Liberty Island, A Helicopter Trip and Madison Square Basketball, New York, US - 27th March 2007

Today's trip is to head down to Battery Park and get a ferry out to see Liberty Island. It's not without its complexity as at first we end up with tickets to some sort of non-stopping cruise. Luckily, we manage to tout one of them off to a passing Swedish tourist before getting the correct ticket for the Liberty/Ellis circle. It's not like the old days (i.e. 1995) when you could turn up and visit the statue, as we discover when a park ranger informs us that we should have booked at least a day in advance if we wanted to go in to the statue. Meh. Nevertheless, it's still a nice wander around and a chance to look at Manhattan from across the river and to once more see "Lady Liberty" close up. Later, we take a helicopter trip around Manhattan to see some of the sights from the air, and then we go and see a college basketball game in Madison Square Garden. It's the final of college basketball's National Invitation Tournament (the NIT), between South Carolina's Clemson University - The Tigers - and West Virginia University - The Mountaineers. And because it's college basketball, and not some pro game, the camera is even allowed in. Isobel, meanwhile, gets to tick off another item on the "list of American Icons" as she orders us a couple of foot-long chilli and cheese dogs to eat whilst we watch.

next album: A Return to Fire Island, Long Island, New York State, US - 30th March 2007
previous album: Crossing Brooklyn Bridge, New York, US - 26th March 2007

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The bagel bar near to the Marriott hotel

The bagel bar near to the Marriott hotel

Isobel in the Upper East Side bagel bar

Crowds in Battery Park

A cluster of buildings in Battery Park

A passing seagull

A classic view of Manhattan

The boroughs of New Jersey, Manhattan and Brooklyn

Another seagull shot, and Manhattan in the distance

The Statue of Liberty

Liberty looks towards Manhattan

In the ferry, bulkhead lights illuminate the way

A tourist does a bizarre pose

Isobel flakes out on a wall

Liberty and Old Glory

Isobel roams around with the old Pentax

Isobel takes a photo of a gull

A 25c telescope

Isobel gives the peeper-scope a go

A photo of a photo

Peering over the Ray-bans

Nosher does the binocular things

Lady Liberty up close

The Empire State in the distance

A fish-eye view of the statue

Isobel sits on the ground and giggles at stuff

The 10mm fisheye provides interesting distortion

Isobel walks along a wall

Nosher with a camera back

The Liberty Island Ferry

A tourist waves goodbye

Ellis Island's old immigration center

The Ellis Island ferry's life belt

A people-dressed-as-statue snares a passing tourist

A break-dancing troupe perform in Battery Park

Some impressive acrobatics

One of the break-dance dudes goes around collecting

Collecting money

A dude limbos through a line of teenage girls

Inside Katz's Deli

Nosher takes a photo of his Pastrami Rueben

Katz's Deli

Newspaper boxes on Allen Street

Ironwork artwork

News boxes and an iPod advert

Isobel reads the paper

Fire escapes

Inside a New York laundrette

Isobel outside Engine Company No. 5

Downtown Manhattan

Conspiracy theory in Union Square

Two girls on a tower

City life around Union Square

A bizarre photoshoot occurs

A dude sells maple syrup and honey

An old guy does a demo with a vegetable peeler

Plants for sale by the film academy

Post no bills, except where there are bills posted

Life in a bar, briefly

Isobel looks at knock-off sunglasses

Our helicopter awaits

The pilot's view

A back-lit Liberty Island

The Statue of Liberty

Governor's Island from the air

Looking up to Midtown and the Empire State

Battery Park and Brooklyn Bridge

The World Trade Center site and Ground Zero

Empire state

The railway depot and the elevated railway

Central Park

The pilot again

Interchange and road tunnel

Isobel in the helicopter

There's a nice view of the Empire State as we land

Isobel on the landing pad

The New Yorker building

Madison Square Garden

The basketballers warm up

The cheerleaders do their thing

West Virginia's cheerleaders do some acrobatics

Basketball action

There's a shot at goal

There's a media scrum after the game

The tradition of snipping bits off the net

Nosher tries Isobel's hat on

Outside the New York Public Library

The library lions