On Sunday, the four of us walked over to the Bluebird Cafe for an excellent brunch.



Then Cyn and I decided to walk downtown. We thought we'd see how far we could get. We got all the way down.


We first came to Grace Church.


It was built in the early 1840's. The architect was 23 years old when he got the job.







We went down Broadway, through the shopping district of SoHo.




There are around 250 buildings in the city that have Cast Iron facades. In fact, most of SoHo is included in the SoHo-Cast Iron Historic District. This is the only one we saw that wasn't taken care of.





Near this sign, we took a right turn and a left, but if we'd taken a right and a right, we would have found the Ghostbusters firehouse.


Hoodlums doing their hoodlum things.



Then we came to the World Trade Center. And had to go around, due to all the construction.


On the way around, we found an old church. It currently houses a 9/11 memorial display. It is surrounded by this very old cemetery.






(Click for bigger, then click again for biggest.)

And then the Ground Zero Memorial itself. Two large, square holes where the towers once stood. Endless waterfalls cascade, and the names of all the victims inscribed into bronze, line the water.






We went on down to Battery Park, where we could see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.




Then we walked back up a couple of blocks, to Fraunces Tavern, for a drink. Fraunces is purportedly the oldest surviving building in Manhattan. George Washington gave his farewell address to his troops, after the Revolutionary War ended.


And they have good whisky.




This building is interesting, but it looks unfinished. Like that's insulation showing.


We passsed Delmonico's. The started out as a shop, in 1827. Ten years later, they bought this land and opened a restaurant. It's like, the first restaurant. The chef there invented Eggs Benedict, chicken a'la King and Baked Alaska.
http://www.delmonicosrestaurantgroup.com/restaurant/about-firsts.html

We had the worst time finding a subway back to Grammercy. We looked for a station for the line we knew, and looked all over for a station, but when we found it, it was closed. We then tried another line, but couldn't figure out where it actually went. We finally called Mike, and he gave us directions to one. It led us through a seedy shopping strip, but we finally found it.

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That journey took us 70 minutes, but I'm sure we could have walked it faster, if we hadn't been running everywhere looking for stations, and waiting for trains.

And then we got a bite to eat with Mike and Jill.

And then we went home.