5/31: Ghost Town

We headed over to the Financial District and walked around a bit. It was pretty cool to see all these structures, especially the New York Stock Exchange. It's worth noting that these buildings, with their gigantic pillars, are big and close together, and coupled with the fact that they stand among skinny and winding roads, it's like being in a Greek maze. I must say that it was a little disappointing to be there on Memorial Day. Other than tourists and a large number of security guards, Wall Street was empty. I was looking forward to the hustle and bustle of business type folks running around. When the wind picked up, I half expected to see tumbleweeds rolling across the street.

We ended our tour of Lower Manhattan with a brief stop at Battery Park and a visit to The Sphere, a memorial to the victims of 9/11. I was amazed to learn that it was actually a sculpture that originally stood on the grounds at the WTC and survived the attacks.

And what would a trip to New York be without a stop at the Brooklyn Bridge? There's so much history there. We decided to cab over to it because of the distance and the rain. But stupid tourists that we are, we thought there would be some sort of viewing area really close to the bridge to get a good look at it. But by the time we found out there is no such place, we were heading over the bridge into Brooklyn. I immediately told the driver to get us back to Manhattan ASAP, resulting in a two minute visit to the big borough of Brooklyn.

Back in Manhattan, we made a trip to the Upper East Side to check off another tour stop on our list: Bloomingdale's. We didn't hang out too long (okay okay, I bought some clothes there). It was like any other department store. In fact, it really didn't seem too much different from The Bon.

We grabbed dinner at a small French restaurant, Mon Petit Cafe (damn good Beef Bourgignon and Bordeaux, Mmm), followed by a couple of hours at Amsterdam Billiards, a pool room I had heard so much about. It's the home room for some of New York's world class players such as Ginky San Souci and Tony Robles. A pool player myself (though nowhere near their level), I considered it a player's pilgrimage.