Again, we slept in, but the morning was a little cooler as we set out on the subway over to Wall Street. Emerging from the station, we found ourselves in a huge, smoky canyon. The buildings were so tall that their tops seemed to lean inward above us, cutting out the sunlight, which only managed to penetrate the few gaps between the buildings. Flags hung limply in the stagnant air: symbols of the nation whose heart lay within the acres of surrounding concrete and steel.
We queued up outside the New York Stock Exchange, where a “man with a hat” was handing out free entry tickets. Entering the building, we were escorted up to a lift and along several passages to a museum on the functions and history of the Stock Exchange, and then on to a glass-fronted viewing area. Below us, the mice scurried. People in service of the machine, nameless, faceless, useless, working hard to produce nothing more than a mass of used paper, left over at the end of each day’s trading. Leaving the ants to their hill, we walked back out into the canyons and down to the Staten Island Ferry.
Boarding, we set off across the deceptively blue water of the harbour, leaving the jumble of Manhattan to disappear in the brown haze that filled the air. At the bow of the ship, a clear and refreshing breeze rolled over us, and we passed the Statue of Liberty, presiding over to the entrance to the Promised Land, over Ellis Island, where for decades the poor huddled masses of the world arrived to begin new lives in America. We waited aboard the ferry over at Staten Island to avoid paying the 50-cent return fare and crossed back over to Manhattan.
CurseOfTheTraveller 