On the way we met a hot dog seller who claimed to have been there when Lennon was shot and a Norwegian in the UN who never paused for breath while giving us a guided tour. We didn't get to ask him if Kurt Waldheim was a Nazi. Walked on down to Battery Park and took the Staten Island Ferry past the Statue of Liberty and back.
The clouds came in so we decided not to go up the World Trade Center. Spent the evening in the Greenwich Village area, missed CBGBs by going the wrong way up Bleecker Street. Visited a comic shop, missed the Led Zeppelin tribute and passed through an Italian church fund raising fair. Didn't stop to win a teddy bear. Ate and drank in the White Horse Tavern with it's friendly waitress service - "give us a tip or else". Back at the hostel the room was full - two girls from Oz, a lad from Manchester and a girl from Hong Kong. Guess what - the lad wanted to know the test scores. Extremely knackered by the end of the day and slept like a log."
2011 - I've just tried to work out how far we walked that day using Google maps. I reckon it was somewhere between 25 and 30kms. Not a bad effort but representative of our determination to stay within budget. Public transport - pah, an extravagance. We did take the Staten Island Ferry but this was to save us the cost of going to Liberty Island.
Didn't go up the World Trade Center this time but did return with Christy in 1993 and made it to the roof. I don't think it's there anymore.
Have returned to the White Horse Tavern several times - with Christy and Rob Hay and volcano hot Buffalo Wings in 1993 and also with Paul "Howie" Howarth in the late 90s.
On this day : Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer is arrested after the remains of 11 men and boys are found in his Milwaukee, Wisconsin, apartment
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