Friday, July 21, 2006

Visiting Manhattan

July 6, 2006

Visiting the city which is the symbol of the United States of America is very amazing. I went with the Fr. Adrian MacHugh, an Irish priest helping Farmingdale every summer. We left Farmingdale by 11:15 a.m. The train had passed through a lot of stations and then crossed from Long Island to Manhattan through a tunnel in a very short time. By 12:00 noon, we got off Penn Station. The first landmark I saw was the famous Madison Square Garden, the home court of the New York Nicks for how many years. We got inside to see the schedule of activities which might interest us. None at this time, not even the WNBA All-Star Game, this following week. I then saw the Empire State Building. Then, we walked and walked until we reached Times Square, passing by the NY Public Library. Tired of walking and seeing skyscrapers which before I saw only in movies and magazines, we went inside a building whose interior - at the fourth floor - one is free to sit like one is in a big sala or wander and wonder at the magnificent interior design of the building – very spacious up the transparent ceiling. It’s very nice to see the tubes up and down (elevators) attached around the center huge column. We took coffee and some bread to give us strength to march down and up until we found ourselves at the Rockefeller Center. St. Patrick Cathedral is amazingly huge an beautiful. We prayed inside, before the exposed Blessed Sacrament, before the satatue of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and before the tombs of past Cardinals of the Archdiocese of New York. Before visiting the site of WTC, we got inside first the Protestant Church very near the site which was not destroyed surprisingly by the attack. It's very moving to see and reflect on what happened that day, September 11, 2001. I was told that there was a young priest of the Archdiocese of New York who went inside and died with firefigfhters as the building collapsed and pinned them to death.

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