Downtown, Staten Island and another Play!

Whew, another full day. Before I left home I found out that you could request tour tickets to the Federal Reserve Bank - in advance only. So, a week or so before we left home we received the free tour tickets. Because the bank is (obviously) in the financial district/Wall Street area, we decided to wait until today to explore that part of Manhattan. The tour was great, especially for Gail and me - a lot of it was so familiar - the high security- the camera's - the vaults etc. Even so, we have never seen billions and billions of dollars worth of gold bars, and we have never seen vaults with such high security. It was interesting seeing the video of how they move the cash and coins - and how they destroy the mutilated cash. They gave us a pen when we left filled with mutilated pieces of cash. Afterwards, we went to the World Trade Center site. There really are no words to explain the emotions.....the area is HUGE- just one big empty space in the middle of all those skyscrapers. Very moving- we just couldn't take pictures, although many people were. After, we went to St. Paul's Chapel, where the rescue workers went to take breaks. The memorials inside the chapel were heartbreaking. It was all I could do not to burst into tears.....
Finally, we left to find the South Street seaport TKKS (half price same day theatre tickets) location. Yesterday the main one in Times Square area was bedlam. There were literally hundreds of people waiting in line for tickets. We had heard that the downtown location was better......there was no one in line ahead of us. The choices were not wide today, so we selected a musical that has had good reviews "The Drowsy Chaperone" with Georgia Engels- from Mary Tyler Moore show and Everyone Loves Raymond. We just got home- I'm skipping ahead of my story here- but it was fun, silly and entertaining.
After we picked up our tickets we were in the area of the free Staten Island ferry. We decided to go - mostly for the beautiful view of lower Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty that you get. The ferry is 30 minutes over and another 30 minutes back but we got off to walk around. We are so glad we did. I didn't take a camera today because it was overcast and dreary and the bank tour asked us not to take a lot of packages or bags with us. I had to steal some photos off the internet to show you what we saw. There is an incredibly moving memorial just as you get off the ferry to the 267 Staten Island residents who died in when the Twin Towers fell. It is just in front of the fairly new ballpark for the Staten Island Yankees- a farm team for the NYY's. This has to be the ballpark with the best view in the entire world. I wish I was here in summer to go to a night game there. The park faces the East River and all the seats have the most fabulous view of the Statue of Liberty and Manhattan in the background. It must be amazing at night when the sun goes down.......while we were there we went to the Sidestreet Saloon and had a beer and snack. Then the ferry back to Manhattan. We stopped at the huge Century 21 discount department store but it was mobbed and we were tired so back home for a hour before we walked to the theatre for our show. A great day, emotional but worth doing.