Familiarity Breeds Content (Fourth Day, Fourth Leg)

We're now strolling through completely familiar terrain, from the Winter Garden of the World Financial Center, past the boat basin and down into the residential heart of Battery Park City.  The sun, coming directly off the water, was blindingly bright.  As Nature Girl was sidelined by illness for this day's journey, the Old Guy was one major squint since he left his sunglasses in NG's car after the last walk. 

Here, the streets of BPC come right onto the path, right next to the water.  Each of the three or four streets have really funky, interesting "art" where they meet the path.  

The "boardwalk," if you will, has a fairly unbroken line of benches facing the water (with clear, if still a bit far-off views of Lady Liberty and Ellis Island).

Given the title of this blog, I'd be totally remiss if I didn't mention the lovely two restaurants that fit snugly and inobtrusively into the landscape here.  There's Steamer's Landing, a small seafood cafe that has decent views of water and more than serviceable seafood snacks like oysters-on-the-halfshell, seafood soups and the like.  Not a great culinary experience, but very pleasant if one is walking this way around lunchtime.  Unfortunately, we were a little early yet for lunch, so on we gaited, past a small, unremarkable Chinese restaurant at the south end of the apartment complexes.  You would think an area like this would have one or two better restaurants.  But, outside of a few that used to be in the World Financial Center, including Waldy Malouf's first restaurant and a great Irish pub that made authentic Irish Coffees (with real heavy cream, poured down the back of a spoon to float on top the coffee -- not whipped and plopped into the coffee).  Both are long-gone and nothing very interesting ever took their places.

Then there's the stretch just south of the highest residential towers that features lower towers facing a landing for smaller crafts in a cunning little alcove. 

Having recently returned from DisneyWorld, this area reminds me of the hotels just outside Epcot around a lake -- one recreating the feel of a Cape Cod resort and the other the "olde" Jersey Shore of old-fashioned boardwalks with "grand dame" hotels of the 1890s (I believe it's called Disney Boardwalk).  Despite the growing crowd of New Yorkers that had joined us on this lovely fall day, there was a tranquility and restfulness that was palpable.

 If you feel like climbing a bit, there's an elevated view of this area on a winding girder structure built into the landscape, surrounded by somewhat surreal-looking bushes, trees and wooden structures.

When the OG and I lived in the Village, this was the southernmost border of the path.  You would have had to walk next to the West Side Highway, back to the broken glass and litter-strewn bike path, to reach Battery Park.  No more...now, you're still walking along the water past newer apartment buildings and a park named after former mayor Robert F. Wagner...

replete with statues (which I believe I discussed, at length, in a prior blog)...

...and this still unknown brick and arch-like structure, atop of which you could walk or sit.

We're now right next to one of the most under-utilized structures dating back to the 1800s...the fire boat dock.

Not used for nearly 20 years, it was where the once ubiquitious fire boats were housed...and it was probably home to the offices to one maritime enterprise or another. 

There were signs about the restoration and new usage of this "clock tower" building that has been a part of the downtown skyline for more than a century.  This also is the start of Battery Park...and just a brief ten-minute walk away from the end of our stroll from North to South, along the Hudson River.