Monday 4th April
As the day broke we could just see across the Hudson River and it was raining. On the television however, only tens of miles from here it had been snowing and was below freezing. Our mission today though was to visit The One World Observatory on top of the One World Trade Centre. Currently this is the tallest building in the western hemisphere with a 3 level indoor observation centre starting on the 102nd floor. It is built close to the footprints of the original Twin Towers but a little to one side where other buildings of the financial centre were located, but later collapsed. This enables the foundations of the original towers to become a waterfall display with the names of ‘the fallen’ surrounding two holes in the ground to respect the loss. Words cannot really express the feelings and respect that overcomes visitors to the site.
The journey to the top of the tower starts in the almost indestructible rock of Manhattan. It is testimony to what has been ‘thrown at it’ it still stands. A bomb in an underground car park and two aeroplanes hitting the buildings did not destroy this.
These feelings are brought to a climax inside the St. Paul’s Chapel Annex to Trinity Church which was a sanctuary to survivors and rescue workers in the weeks and months after 9/11. We witnessed the messages of hope, photographs of the missing, clothing and hats, badges and anything that helped people hope for a positive resolution from the disaster and pleasingly with the reconstruction all of those momentos are preserved within the church as a most moving epitaph to that terrible day.
As we were near we took the Staten Island Ferry to see New York harbour up close and personal.
  
After dinner we revisited The Top of the Rock observatory to bring to an end this leg of our circumnavigation. Tomorrow we continue eastwards.
The route updated to the edge of the Atlantic. Just under 3000 miles to go!
