Saturday, 20. October 2007, New York, USA
Of all cities we’ve seen on our travel New York is the only one we would really like to live in. We both have been here several times before and it’s always different. There’s so much to see and the people are the most open minded in the world, they’ve seen it all. New York really is the city of cities, the hub of the world. After seeing that much of the U.S.A. we can surely say: New York is not America.
Von allen Städten unserer Reise ist New York die einzige, in der wir gerne leben würden. Wir waren beide vorher schon mehrmals hier und es ist jedesmal anders. Es gibt unglaublich viel zu sehen und die Leute sind die tolerantesten der Welt; sie haben schon alles gesehen. New York ist wirklich die Stadt der Städte, der Nabel der Welt. Nachdem wir so viel von den U.S.A. gesehen haben steht vor allem eins fest: New York ist nicht Amerika.
View from Brooklyn at Lower Manhattan, the south end of the peninsula which was colonised first in the 17th century. Before that Dutch maritime explorer Peter Minuit from Wesel (today Germany) acquired “Manahata” (means island of many hills) from native people in exchange for trade goods worth 60 guilders. The Dutch named the city New Amsterdam until it was conquered by the English in 1664 who renamed it to New York.
Blick von Brooklyn auf Lower Manhattan, das Südende der Halbinsel, welches im 17. Jahrhundert zuerst besiedelt wurde. Zuvor hatte der Seefahrer Peter Minuit aus dem damals noch niederländischen Wesel 1626 mit hier lebenden Indianern “Manahata” (was soviel wie hügeliges Land bedeutet) gegen Handelsgüter im Wert von 60 Gulden getauscht. Die Holländer nannten die Stadt Neu-Amsterdam bis sie 1664 von den Engländern erobert und in New York umgetauft wurde.
On the waterfront: 120 Wall Street (left) und Continental Center (right). The skyscraper canyon on the left is the Wall Street. At that level Dutch governor Petrus Stuyvesant had a rampart built in 1652, through whole Manhattan from the east to the west. The inhabited south ougth to be protected from indian attacks from the north. “Wal” is dutch for rampart, that’s where the name Wall Street comes from.
Nah am Wasser gebaut: 120 Wall Street (links) und Continental Center (rechts). Die linke Hochhausschlucht ist die Wall Street. Auf dieser Höhe liess der niederländische Gouverneur Petrus Stuyvesant 1652 über die gesamte Breite Manhattans von Ost nach West einen Wall (niederländisch „Wal“) zum Schutz des bewohnten Südens gegen indianische Überfälle von Norden errichten. Daher stammt der Name.
Public dog run in Brooklyn with water fountain for the doggie at the bottom and for his human at the top
Öffentlicher Hundeauslauf in Brooklyn mit Wasserspender zum Saufen für Köter (unten) und Halter (oben)
Manhattan Bridge (1909) and Empire State Building (1931) seen from…
Manhattan Bridge (1909) und Empire State Building (1931) fotografiert von…
… Brooklyn Bridge which is from 1883
… der Brooklyn Bridge aus dem Jahre 1883
Upper New York Bay with Ellis Island and Statue of Liberty, view from Brooklyn Bridge
Upper New York Bay mit der Freiheitsstatue auf Ellis Island, Blick von der Brooklyn Bridge
From left: Statue of Liberty, 55 Water Street, 1 Financial Square
Von links: Freiheitsstatue, 55 Water Street, 1 Financial Square
20,000 Miles Canada/USA: Travel Overview
Ein Weseler hat also New York gegründet? Na bitte!
hey, here’s a photo of that same building from the last shot. cheers.
Raafi: Nearly. Or which one do you mean in your photo? Can’t find a similar facade.
How is New York not America? It’s the most American city there is!
I wouldn’t say New York is not America. Every country has sparsely populated areas and people with simple lifestyles that co-exist with their stylish modern cities.
Just because there is a simple pig farmer standing in a rice patty somewhere in their vast country doesn’t make Beijing any less Chinese.
The East Coast of the US has several cities that are unmistakeably as American as New York is (just on a much smaller scale, naturally). Most of your journey was not spent on the East Coast, so a visit to New York probably probably did seem very different than, say, staring at the endless cornfields of Nebraska, or gazing across the Grand Canyon. But take a walk through Miami, Atlanta, or Charlotte, and you’re not likely to confuse yourself and think you were in Europe, Japan or Mexico.
Perhaps on a future journey, you (or someone you know) can spend more time in the Southeast…
In Florida, experience a Miami Vice neon bikini party, and then check out the 2-1/2 mile long high-banked race oval built on the sandy beaches of Daytona. Disney World (and SeaWorld and Universal Studios and Discovery Cove) are all located in Orlando, and it’s easy to find airboat rides through the alligator-infested Everglade swamps. Maybe even check out a Space Shuttle launch at the Kennedy Space Center.
In Georgia, see “America’s Stonehenge” and “The Little White House”, and the New World of Coca-Cola in Atlanta. Also, check out a couple of the Old South cotton plantations that are scattered throughout the South, and the very old (for us, anyway) deep south charm of Savannah.
In South Carolina, see Fort Sumter (highlighted in the movie “Glory”), where the opening – and later some of the closing – shots of the American Civil War were fired.
In North Carolina, visit some lighthouses and search for Blackbeard’s long lost pirate treasure in the Outer Banks (and visit Kitty Hawk for the Wright Brothers Memorial and see where man’s first airplane flight took place), and visit RJ Reynold’s 2 million square foot cigarette factory in Winston-Salem (politically incorrect, I suppose, but nonetheless fascinating in it’s sheer scale). To wrap things up, do some hiking in Chimney Rock Park (where the last 20 minutes of the movie “Last Of The Mohicans” was filmed…and yes, the trails along the tops of the cliffs are open to the public).
In Virginia, visit the various shipyards located in the Norfolk, Newport News, Portsmouth, and Hampton Roads areas…by far the largest concentration of naval shipyards in human history.
Terrific blog so far! Now back to my reading…
May I ask where you got that NY t-shirt from? Or is just just an image you grabbed from Google?
@Keith: You can buy those on every second corner in Manhattan.