OTHER SIGHTS AROUND NEW YORK CITY--
Christmas in the Heart of the Big Apple                

 

"I love New York!" and the words of the song kept time to the rhythmic beat of the city-bound Metro North train as it sped westward. We were headed for another holiday celebration in the Big Apple.
Just after Christmas we stopped at St. Patrick's Cathedral to admire the poinsettias. Most of the scaffolding from the $135,000,000 renovation had been taken down, and the ornate church was beautifully decorated for the holidays.

St. Patrick's Cathedral puts on a majestic show for the holiday.

Outside, instead of ducking under the ladders and platforms used for cleaning the exterior, we gazed upwards at the pure white stone, now cleaned and polished for another next generation. Inside, the pillars sparkled and, accented by green and red, the golden altar gleamed.

Decorations on Fifth Avenue amaze
crowds of on-lookers.

Recent travels have included a day at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) and a tour of the African Burial Ground National Monument in Lower Manhattan.

The African Burial Ground in the heart of New York
commemorates the lives of slaves who lived and worked
in the city generations ago.

Mild weather allowed us to pause outside. Here hundreds of African slaves who worked in New York City were interred in unmarked graves. The expansive burial ground was only discovered when heavy machinery was brought in to dig the foundation for a federal building. In this small park, the initial graves were uncovered and the fight for protection and respect was initiated.  Now a museum retells the story of life as a slave in America of the 1700's, the early years of the Dutch in New York City.

Visitors test the sound effects that echo in the rotunda of the
Old Custom House downtown in Lower Manhattan.

Not too far away from the African Burial Ground is the old Custom House. Displays in rooms around the rotunda add to the story of life in the big city and record the history of change as New York grew and expanded.

Mild winter weather contributes
to ease of travel in the big city.

But nowhere in the city is there as much action and as much change as in Times Square.  Here, at the center of the world, every moment is history in the making.  What a place to people-watch, relax tired feet or just gaze at the multitudes.  The spectrum of humanity that passes here is history in motion.