Lower Manhattan - Part 3

I met Tony Di Sante in January 2002. New York City Vacation Packages, the company I work for, arranged several overnight bus excursions into the City for folks in the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton area of Pennsylvania. The plan was to test a new sightseeing tour with these vacationers. We hired Tony, a licensed New York City tour guide, to escort the group to Lower Manhattan and visit not only Ground Zero, but also the highlights of this historic downtown area.

Although I had worked in Lower Manhattan in 1969 and 1970, I knew very little about the area. I do remember watching the construction of the Twin Towers, and I remember seeing a ticker tape parade for the Apollo 11 astronauts who landed on the moon. Other than that, I can only recall how vibrant and lively Lower Manhattan was from 9am to 5pm weekdays, and how quiet and desolate it was at other times.

After the tragedy, however, Lower Manhattan became a "must-see" for visitors. No longer were the streets empty after hours. Especially on weekends, the area around Ground Zero was always crowded. This is what prompted us to offer this new, controversial tour taking visitors from Midtown Manhattan to Lower Manhattan.

The beauty of the tour wasn't in just taking people to Ground Zero. That might have been the original intention, but it became apparent to me that there was so much history and so many stories throughout Lower Manhattan that made the tour interesting, relevant, educational and stimulating.

It was Tony Di Sante who, along with company President Barry Tenenbaum, planned the itinerary to showcase not just Ground Zero, but also St. Paul’s Chapel, the Woolworth Building, City Hall, Trinity Church, Wall Street, Bowling Green and Federal Hall.

Tony’s matter-of-fact style worked well, especially during the always emotional visit to Ground Zero. He would speak to the group at several brief stops after exiting the subway, but once he reached his previously scouted-out location for the day’s best view of the tragic site, he was always quiet.

Not so quiet, though, when he led everyone down Broadway to Trinity Church, then across Wall Street to Federal Hall and a close-up view of the New York Stock Exchange. That’s when the real narrative began – the race to build the world’s tallest building, the site of the City’s first terrorist attack some 80 years earlier, the buttonwood tree, the sculpture that mysteriously appeared in front of the Stock Exchange one morning; then the story of the Hamilton-Burr duel and what it meant to Trinity Church, and how the world’s tallest building in 1913 was paid for in nickels and dimes. All of a sudden the area came alive. Its history, from a Native American trading spot to the inauguration of the nation’s first president, to a virtual skyscraper museum, to the tragedies of 1920 and 2001, was real.

Lower Manhattan has certainly changed in the almost 40 years since I was one of the million or so who worked in that area. The Charging Bull, the Bronze Sphere, the new Sports Museum of America, South Street Seaport, the world’s most unique McDonalds – it’s definitely worth a day or more on any visitor’s itinerary. Especially if you could spend part of that day with Tony Di Sante.

The best resource on the web for planning your next New York City vacation - www.nyctrip.com!

Watch my Travel Agent Training Video - Best of New York - on youtube.com.