October 11-14, 1974: My Mom Visits Me in Chicago
	May 27-28, 1974: A Weekend with the O'Brians in Indianapolis
	Return to Index for 1974

I gave the bank my two-week notice on April 29, and spent two weeks making sure that there would be a smooth transition in the EDP-Audit section. My last day at the bank was Friday May 10. I went out to lunch with my friends from the bank, and by the end of the day had boxed up all my stuff. I actually began work for Cullinane on May 15, as planned. (Between Friday and Wednesday the 15th, I was technically unemployed.)

Early that morning, in what turned out to be a harbinger of my work at Cullinane, I met Ted at O’Hare airport and the two of us flew to Baltimore, where he was installing EDP-AUDITOR at Mercantile Bank. We spent three days there, and I learned a lot more about the system, and taught some of the class under Ted's guidance. I thought it was really neat to fly First Class and eat in great restaurants. I still do. For the next two weeks, I also went places with Ted- Rochester, New York, and South Bend, Indiana. I caught on to the class quickly and liked the teaching.

As I would do so often in the coming years, I went out to O'Hare on Sunday afternoon to catch a flight. Typically, as it would turn out, if I was flying to the East Coast, I would try to get a flight around 4PM or 5PM. This would put me at my destination sometime around 8PM, which would allow me enough time to rent a car or otherwise get to wherever I was staying. (In later years, I would become more jealous of my time at home, and would get a later flight, even if it meant that I didn't finally get to my hotel until midnight or later. I could fly a bit later if I was going somewhere in the Central Time Zone, and even later if I were flying out west.

Flights overseas, when they started to happen, were an entirely different matter. But it became very common for me to head to the airport on Sunday and return on Wednesday or Thursday or, in some cases, Friday. This time, I flew to La Guardia Airport on Long Island. A we came in over Manhattan, I took my first two pictures of the city- and you will recognize some of the landmarks:

We are out over the Hudson River, at the moment, and you can see the new towers World Trade Center 1 and 2. Tower 1 was the world's tallest building when it topped out in 1971, and it was equalled when Tower 2 topped out in 1972. Both, however, were eclipsed when the Sears Tower in Chicago topped out last year.

Our flight went north along the river, and turned over northern Manhattan, and then came back south over the East River. By this time lights were coming on, and as we turned for our landing at La Guardia, I got this view of the area between 30th and 50th streets.

We arrived at La Guardia about 9PM, and by ten-thirty I was checking in to the hotel that Jim Baker was staying at- the Seymour Hotel on West 45th Street.

This was my first trip to New York City, but I would come here frequently over the years. While I was with Cullinane, I most often stayed at the Seymour. Jim Baker, one of the earliest Cullinane employees, had found it years ago. It was clean and neat, but it was well past its prime. It did have virtue of being very inexpensive by Manhattan standards.

At the turn of the last century the blocks between Fifth and Sixth Avenues in midtown saw the advent of high-end residential hotels and exclusive clubs as once-fashionable residences one-by-one were demolished or converted for business purposes. One of the first, the Royalton Hotel for well-heeled bachelors, was erected in 1898 spanning the block from 44th to 45th Streets. One site, 44 West 45th was sold in 1901, and in July of that year the New York Times reported that "The site will be improved with a twelve-story apartment hotel."

By August of the following year the Seymour Hotel was nearly ready for occupancy- touted as "fireproof" and "positively exclusive"- and marketed to everyone, including well-to-do families. The Beaux Arts building was constructed of red brick with limestone trim, sitting on a two-story rusticated limestone base. The main 45th Street entrance was framed in a dramatic limestone portico above a set of three stone steps, and a sumptuous balcony stretched the wide of the structure at the 10th floor.

The Seymour was, until World War II, a fashionable place to live- as evidenced by the fact that five or six major jewelry heists occurred. But after the war, the numerous magnificent midtown hotels suffered as new, modern hotels and apartment buildings left them dowdy and somewhat seedy- as it was the first time I stayed here.

One thing that made it uniquely interesting, though, was the story that some of us at Cullinane eventually uncovered. Those of us who followed Jim's lead and stayed here had always noticed the drab, dour characters in suits who were often sitting in the large lobby reading or just watching. I forget to first told me, but apparently the Seymour was one of the few places in New York where Russians in the city on business were directed to stay, and these "gentlemen" in the lobby were actually in surveillance roles.

Before we take a look at the pictures I took on the various outings I made around the city, I want to say something about the trip I took out to Long Island one evening.

As long as I can remember, my Mom has talked about her younger sister Natalie who, with her husband Sal and their kids, live on Long Island (east of New York City) in a town called Farmingdale. When I told Mom I was going to New York City, she suggested that I call her brother-in-law who worked in Manhattan to see if we could get together. I did that- the first time I had ever talked to him. He suggested that if I had a free evening, I should meet him at Grand Central Station and ride with him out to Farmingdale to have dinner with the family.

I was certainly up for that, and so one evening I met him at the appointed place where he helped me buy a ticket to Farmingdale and back, and together we got on the train. Sal is one of the many thousands of New York commuters who are always on the same train into the city and back home again. In fact, Sal always meets the same three other guys on the train every evening, and they play cards on their way home. I was introduced, and watched them play for about an hour until the train pulled into the station serving Farmingdale. Sal lives closest-in of the four guys, so he's the first to get off. My aunt Natalie picks him up at the station, just as hundreds of other wives and kids do every weekday evening. It's all very organized and a huge routine for everyone.

My Uncle Sal and One of My Cousins

First of all, I have to apologize for quality of the one picture I took out at Natalie and Sal's house. I should have taken my time to get things in focus, and I also should have done what I started doing years later which was to get everyone into a picture and get them to stand still.

I should also have taken more pictures, if only to show my Mom sometime later. My problem is that I tend to concentrate on scenery, rather than people, but I have come to learn that it's the people that make the pictures meaningful. A picture of the Grand Canyon is great, but a picture of you and/or your friends standing beside it what really brings back the memories. I suppose it is because I am usually by myself when I am taking pictures and I, myself, am in hardly any of them (and there isn't always an obliging stranger to help you out).

Anyway, I had a really nice visit with my Aunt and Uncle and a nice supper as well. About nine-thirty Sal took me back to the train station for me to catch a late train back into the city.

NOTE:
This would not be the last time I would see Uncle Sal and Aunt Natalie. Many years from now, Fred and I (you'll meet Fred in 1992) will go through New York City on our way to Copenhagen, Barcelona, and a cruise back to the United States across the Atlantic. At that time, we'll have a car, and I'll drive us back to Nancy Drive, where we'll have supper once again. Sal will be retired by then, and will also be an amateur artist. The kids will be grown, with kids of their own.

I took every chance I could to get out at lunchtime and in the early evenings to see as much as I could of New York City. Our workday was usually only until four-thirty and, because it was June, the days were fairly long, so I got in quite a bit of sightseeing time. So how best to show the pictures here? Although there are quite a few of them, probably the best way is to simply put the pictures right on this page with some narrative below or beside each of them. I will also supplement the pictures with aerial views of Manhattan to try to show you where I was when the pictures were taken. This will only be moderately useful, as New York City has changed significantly, of course, in the 45 years between when the pictures were taken and today, in 2019, when I am using my pictures and old narrative to create this album page. If you've been to New York City before, you might find the comparisons between then and now to be of interest.

Looking South on Fifth Avenue

I left the Hotel Seymour and turned East on 44th street, walking the two blocks over to Fifth Avenue. I crossed to the east side of the thoroughfare so that I could get the Empire State Building in my picture. So I am standing on the northeast corner of Fifth and 44th looking south. The Empire State building is actually ten blocks south- on 34th Street, and that's where I will be heading.

Even in this first picture, the changes in New York City become evident. I've taken an aerial view of the five or six blocks south of where I took my picture (and have noted where I was when I took it). That aerial view is at right.

What you can see is that there are a number of new skyscrapers all along both sides of Fifth Avenue now that weren't there then. In fact, the picture at left would be impossible today, as these new tall buildings would pretty much obscure the Empire State Building- at least from this vantage point. The one that would most block the view is just to the south of the New York Public Library.

From 44th Street, I headed south on Fifth Avenue towards the Empire State Building.

The New York Public Library

The Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, commonly known as the Main Branch or the New York Public Library, is the flagship building in the New York Public Library system and a landmark in Midtown Manhattan. The branch, one of four research libraries in the library system, contains nine separate divisions. The structure contains four stories open to the public. The main entrance steps are at Fifth Avenue at its intersection with East 41st Street. The branch contains an estimated 2 million volumes in its stacks. The building was declared a National Historic Landmark, a National Register of Historic Places site, and a New York City designated landmark in the 1960s.

The Main Branch was built after the New York Public Library was formed as a combination of two libraries in the late 1890s. The site, along Fifth Avenue between 40th and 42nd Streets, is located directly east of Bryant Park, on the site of the Croton Reservoir. The architectural firm Carrère and Hastings constructed the structure in the Beaux-Arts style, and the structure opened on May 23, 1911.

The marble facade of the building contains ornate detailing, and the Fifth Avenue entrance is flanked by a pair of stone lions that serve as the library's icon. The interior of the building contains the Main Reading Room, a space measuring 78 by 297 feet with a 52-foot-high ceiling; a Public Catalog Room; and various reading rooms, offices, and art exhibitions.

The Main Branch became popular after its opening, and saw 4 million annual visitors by the 1920s. In the 1960s, the Library began to outgrow its space, and in 1970 both the circulating functions and the Children's Library were moved to the nearby Mid-Manhattan Library, and the Main Branch became a research library and a use-on-site facility.

I continued walking south on the east side of Fifth Avenue, past the Library (which actually occupies two blocks north to south between 42nd and 40th Streets) and on down the avenue towards 34th Street.

At 42nd Street, I took advantage of the red light to go out to the middle of the avenue and take this picture looking North. The Library is behind me to my left. In Manhattan, the avenues (north-south) alternate one-way north and south; the east-west streets also alternate one-way. There are some major streets that are two-way.

This picture was taken at the corner of 37th Street and Fifth Avenue, and looks south along the avenue. You can just see one of the towers of the new World Trade Center far in the distance to the right in the picture.

I continued south on Fifth Avenue, and then turned west onto 34th Street. The Empire State Building is on the south side of 34th Street, so I crossed over and went into the lobby. There, I found the special elevator that takes one up to the open-air observation platform.

By the time I turned the corner onto 34th Street, I was already too close to the tower to get it all in one picture, so I've borrowed a 3D aerial view from Google Maps. The Empire State Building is a 102-story Art Deco skyscraper completed in 1931. It was, of course, the world's tallest building until the North Tower of the new World Trade Center surpassed it on October 19th, 1970. (The Sears Tower in Chicago became the world's tallest building just last year, making the Empire state now the world's fourth tallest.)

The 86th and 102nd floors contain observatories, which see 3-4 million visitors per year. There is a fee to go up to the 86th floor observation deck, and an additional fee to go to the observation room on the 102nd floor. The 86th floor observatory contains both an enclosed section and a wide-open section, while the one on the 102nd floor is completely enclosed and much smaller, so I opted for the open air deck. At right is a closer view of the observation decks courtesy of Google Maps. As you can see, on the 86th floor, you can walk all around the building and see in all directions.

(Incidentally, I'd read that the lines to get up to the observation deck (lines to get into the building, lines to buy tickets, lines for the elevator, and lines to get out onto the deck itself) can be quite long, so I was prepared to have to wait a while, but as luck would have it the line length was minimal this afternoon, and it only took me thirty minutes from when I entered the building until I was stepping out onto the observation deck.)

The site of the Empire State Building was originally part of an early 18th-century farm, then became the site of the Waldorf–Astoria Hotel in 1893. In 1929, Empire State Inc. acquired the site and began the design process, changing it fifteen times to guarantee that it would be the world's tallest building. Construction started on March 17, 1930, and the building opened thirteen and a half months afterward on May 1, 1931. Despite the publicity surrounding the building's construction, its owners failed to make a profit until the early 1950s. However, since its opening, the building's Art Deco architecture and open-air observation deck have made it a popular attraction. The Empire State Building is an American cultural icon and has been featured in more than 250 TV shows and movies since the film King Kong was released in 1933. A symbol of New York City, the tower has been named as one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World by the American Society of Civil Engineers.

So what about the views? Well, to put it mildly, they were fantastic. I've already been up in the Sears Tower and the Hancock Building, but, big as it is, Chicago isn't New York City, and seeing so many other iconic buildings and landmarks from here was simply amazing.

We are looking northeast, and you can see the Art Deco spire of the Chrysler Building near the left of the picture. In the middle are the new buildings along East 42nd Street, and that's the East River in the background. The Queensboro Bridge leads from Manhattan over across Roosevelt Island to Queens. Just at the river on the Manhattan side is the iconic United Nations Building.,

Continuing around the observation deck, this view looks more southeast at the East River. In the distance is the Williamsburg Bridge. You are looking at the "Lower East Side", and most of this is residential, with brownstones, old tenement buildings, and some new 15- and 20-story apartments. There is a lot of public housing here, too.

In this southern view, the buildings in the foreground are the New York Life Insurance Building (gold dome), then the new New York Merchandise Mart, and then the Metropolitan Life building. The green area is Madison Square Park, and you can see the famous Flatiron Building just southwest of it at the intersection of 23rd Street and Fifth Avenue/Broadway. In the distance are the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges across the East River, and the skyscrapers of the Financial District in Lower Manhattan.

In this view, we are looking directly at Lower Manhattan and the Battery. Prominent are the new Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, now the 2nd- and 3rd-tallest US buildings. To their left (east) are the headquarters of many financial firms and also the New York Stock Exchange. Out in the harbor to the right is Bedloes Island and the Statue of Liberty- right at the mouth of the Hudson River. Again, the Flatiron Building is just below me.

Looking basically west, the tall building is One Penn Plaza, named for the fact that Pennsylvania Station is just across 33rd Street south of it, with the round Madison Square Garden on top of it. Pennsylvania Station is the origin point for most commuter and long distance trains that leave Manhattan heading east or west; it's where I met my uncle to get out to Long Island.

This view looks northwest towards the Hudson River. In the foreground are some of the office and residential buildings clustered around Times Square (which is hidden down in them). The area near the river in the background is Hell's Kitchen (once the home of poor and working-class Irish but now rapidly gentrifying).

Finally, let's come back around to the north side of the observation deck and complete our 360° photo montage:

Looking north, these are the skyscrapers of the western part of Midtown; this is the area where most of the city's newest buildings are being constructed. The Hudson River is in the background, and that's the George Washington Bridge leading over to New Jersey. You can see the brownstones of the Upper West Side, and also some of Central Park.

Panning to the east, this is the other half of Midtown, and prominent is the iconic Pan Am Building. It sits just beside Grand Central Station and the Grand Central Building that sits atop it. The East River meanders northeast past Riker's Island (New York City's main jail complex) and eventually opens up into Long Island Sound. We've come full circle to the Chrysler Building again.

From the Empire State Building, I walked generally eastward so I could get to see the United Nations on the East River. I crossed Park Avenue on my way east.

As I crossed Fifth Avenue at about 38th Street and looked north, I was looking directly at Grand Central Station and the Pan Am Building.

My first question was whether Park Avenue went under both of the structures, but a quick analysis (confirmed later) was that this would have been impossible, as the complex network of rail lines below the station would have made that impossible. Instead, an elevated street known as The Park Avenue Viaduct (or Pershing Square Viaduct), which carries Park Avenue from East 40th to 46th Streets around Grand Central Terminal and the Pan Am Building, then through the Helmsley Building (picture coming up); all three buildings lie across the line of the avenue.

Grand Central is a commuter rail terminal- the southern terminus of the Metro-North Railroad's Harlem, Hudson and New Haven Lines, which serve the northern parts of the New York metropolitan area. It also contains a connection to the New York City Subway and is the third-busiest train station in North America, after New York Penn Station and Toronto Union Station.

The Pan Am Building is a 59-story skyscraper at 200 Park Avenue at East 45th Street above Grand Central Terminal. The skyscraper is one of New York City's most recognizable structures; built in 1960–63 it is the headquarters of Pan American World Airways. It is one of the most famous buildings designed by the famous architect Walter Gropius in the International style. The world's largest commercial office space by square footage at its opening, it is one of the tallest buildings in the country.

I came across to the UN on 42nd Street, and I noticed a place where I could get up a few floors higher to get a picture of the UN itself, and that's where I got the picture at right.

The tall tower is the United Nations Secretariat Building; it is a 505-foot-tall skyscraper and the centerpiece of the headquarters of the United Nations. This area is known locally as Turtle Bay.

The lot where the building stands is considered United Nations territory, although it remains part of the United States. It was the first skyscraper in New York City to use a curtain wall- where the outer walls are not load-bearing, that function performed by an internal steel structure and core. In the nearground is the Dag Hammarskjöld Library, built in the 1950s with a grant from the Ford Foundation. The low building north of the library is, the General Assembly Building, housing the United Nations General Assembly; its General Assembly Hall has a seating capacity of 1,800 and at 165 ft by 115 ft, it is the largest room in the complex. I would guess that you have seen the interior of this hall before, and since I didn't go inside myself today, I won't bother describing it.

Heading back diagonally northwest, I crossed Fifth Avenue again, this time north of the Helmsley Building, and this is the view looking south on Fifth Avenue as it goes through that building and then around the Pan Am and Grand Central Buildings.

From the same spot on Fifth Avenue, this is the view north. I was impressed as looking up or down just about every avnue and cross street was like looking down a canyon, as tall or moderately tall buildings line every street.

Another walk I took was from the Seymour Hotel kind of northeast over to Central Park.

Rockefeller Center (NBC Headquarters) is between 5th and 6th Avenues and 49th and 50th Streets. This is the cafe and famous Paul Manship sculpture Prometheus. There is a cafe here now, and in the winter this is where the ice skating rink is.

I went up to 60th Street and over to Fifth Avenue, then walked north along Central Park. This is a ritzy area, and I soon came to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and its huge building on the park side of Fifth Avenue. I ducked into the museum for a short while, and took this picture in one of its sculpture galleries.

It's not easy to describe Fifth Avenue alongside Central Park. The closest thing Chicago has is perhaps North Avenue at the south end of Lincoln Park, but I can only imagine that the cost to live here, with the park access and views, is astronomical.

This is Fifth Avenue looking north from about 83rd Street; Central Park is on the left. On the right, some blocks ahead, you can just make out the curved facade of the Guggenheim Museum.

I have come to the Guggenheim, with its distinctive round main gallery. Its permanent collection of modern art includes Impressionist and post-Impressionist works. Inside, visitors take an elevator to the top of a continuous spiral gallery; walking down, you can view the bulk of what's on display. Here is one of the sculptures on display.

From the Guggenheim, I headed back south along Fifth Avenue, once again past the Metropolitan. That's where I took this picture of a street person (at least I assumed that's who he was) sleeping outside the museum. And a block or so south, I peeked down one of the streets leading east from Fifth Avenue. These are all residential streets, although the prime addresses are in the east 80s and 90s. This, I believe, is a view looking down 79th Street.

I crossed through Central Park at 65th Street to arrive at the west side of the park on Central Park West, the avenue that borders the west side of the park as Fifth Avenue borders the east. I continued west a few blocks through an area of old but fashionable brownstones to come to Lincoln Center.

At Lincoln Center, this is the Metropolitan Opera House in the center of the multi-building complex. With a seating capacity of 3800, it is the world's largest opera house. The plaza in front is a popular meeting place.

On the north side of the complex is Avery Fisher Hall, a 2,750=seat auditorium that opened in 1962 and which is the home of the New York Philharmonic.

In that picture of Avery Fisher Hall, you can see the Revson Fountain in front. It is named for Charles Revson, of the family that began and still runs Revlon cosmetics. The fountain's been featured in a number of movies, one of which I saw in the theatre last year- (Godspell).

From the Lincoln Center, I walked a few blocks southeast on Broadway to Columbus Circle, a traffic circle and heavily trafficked intersection located at the intersection of Eighth Avenue, Broadway, Central Park South (West 59th Street), and Central Park West, at the southwest corner of Central Park. It is the point from which official highway distances are measured from New York City.

The circle is named after the monument of Christopher Columbus in the center (shown in the picture at left looking south at the School of Art and Design), which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The name is also used for the neighborhood that surrounds the circle for a few blocks in each direction. To the southwest of the circle lies Hell's Kitchen, to the southeast is the Theater District, and to the north is the Upper West Side.

The picture at right, taken from Columbus Circle, looks eastward along 59th Street, which is the southern boundary of Central Park. The Essex House Hotel is in that row of buildings, and in the distance you can see the distinctive white vertical lines of the General Motors Building. That building is a 50-story office tower and is one of the few structures in Manhattan to occupy a full city block. Also in that picture, you can see the southwest corner entrance to Central park where the USS Maine National Monument is located. The monument was cast in 1912 and dedicated in 1913 to the men killed aboard the USS Maine when the ship exploded in Havana harbor in 1898.

On this particular walk, I took one more picture as I was walking back to the Seymour Hotel. It is a picture taken a block or two south of Columbus Circle, and it is looking down Broadway towards Times Square.

On one other evening, I decided to head downtown to the World Trade Center, the Financial District, and Battery Park. There was some threatening weather this evening, but eventually it cleared up.

The Twin Towers

(Pictures at left and right)   I'm creating this page in 2019, but I wrote the narrative for my slides a couple of months after my trip to New York City, and I've been expanding on that narrative as I've created this page. But now, I am going to include, without any modification, the narrative I wrote in July or August, 1974, for these two pictures: "I took a walk all the way down Broadway to the World Trade Center. It was not finished at the time, and I had to convince a guard that all I wanted to do was take pictures, not bomb the place. Even though I know that the Sears Tower is taller than these two structures, they appear to be higher, probably because there are not any step-backs to destroy the illusion of great height. They are really neat buildings- I think the handsomest in the city."

Looking Up

I suppose the most people will understand why the narrative I actually wrote in 1974 when I saw the Twin Towers turned out to be a bit prophetic, and why I included it verbatim.

One of the interesting things about being this far back in creating my online album pages is that I know now more and more about the future of some of the places and people that I visited or knew back then, and it is tough not to amplify my original narrative too much. I certainly don't see anything wrong in identifying now, for example, the buildings or places or people I photographed back then, when I didn't have the knowledge or the time to identify them. For example, I've referred to the Pan Am Building on this page, because that is what my narrative called it back then. But if a young New Yorker were to look at this page today, she might think I'd misidentified the MetLife Building, and she might not even know what "Pan Am" refers to. But while I sometimes take the time to say a bit about what the future holds for people and places, I simply can't do that all the time.

The Twin Towers are one such example. I saw them for the first time on this trip, and on a subsequent trip to New York City I went to the top of the North Tower to the Observation Deck. But on neither this page nor that one have I said anything about what the future held for those buildings. I was tempted, when I went to the top of the Empire State Building, and identified it as New York City's tallest building until the topping out of Tower 1, to say that the Empire State Building would hold the title again and then lose it again- and again lose it to the World Trade Center. These are the kind of oddities that occur frequently, now that I am creating album pages for forty years ago with the knowledge we have today.

Trinity Church

From the Trade Center I walked a bit southeast to the Financial District, as I'd always wanted to see the Stock Exchange. On the way, I walked past Trinity Church- an historic parish church in the Episcopal Diocese of New York located near the intersection of Wall Street and Broadway. Known for both its location and endowment, Trinity is a traditional high church, with an active parish centered around the Episcopal Church and the worldwide Anglican Communion in missionary, outreach, and fellowship.

St. Paul's Chapel

This church is actually the third and current Trinity Church. Construction began in 1839 and was finished in 1846. When the Episcopal Bishop of New York consecrated Trinity Church on Ascension Day (May 1) 1846, its soaring Gothic Revival spire, surmounted by a gilded cross, dominated the skyline of lower Manhattan (and remained the tallest building in New York City until the late 1800s). Trinity was a welcoming beacon for ships sailing into New York Harbor.

Nearby (see picture above, right) I found St. Paul's Chapel, nicknamed "The Little Chapel That Stood". This Episcopal chapel is located at 209 Broadway, between Fulton Street and Vesey Street. Built in 1766, it is the oldest surviving church building in Manhattan, and one of the nation's finest examples of Late Georgian church architecture. It is a New York City Landmark and a National Historic Landmark.

Wall Street

Wall Street is an eight-block-long street running roughly northwest to southeast from Broadway to South Street, at the East River, in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan. Over time, the term has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, the American financial services industry (even if financial firms are not physically located there), or New York–based financial interests.

Anchored by Wall Street, New York City has been called both the most economically powerful city and the leading financial center of the world, and the city is home to the world's two largest stock exchanges by total market capitalization, the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ. Several other major exchanges have or had headquarters in the Wall Street area, including the New York Mercantile Exchange, the New York Board of Trade, and the American Stock Exchange.

Halfway down the left side of Wall Street in my picture is the New York Stock Exchange. The New York Stock Exchange (nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange located at 11 Wall Street. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed companies. The average daily trading value can reach the high tens of billions in a single day.

The trading floor, of which I am sure you have seen pictures, is located in the Greek Revival building in my picture, and is actually composed of 21 rooms used for the facilitation of trading. Had I been here early in the day, it would have been interesting to take a tour and see the actual trading floor. But now, near 7:30 in the evening, Wall Street is a ghost town, as the trading day, around which the life of this street revolved, ended four hours ago. There are probably still people in some of the nearby offices finishing up the recording of the day's activity, but most everybody else has long since departed for home.

I found myself at Battery Park as the weather got more threatening, but as this was my last evening in New York City, I thought that I would go ahead and take one of the tourist boats that go back and forth to the Statue of Liberty.

From the ferry, I took this excellent picture of the west side of Lower Manhattan. Towering over everything else are the twin towers of the new World Trade Center.

In this more expansive picture, you are looking at all of Lower Manhattan and the Battery. In the buildings in this picture resides the economic power of the planet. Six or eight major US banks are headquartered in the buildings at right, and Wall Street is right in the middle.

As the ferry approached Bedloe's Island to dock for the Statue of Liberty, I made the decision not to debark, as it was actually beginning to rain lightly and I had no umbrella. (Had I known that the shower would have ended relatively quickly, I might have gotten off anyway, but I thought I should save the statue for a return trip and better weather.

The Statue of Liberty

I guess I betray my age when I refer to Bedloe's Island as being the site of the Statue of Liberty; that's the name I first learned, although the island was officially renamed to Liberty Island in 1956. In any event, the Statue of Liberty (Liberty Enlightening the World was its original name) is a colossal neoclassical copper sculpture- a gift from the people of France to the people of the United States. It was designed by French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi and its metal framework was built by Gustave Eiffel. The statue was dedicated on October 28, 1886.

The figure of Libertas, a robed Roman liberty goddess, holds a torch above her head with her right hand, and in her left hand carries a tabula ansata inscribed in Roman numerals with "JULY IV MDCCLXXVI" (July 4, 1776). A broken shackle and chain lie at her feet as she walks forward, commemorating the recent national abolition of slavery. The statue became an icon of freedom and of the United States, and a welcoming sight to immigrants arriving from abroad.

Bartholdi was inspired by a French law professor and politician, Édouard René de Laboulaye, who is said to have commented in 1865 that any monument raised to U.S. independence would properly be a joint project of the French and U.S. peoples. He proposed that the French finance the statue and the U.S. provide the site and build the pedestal. Bartholdi completed the head and the torch-bearing arm before the statue was fully designed, and these pieces were exhibited for publicity at international expositions. American fund-raising proved difficult until publisher Joseph Pulitzer started a drive for donations to finish the project. The statue was built in France, shipped overseas in crates, and assembled on the completed pedestal. Its completion was marked by New York's first ticker-tape parade and a dedication ceremony presided over by President Grover Cleveland.

The ferry boat actually circled the island, and this afforded me the opportunity to get a very good picture of the statue with the New York City skyline in the background. Here, you can see that "Lady Liberty" is actually striding forward- and the direction in which she is striding is towards Europe.

The statue was administered by the United States Lighthouse Board until 1901 and then by the Department of War; since 1933 it has been maintained by the National Park Service as part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument. Public access to the balcony around the torch has been barred since 1916.

Even though the weather was bad, and my pictures not as good as they might have been, taking the ferry ride was a good decision, and I was happy to get the pictures I did- pictures you can only get from out in the middle of New York Harbor.

The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge is a double-decked suspension bridge that connects Staten Island and Brooklyn. It spans the Narrows, which links New York Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. The bridge carries Interstate 278, and is named for Giovanni da Verrazzano, who in 1524, became the first documented European explorer to enter New York Harbor and the Hudson River.

The Brooklyn Bridge is a hybrid cable-stayed/suspension bridge that connects Manhattan and Brooklyn, spanning the East River. The bridge has a main span of 1,600 feet and a deck height of 133 ft. It is one of the oldest roadway bridges in the United States and was the world's first steel-wire suspension bridge, as well as the first fixed crossing across the East River.

I thought the ferry ride was well worth it, even on a day like today. When I disembarked at Battery Park, I decided to go ahead and walk back to the Seymour- some sixty short blocks north. On the way, I took my final two pictures on this trip to New York City:

This is part of Greenwich Village ("The Village") located on the west side of Lower Manhattan. It seems not unlike the New Town area of Chicago, with lots of trendy shops.

This is Washington Square Park in The Village. One of the best known of New York City's public parks, it is a meeting place and center for cultural activity. The park is an open space, dominated by the Washington Square Arch at the northern gateway to the park.

I enjoyed my first trip to New York City immensely. It was very interesting to see in person many of the sights and places that I'd read about or seen on TV or in movies. As it would turn out, this would just be the very first of many, many trips to the city, and I would get to see much more if it over time.

You can use the links below to continue to another photo album page.

	October 11-14, 1974: My Mom Visits Me in Chicago
	May 27-28, 1974: A Weekend with the O'Brians in Indianapolis
	Return to Index for 1974