Travelogue: New York City

Most New Yorkers probably wouldn't consider their city to have a comparable counterpart anywhere in the country, Los Angeles and Chicago included. I came into this like a pugilist taking on the heavy-weight champion in Madison Square Garden. I wouldn't challenge this monster of U.S. finance and culture straight up. That's a strategy that would get me knocked to the canvas in the first round. My approach would be to concentrate my efforts with quick short jabs on the inside.

My brother, George, and wife, Liz, live in Ridgewood, NJ, in the Bergen County suburbs of NYC, so that was our base of operations for the six days we were there. That was great because we were finding a lot of hotels in Manhattan that were charging $500 per night.

Yes, New Jersey like Chicago doesn't get much respect, but there are good things to see there, too. We toured the Hermitage in Ho-Ho-Kus, NJ. The Revolutionary War-era house was closed that day, but they gave us a private tour after seeing that we were admiring it from the outside. It was great to see. George Washington stayed at the house with his army camped all around the site after the Battle of Monmouth in 1778.

NYC has its share of early American history, too. We learned that the stronger English forces made the Big Apple its stronghold for most of the Revolutionary War, so it was no small gesture that that the Founding Fathers made the city our first capital until moving it to the District of Columbia. I was surprised to see that Washington was inaugurated as the first president on the steps of Federal Hall in 1789 in the heart of present-day Wall Street.

We took a three-hour Circle Line Boat Tour around Manhattan. The place is so organized that they even have official titles for the people who sell you water while you are waiting in line to get on the boat. There was a Water Hawker 1A, 2A, 3A, etc. We went past all five boroughs (Manhattan, Bronx, Harlem, Queens, and Staten Island) on this exciting journey. All told, we passed under twenty bridges as we circumnavigated Manhattan.

The city of NY is doing a lot with piers just like San Francisco. Our guide, John, explained their ambitious plans for piers. They are tearing down all the cargo piers and currently constructing thirteen new ones with restaurants and hotels on them. He said they towed about one-thousand cars that morning alone to the city-owned Pier 76 where the owners could retrieve them after paying their $283. And if they didn't pick them up in a day, they would be pushed into the Hudson. What humor these New Yorkers have.

My favorite building on the New York skyline was the seventy-seven story high Chrysler Building with its art deco style. It's not far from the Empire State Building and looks like it. This skyscraper's spike and bluish-black coloring reminded me of Batman's Gotham City.

NYC's Wall Street took a blow after September 11 when a number of financial firms moved across the Hudson to New Jersey. You can see that on the boat tour, especially since a number of those firms moved to Jersey City. That town's skyline has grown by an impressive 25% since 9/11, according to our other tour guide, my brother George.

When our cruise boat passed the Statue of Liberty, I was seeing what my grandparents saw one-hundred years ago as they passed through Ellis Island, arriving from Bohemia (present day Czech Republic). Our guide said this gift from the French people to the United States was copper colored in the early years. My grandmother and my grandfather met in New York and were married in Palisades Park, NJ.

Deep down, I like to think of myself as a battler descended from a clan of battlers from the south side of Chicago, but as each day passed on this trip, I started to see that our story goes back even further, to the Statue of Liberty and New York City itself.

Ground Zero was just as awe inspiring as the Statue of Liberty. We went to a subway platform and looked down into it from that elevated position. It was hard to believe that this was the spot where two jetliners going six-hundred miles per hour slammed into these buildings and caused them to collapse and virtually shut down the southern tip of Manhattan for six months. There is a road that goes down four levels to an earthen pit that is still very much a work in progress.

While on Central Park West Avenue, we saw the Plaza Hotel that Paul Hogan in Crocodile Dundee walked out of while looking for the subway on his first morning in NYC. I remembered that our guide on the boat had said that Catherine Zeta-Jones lives on Central Park West Avenue, too.

The food was great. We went to Chinatown and had dinner at a restaurant that has the best wonton soup in the country according to the New York Times. The Times was right; it was great. Now, if I could only remember the name of the place.

This area was tremendous to see. NYC (and even New Jersey) earned my respect, and, while I didn't make it through fifteen rounds (six days wasn't quite enough), I would definitely return again to this heavy hitter of American cities.

A typical house in Ho-Ho-Kus, NJ

The Kloak's on the steps of NY's Federal Hall

Front row: Andrew; second row (L-R): father, George Kloak; Mariana; mother, Therese Kloak; and wife, Teofila, holding Cassandra

The Chrysler Building of Batman lore

Statue of Liberty from NY Harbor

Ground Zero