JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC

If you read yesterday’s post, you know Patty and I spent part of last week and this week in Manhattan and on Long Island. (I promised a second set of photos from the trip, and I’ll get to those in a minute.)

One thing that struck me was that once you get out of Manhattan, you can be in a relatively normal residential area in half an hour or so. For people not used to it, the transition is kind of mind boggling. Granted, those outlying residential areas are a lot pricier than Kansas City (and many other U.S. cities), but you can find normalcy and feel like you’re nowhere near hustle and bustle of Manhattan.

In the case of our friends Tom and Cheryl D’Antonio, they have lived for decades near Northport Village, about halfway out Long Island. (Shelter Island is near the easternmost tip.) Their house is on Northport Harbor. Their deck affords an idyllic view of the harbor and the boats either moored or tooling around in it.

For Tom and Cheryl, it’s a long haul into Manhattan, where Cheryl works and Tom used to work before retiring from the garment wholesale business a few years ago. From Penn Station, Cheryl takes about a 75-minute train ride on the Long Island Rail Road to the Northport Station and then drives another 10 or 15 minutes to her house. Having always been an urban dweller and worker, I couldn’t take that, but they have gotten used to it. Plus, as the driver who took me to the airport the other day said, “Once you get out here, it’s worth it.” He lives in nearby village of Huntington.

Almost all Long Islanders who live on or near the water are very serious about boating. That includes Tom, who was such an avid boater while he was working in the Garment District that he now has a business maintaining boats for clients and helping people buy boats.

Before I get back to photos from Manhattan, here are three related to Northport and boating…

This is a 50-foot-plus boat — a Vicem (pronounced Vee-Chum) Classic — that Tom maintains for a multimillionaire client. The boat is worth about $1.5 million, and the owner pays Tom very well to keep it in tip-top shape. Tom got to borrow it on Sunday and took us for a ride in Northport Harbor.

That’s Tom at the controls. Notice the gleaming wood interior and the fine leather bench behind Tom. The boat, made in Turkey, has two bedrooms and two “heads” (bathrooms).

Patty (left) and Cheryl. Surprisingly, this was Cheryl’s first boat ride of the summer…Now that her husband is taking care of other people’s boats, he doesn’t have much time to drive either of theirs.

Now back to more photos from Manhattan…

This is one of two reflecting pools at Ground Zero. The pools are on the sites of the former World Trade Center buildings that were brought down by terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001.

The new World Trade Center

This is the exterior of the Oculus subway station, which replaced the World Trade Center station that was destroyed on 9/11. The $4 billion Oculus station, designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, consists of white ribs that interlock. It is meant to represent a dove in flight.

This is the interior of the Oculus station, which includes a mall on the main level.

You see commemorations of 9/11 elsewhere in New York, such as at this fire station on 8th Avenue. The sign above the engine at left says, “Engine 54, Ladder 9, Battalion 9 wants to thank everyone for their support.”

A subway station near Greenwich Village

In the Village

On Bleecker Street

One of the landmarks in the Village is The Stonewall Inn, site of the Stonewall riots of 1969, which, according to Wikipedia, “is widely considered to be the single most important event leading to the gay liberation movement and the modern fight for LGBT rights in the United States.”

The day we were there, National Park Service rangers were putting up a tent in a park across from the inn.

Here’s another notable monument — the 16-foot-tall statue of George Washington in Washington Square Park.

Bidding goodbye to New York, I took this photo Tuesday morning from the deck of Tom and Cheryl’s house.

Oh, what a beautiful morning…and what a great trip.