We ended up getting up fairly early, even though we both felt really rested.  I think we were leaving the hotel for the day right at 9:30am.  We started walking towards the Empire State Building, looking for somewhere on the way to stop and grab a bite to eat.  We ran across an Au Bon Pain, which turned out to be a quite tasty meal. 

Before I go on, I just want to add in a little summary of the day... By the time we got to the hotel before going out to dinner, we walked from central park all the way to the tip of Manhattan at Battery Park; then caught the metro back up to central park and walked about half of the length of it until we got to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and then we walked around there.  Then, we walked back the same half the length of the park to get back to the hotel.

Anyway, there were some lines there at the Empire State Building (ESB), which probably took about 45 minutes to an hour to go through before we finally reached the observation deck.  It was a gorgeous day, so I went a little camera happy there on the top.  :)  Hope you enjoy the photo collection of a view from the top!

The tip of the ESB. from its Observation Deck

Liberty Island from top of ESB

Southern view from the ESB of Manhattan

Look closely and see the Verazano-Narrows Bridge!

MACY's... the little teal square in front is for the Thanksgiving Day Parade

Northern View from the ESB of Manhattan

Chrysler Building

Central Park behind the GE building (Large building in the center of the photo)

So, after leaving the ESB, we decided to walk down Manhattan to get to Ground Zero and Battery Park.  This turned out to be a fairly long walk... but we finally found Ground Zero... We both kinda made the side comment of 'It'd be a lot easier to find them if they were there'  (that sounds really bad... but its true).  Anyway, it was impressive to see the site.. other than a gaping hole in two of the buildings right next to where the Towers were, you'd almost never know just from looking at the area that something so horrible had happened there.

The metal fence makes it hard to see, but there was a Cross standing next to the site of the towers.  I'd guess that it was made from the I-beams that were in the structure of the towers.

The large hole left behind from the Towers where construction has begun to build the new World Trade Center

The tall black building in the center was damaged when one of the towers fell into it... You can somewhat see the hole that was left in the center of the building.  The small building to the right of the first building was also struck by the falling towers on 9-11. 

After visiting ground zero, we went into the World Financial Center because we saw the signs for a 'food court' and we were both quite hungry, it being almost 2pm and all.  We found a little restaurant inside that had a special.. 2 pieces of pizza and a soda for five dollars!  We both jumped on that deal.  The slices were quite large too, so we both felt like we had got the deal of the day!

After lunch, we walked along the Hudson River towards Battery Park.  There was a nice biking/walking trail, so it was a nice walk.  We stopped to take a few pictures along the way.

Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island

Ellis Island

Statue of Liberty

Armed Services Memorial in Battery Park.

We decided to take the Harbor Cruise Ferry instead of the Liberty and Ellis Island Ferry.  The Harbor ferry was a narrated cruise around Manhattan on the Hudson.  This was a really nice cruise and the breeze was very nice on a hot day.

World Financial Center (3 tall buildings), the Winter Garden is the small glass building in the center of the complex.

Empire State Building (left) and Chrysler Building (right)

Colgate Clock from the 1920s:  Colgate was the longest company operating out of NYC

New Jersy train terminal (no longer in use)

Ellis Island

Miss Liberty

Verazano-Narrows Bridge

View of Manhattan from the Hudson

Brooklyn Bridge (front) and Manhattan Bridge (rear)

Brooklyn Bridge

Manhattan Bridge

Brooklyn Bridge

After the ferry ride, we walked to the Metro stop and caught the metro up to Central Park and walked around there for a good while.  It was quite busy because Saturday marked the 150th anniversiary of the park and so there were lots of special events going on.

When we reached the Metropolitan Museum of art, we decided to go in and roam around a bit.  Someone had told him that he ought to go there and go to the cafe on the roof of the Met.  So after looking around the Museum for about 45 minutes we headed up there and ended up just standing there looking out on Central Park for awhile.  The sun was just getting to setting, so it was quite beautiful!

Then, we walked back to the hotel and freshened up a little before going out to dinner.  We ended up going to eat at Hard Rock because Jamie said he'd never been to one.  There was a good bit of a wait, but we just sat at the bar, talking and listening to the music, while we waited.  It was after 11pm by the time we finished our dinner so we went back to the Hotel and hung out a while before going to sleep.