben was nestled away somewhere, and I was going back and forth doing laundry, when I saw the news report on The Today Show that a plane had hit the WTC.  I called Dave at work and told him about it.  At that point it was just an accident.  Eventually, when the second plane hit, and then the  Pentagon was hit, and then I watched the towers fall, the world got really scary to me for the first time, as I worried about how I’d ever keep my babies safe again in this horrible, perilous world.  I’d be up in the wee hours nursing Ben and worrying, and mentally preparing escape routes, and worrying, and I filled giant Rubbermaids with survival supplies, and I worried and worried and worried. 

Now there are two fountains where the two buildings used to be.  Around the fountain edges are the names of all of the victims from that day (and from the WTC bombing in the nineties), including the victims from the Pentagon, Flight 93, the two airplanes that crashed into the buildings, the workers in the buildings, and all rescuers who perished.  It was staggering.  I think they’ve done an excellent job rebuilding the area into a park/memorial while continuing to rebuild around it.

After our visit, we headed across lower Manhattan toward the Brooklyn Bridge. We passed two very old churches, one of which (St. Paul’s Chapel) was used as a resting place for the firefighters as they worked at Ground Zero.

                      Police and Fire badges sent to NYC from all around the country and world as a show of support.

The fence above might look familiar.  There are a lot of photos in the aftermath of 9/11 where people placed photos and mementos of loved ones as they searched or mourned.

After our visit here, we continued east.  We passed Wall Street and City Hall and then began our journey across the Brooklyn Bridge.  Have you noticed the lovely green shirts in any of the previous photos?  Everyone on the bus tour (215 of us, I believe) had to wear the same, nauseatingly green shirt, that screamed “I AM A TOURIST AND NOT A FASHIONABLE ONE AT THAT” to all we encountered.  Ugh.

It was about a 15 minute walk to the first large tall part of the bridge. 

Then we walked back.  Maddie was not thrilled (neither were many of the teens.)  It was a lot of walking to see a bridge.

Here she is when we got back on the bus…

I love this photo.  She was so whiny at this point, her feet hurt, she was hungry (we ate our lunch on the bus so that clammed her up a little bit), she was hot, etc.   Waaaah!  She was driving me a little bit crazy.

The bus took us to Times Square.  On the way we passed the Empire State Building!

                                           This too, was the closest we got to the Empire State Building.

We had fun walking around Times Square though and looking for souvenirs for Ben and Jack.

And then we headed to the Gershwin Theatre to see Wicked!  Yay!  Our favorite part of the day!

The music was fabulous, the singers were amazing, I loved how a back story to The Wizard of Oz was created.  It was funny, sweet, dramatic, and exciting.  I definitely recommend you see Wicked if you can!

Here we are after the show…a sea of slime working our way to Planet Hollywood.

                            On the left is the New Year’s Eve ball, and Maddie is posing with the Statue Man street performer on the right. 

After supper we boarded our buses and chatted about our excellent day.  I promised her we’d be back with the boys (I’m hoping for this summer) to go to the Statue of Liberty and The Empire State Building.  I’d also like to visit the Magnolia Bakery and take everyone to Ellen’s Stardust Diner, which sounds like fun.

And then we went home and I threw up in the middle of the night.  The end.