New York is one of America's most famous states, with the America's largest city, many historical places, and surprisingly some of the largest areas of wilderness in New England. Over a hundred years ago, millions of people from Europe took long voyages across the Atlantic to start a new life in New York City, making it one of the most populous and diverse cities on the earth. With all the attention going to NYC, many other parts of the state are left forgotten such as Niagara Falls, Adirondack forest, or even the state's small capital of Albany. As a major hub, I've been to NYC's airport probably a dozen times with flights to New York, but have actually only visited the city once! I definitely need to return to the city, explore the wilderness up north, and see some of the west, where I haven't yet been.
New York Links	New York's capital of Albany is located in the eastern center part of the state. Albany itself has a population close to 100,000, and for most capital cities in America this would be considered pretty large. By New York standards though, it's a rather small city and some people have even given it the nickname "Smallbany". On the right is the state's capitol building, one of the most unique and the largest I have seen so far. To make sure that was the right building, I had to check it with my phone!
	Above are two photos of down town Albany, right in front of the capitol building actually. Albany was originally a Dutch colony named Fort Nassau and Fort Orange, but after the English conquered what was New Netherlands in the area they changed the name to Albany. On Sunday, almost everything downtown was closed and deserted.
The most famous and unique part of Albany is the Empire State Plaza, which is also where the capitol building is located. Several monuments, memorials, parks and large buildings are built in this area. Usually there are free concerts and live music that take place during the year. Above is the Vietnam War memorial on the left, and the famous performing arts center on the right known as 'the egg'. I regret not getting a cooler picture of it since it does look pretty weird from a distance. Below is a park and some high rises against the plaza's reflecting pool.
Some interesting buildings in Albany; the state university on the right, and a small random building on the left. There are a lot of nice parks in the city, I took a picture of a random one I passed by down below. Since it was a colder and gloomy day most of these were empty. The clear blue sky on the right was actually just a nice break in the clouds. I got rained on almost immediately after so I cut out of Albany early!
New York City is broken down into many parts such as Queens, Bronx, Brooklyn and Manhattan. As a traveler I pretty much spent all of my time in Manhattan, since the other parts are for the most part just residential areas and there wouldn't have been much for me to do there. Above is New York City's financial district located in Manhattan. Before 9/11, the world trade centers would have been part of the skyline.
When immigrates came to New York in the late 19th and early20th century, Manhattan's financial district was one of their firstimpressions of America, you can imagine what that was like afterspending weeks on a miserable boat in the Ocean. Another firstsite is the Statue of Liberty seen on the left. It was donated byFrance in 1886 as a gift to celebrate America's 100th year ofIndependence and now is an American symbol of Freedom.Above is the Immigration Processing Center on Ellis Island that was used from 1892 to 1954, processing over 12 million people.
One of New York's most tragic events were the attacks of 9/11 that destroyed the World Trade Center. The World Trade Center was a complex of 7 buildings and until they were surpassed by the Sears Tower they were the world's tallest structures. This area is now known as ground zero, and is currently under construction as the new One World Trade Center is built. Above is a ground zero visitor center with a memorial to the upper right. Directly to the right is ground zero, the remains of the WTC in November 2007. By now, the tower is over 50% complete in height, and will reach it's full height at the end of 2011. Projected completion of the tower is 2013.
Until the 1 World Trade Center is completed, the Empire State Building is once again New York City's tallest building. The Empire State Building was completed in 1931, and was the world's tallest building for 42 years until the World Trade Center was erected. On the right is the Empire State Building's lobby as I prepared to go to the 86th floor.
Here are some views of New York City from the Empire State Building. These views are mostly of Manhattan, but on the right you can see parts of Brooklyn across the river. I was very impressed by New York's huge buildings that go on for miles. The only other place in the world that I visited and could compare to New York City is Tokyo Japan.
In 1902 the Flatiron building on the left was completed and at the time was one of the city's tallest structures. Once a huge architectural achievement, today the Flatiron building is dwarfed by the surrounding skyscrapers that reach several times the height. On the right is a photo of a fire escape in another high rise building from a different part of New York.
With all of New York City pretty much built over, the two pictures above are about the only wildlife you'll see. On the left is a pigeon sitting high on a building with the city in the background, on the right is a squirrel.
The only significant part of New York City that was saved from being developed is Central Park. If you can get a good view of Central Park from a high point it looks amazing seeing a forest in middle of a huge city. Both of these pictures above are from Central Park, a place where people go to relax, go jogging, or even ice skating in the winter. With millions of people in NYC, I was surprised not to see more people here.
	Almost every large city around the world has their central square, such as Moscow's Red Square, London's Trafalgar Square, Tiananmen Square in Beijing and so on. For New York City, it has Times Square, the only district in America where businesses are required by law to display illuminated signs and neon lights. Most places here never close, and Times Square remains packed all night as people see MTV and other stations broadcast live.
To show a random store, here is M&M World located in Times Square, and is a large building where you can buy all types of clothing and toys associated with M&Ms or choose your own colors of M&Ms from their 'wall of chocolate' seen on the right. Times Square is basically like an amusement park for adults, and most people spend to choose their time here in while visiting the city.
Times Square has lots of activity, but in most parts of Manhattan you'll find street performers, mostly playing music but with some doing dances and stunts. Trumphet on the left, and above are two guys from Peru, playing their traditional music.
In terms of miles, with a car you would normally be able to get around any part of Manhattan or New York City for that matter in a matter of minutes. But as one of the most densely populated areas in the world, driving a car can be a hassle with all the traffic and stop lights, and taking a taxi will be expensive. The most efficient way to travel is using New York's world famous subways or the city buses. The photo on the right and below show the subway tracks and then the inside of one of the trains I was riding in. I explored one of the dark corners of the subway and heard something fall to my right. It was too dark to see anything so I took my picture expecting to catch a rat, instead I got this dead dog, pig or cow thing? Being that I found this so close to the waiting areas, it kind of makes you wonder what other strange things you might discover deep inside the subways. On that note, there is a new law that allows passengers to stay on a train after it hits its last stop and switches tracks to turn around. This lets you view an unground station that was abandoned a few decades ago.
Outside of the nasty subways, the best place to go shopping or simply walk the streets in New York is 5th avenue. On the left is the GE building at Rockefeller Center. On the right people go ice skating also at Rockefeller Center, a tradition that started in 1936.
Here are two churches I came across in New York City. On the left is a large church built on 5th Avenue. On the right is St. John's Church of the divine located in the upper part of Manhattan. It claims to be the third largest church in the world, and was so big it was difficult for me to get it all in the picture. Honestly I explored it a bit and I didn't find the inside very impressive at all. It was partially under renovation so maybe I didn't give it a fair chance.
Above are people shopping in a department store on 5th avenue, on the right is one of the largest and best toy stores in the world, FAO Schwart. I'm not big on shopping, but just about whatever you are looking for can be found here on 5th avenue.
I've met many people outside the US that don't realize New York City is just a small part of the entire state. The rest of New York has some other cities like Buffalo, Rochester and more, but other than that it is mostly rural. The above photo was taken of the Hudson River, which flows across the entire state until it empties in the ocean. While walking along the river I came across dozens of rats in the day time. Nasty!
The photo on the left is also from the Hudson River, and the green bug was from a hike I did in the local mountains. There was some great scenery but the sun was against the mountains and I didn't get any photos worth posting! I plan to one day do a backpacking trip anyway through the catskills or Adirondacks which should give me plenty of opportunities to make up for my lack of outdoor photos here.
Farther north of the Yachts is the town of Poughkeepsie that is also built along the Hudson River. On a second trip to New York for work, I returned in November of 2009 and found that only a month earlier the Poughkeepsie foot bridge had opened. This bridge is actually the longest footbridge in the US, spanning several miles, and the second largest footbridge in the world. On the left is a view of the Hudson River from the footbridge and of the highway crossing the water at the end of the day.
The two photos above and on the left are of New York's area along Lake Champlain. I actually was returning from Vermont and took a car ferry from a town called Charlotte back to New York state. On the upper left is the ferry, I was riding in, on the upper right is Lake Champlain against the Adirondacks mountains. The 6.1 million acres of the Adirondacks make the largest state park in the country. If you combined the national parks of Arizona's Grand Canyons, Florida's Everglades and Wyoming's Yosemite, the Adirondacks would still be larger. Some of the wild life of this region of New York include large animals such as bear and moose, and other typical species of birds and small mammals. One last note on the Adirondacks is their cold peaks topping 5,000 feet. At just over a mile, they may not be impressive in height but offer some very challenging and interesting terrain in the cold winter when several feet of snow fall on the mountains.
	These two pictures are from New York's mountains in October of 2009. The foliage on the left was amazing at this time of year, especially looking at it cover mountains as far as you can see. The small waterfall on the right has nothing against Niagara Falls, but still provided some nice scenery.
	The last two photos show some country side of New York. The small gazebo on the left and the abandoned farm on the right were some 4 hours away from New York City, a completely different world. I'm not sure when I'll return back to New York, but I'd like to visit Niagara Falls again and definitely spend some time out in their wilderness.

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New York Travel

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