New York City Day 3

Our last day in New York City:

This Barnes & Noble is listed by the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest bookstore in the world, calculated by floorspace. Other bookstores carry more unique titles (World’s Biggest Bookstore in Toronto) or have more books on their shelves (Powell’s in Portland). None of that stopped this from being a totally awesome book geek experience:

We got pretty unlucky with the next few sites. Ground Zero has lay dormant for years, due to political bickering about what should ultimately be put there. By the time we managed to get there, however, someone pushed something through, so the entire site is covered by construction. It’s good that something is finally being done there. For now, there isn’t much to see:

Also, the Statue of Liberty had been closed to visitors since 2006 (although you can still go out to the island), but was reopened on July 4th, the day after we left. It turns out that only 250 or so people a day will be allowed to climb the statue until it is closed again for renovation. We didn’t have enough time or money to take a trip out to the island, so here is our best effort at zoom photography with a point-and-shoot camera:

After that, we found the New York Stock Exchange:

Security was pretty tight outside:

Not pictured: one of those heavily-armed cops text messaging.

After that, there was barely time left to catch the bus “home” (where is “home” anymore, anyway?)

I hope this was all reasonably interesting!