A Tour of New York City

Pat and Jan

Waitress performing in Ellen's Stardust Diner

The Empire State Building is our backdrop.

The Wall Street revolt is actually smaller than it appears on TV. It is in one small park, and our tour guide told us the crowd changes every day. When we walked by, it was rather quiet. There were many TV equipment trucks on the perimeter.

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First off on our tour of New York city was breakfast at Ellen's Stardust Diner - about 2 blocks from our hotel. All 33 of us walked to the restaurant and were immediately seated at reserved tables. There wasn't anything that "special" about the restaurant - not fancy at all - but after we were there a little bit, we could hear someone speaking, and then he was singing - beautifully. He was one of the waiters! He performed a fun song, and then proceeded to take orders from customers. Minutes later, another waiter took the microphone and sang while walking through the aisles. Wow, were they good! Turns out, every waiter and waitress were "wanna be" performers on Broadway. This was really fun!

Our bus picked us up after breakfast and we headed south out of Times Square. We traveled through Greenwich Village, SoHo, China Town, and eventually to Wall Street (Yes, we saw the bull and the protesters in the park near Wall Street.) and the area around the World Trade Center. At this point, we got out of the bus and walked a bit to the entrance of the 9/11 Memorial Fountains.