October 19, 2010

Another lazy morning and another round of eggs on a roll at Martinelli Bros. Things often take time in a family of 5 and when 3 family members needed to go do the big do in the restroom just as we were heading out we got delayed by 30 minutes.

In other words, departure at 11:30am today.

Initially we had planned to go to the Bronx zoo, but given our delay we decided it was better to do something else today. We headed for the southern part of Manhattan.

I took the role as map reader as we searched for the famous bull statue close to Wall Street. After a while I was confused and stopped to figure out where we were. A couple of minutes of checking and rechecking street names later a nice guy dressed as a hotel portier or something similar came over to help; “So, Mr. Navigator, where do you want to go?” I explained our goal and he pointed to the large bull 20 meters behind me on the other side of the street…

This reminds me of the two big map reading mistakes I have made in my life. I’ll tell you about one of them now. If enough people ask I might tell you about the other one. I was heading to Belgium by car together with a Danish friend many years ago to celebrate New Year’s Eve with some Belgian friends (Hi, Peter!) . I was the map reader and had brought a map of Germany and a map of Belgium. On the map of Germany the highway we were going to take crossing the border  was clearly marked with the name of the city we wanted to go to next in Belgium. Likewise the map of Belgium had an arrow marked with the right city in Germany. All the distances seemed to make sense and the contour of the countries matched. So, when we got to the end of my German map and my friend said “There is a border coming up” I was never in doubt when I with much self confidence proclaimed “Yes, we are going to enter Belgium now.” Seconds later we passed a huge sign saying “Welcome to the Netherlands!” I never regained his trust as a map reader after that. It turns out there is very small strip of the Netherlands sneaking it’s way in through Belgium and Germany. How was I to know?

Oops, carried away again,

We stopped briefly by the NYSE and used the opportunity to explain to the kids what a stock exchange is. They boys already knew, but a little refreshing doesn’t hurt. Did you know that the concept of shares (part ownership in businesses) dates back to old Mesopotamia?

Next was Ground Zero. We headed over to what is now a very busy construction site.

Norwegian newspapers have misled me to believe that the new site has been designed by the Norwegian architecture firm Snøhetta, but research today has made me realize they have only drawn one of the smallest buildings, the museum. This is what the site will look like when it is finished:

We didn’t know where the visitor center was and as we arrived at the site we decided to walk in an anti-clockwise fashion until we found it. 356 degrees, over a kilometer and many decibels later we did find it.

It was very special to be at this site.

I have my own memories from what happened back in 2001. I was preparing to start a board meeting I was going to lead as we heard the news of the first plane. On the conference call we had several US board members. I remember the rumors of 6 or even 7 hijacked planes. I remember the fear in the eyes of a US friend living in Norway who had a father working at a US nuclear plant.

It was hard explaining what had happened to the kids and I kept trying to hide the lump in my throat all the time. I must say that the visitor centre was very well done. They had a movie showing what the twin towers were like before the incident. Then there was a movie about the cleaning work right after the disaster. The expo was full of pictures of people and small personal objects that had been found. There was a lot of focus on the people, the victims, their relatives and their individual stories.

After much emotions and many questions that needed to be answered thoughtfully we continued walking and had our lunch in City Hall Park. This guy wanted some of our lunch, but he didn’t get any:

With renewed energy we found our way by foot to the Brooklyn Bridge. A fascinating piece of engineering.

Here’s a view from under one of the towers:

I have a full text copy of Wikipedia on my phone at all times and I don’t know what I would have done without it. Today it made it possible for me to read up on the Brooklyn Bridge during our subway ride downtown so I could explain the history behind it to the kids. Fascinating story. The bridge was an incredible feat in its time and a symbol of a new era. It was the longest suspension bridge in the world, 50% larger than any other. The bridge was overconstructed by a factor of 6 (built 6 times stronger than what was calculated as necessary). Its original designer, John A. Roebling, died before construction could start. He died from tetanus after an accident while he was inspecting the construction site. His son, Washington Roebling,  then took over. He got decompression sickness while diving as part of the work to construct the two towers holding the bridge. He was paralyzed and his wife, Emily Warren Roebling, took over supervision of the project. She had been trained by him in mathematics, material strength, bridge specification, cable construction etc. She was the only person visiting her husband during the 11 years she in practice was responsible for construction of the bridge! During the inauguration ceremony Abram Stevens Hewitt said that the bridge was “…an everlasting monument to the sacrificing devotion of a woman and of her capacity for that higher education from which she has been too long disbarred.” This remarkable woman is unfortunately not even mentioned on this plaque at the bridge.

After the bridge we let Adrian lead the pack as we headed towards the only Games Workshop store in Manhattan. Those of you who have read about Adrian on our “About” page will know that assembling, painting and playing with miniatures from Games Workshop is one of his passions. Here he is in front of the store:

This manual is apparently not available in Norway yet. Picture taken for you, Sverre. Iseline is not very impressed.

We were all pretty tired after having walked a considerable amount of kilometers. We considered walking around Greenwich Village, but the look on Iseline’s face ruled that out. It was time to call it a day and get back to rest those sore feet.

It has been a day of much noise. Manhattan is not a place for tranquility and listening to the wind whispering silently in the trees. I had a clustrophobic sense of being imprisoned by noise at the end of the day. Construction work is very noisy, cars are very noisy, the subway is insanely noisy. If you try to escape indoors there is always noisy music or noisy people. I think the only place I have been that is noisier is Las Vegas.

Time to turn off the ears and dream about calm Norwegian forests.

See you around, folks.

Eirik

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