We relaxed over breakfast this morning to let all the working people get to the office before setting off on today’s adventure. The rain that started yesterday afternoon continues heavy at times. The weatherman said this is the remains of Tropical Storm Berry than has been moving up the east coast for several days.
A ferry runs from the Liberty Harbor Marine to Pier 11 every 30-minutes during the morning and afternoon hours. This $5.50 took us directly to the southern end of Manhattan.
We only had to walk a few block from pier11 to the Staten Island Ferry building. This free 30-minute ferry runs between Southern Manhattan and Staten Island. I’ve seen this ferry in so many old movies that it was on my ‘A-list’. Barbara Straisand even performed a video from its deck. Barbara’s parade may not have been rained upon but ours sure was. We had to ride inside for the entire round trip.
Back in Manhattan, we walked up to the financial district. With the rain still falling heavily, I was able to stand next to the Wall Street Bull.
We decided to walk up to Little Italy for lunch. After a few block we were drenched even though we had an umbrella and rain jackets. We stumbled upon the old Federal Hall national monument and decided it was an opportunity to get out of the rain. Federal hall was the first capital building. George Washington took his first oath of office and the senate met in this building for many years. I also found that the electric hand dryers in this building’s bathrooms are wonderful coat dryers. Just a few minutes of hot air down each jacket sleeve produced fantastic results.
The rain was starting to let up a little by the time our jackets were nearly dry, so we continued our trek to Little Italy. The Pomodoro restaurant had fairly good pizza and really bad coffee. The rain finally stopped by the time lunch our lunch was finished. We started our return to catch an afternoon ferry.
We walked past several bakeries and pastry shop on our return walk but we couldn’t walk past Eileen’s Special Cheese Cake without stopping. This is simply the best New York style cheesecake. They sell small cheesecake tarts that are about 3-inches in diameter. How could we say no? Mine had the raspberry topping and Mary the Blueberry. We were surely in cheesecake heaven by the time we walked out the door.
We made one last stop at an Au Bon Pain pastry stop for a few treat for our return ferry ride. The Cream de Flour, a delightful blending of buttery dough and pastry cream, didn’t make it aboard the ferry.
