Day 60ish: New York City

It’s been a while. Oh...about one third of one percent of my entire life just passed by between blog entries. For the past three weeks I have been staying with my Aunt and Uncle in the Bronx who have very generously let me camp in an upstairs room. My car is on the way to making a full recovery. Luckily enough, the mechanic in Phili found the problem immediately and fixed it for about 150 bucks. It drove fine the second I took it out of the mechanic’s shop but then the very next day my clutch was dying again and needed to be pumped vigorously by my foot to revive it. For the past few weeks I’ve had to continually pump the clutch to get it to work properly. If my left leg is much bigger when I get back then you all will know why.

I’ve been doing almost all my site seeing in the city. See when people say “the city”, they mean Manhattan Island.

World Trade Center area
This was one of the very first areas I went to. It still appears as though a nuke just vaporized the 16 acre lot yesterday. The entire area is completed surrounded by metal chain-link fences which have some opaque sheath attached so that you can’t really get a good glimpse of what actually is going on. There actually wasn’t a huge memorial as I thought there would be. There is a small section on the east side of the towers where the official memorial is. There is a metal overhang shelter type structure and a few posters and a list of the dead that hang on the wall. It’s basically just a few large posters and a list of all those who died hanging on the fence. The re-building of the area is still more than a year away and they are still focused on determining how to fix the foundation. You can go here for more information
http://www.projectrebirth.org/

Wall Street
I’ve always taken an interest in the stock market and headed to Wall Street which is just a few blocks east of the Trade Center memorial. You can’t go inside without knowing someone and came by after the market was closed and so probably didn’t get an accurate feel for the area. The street itself is very narrow and not very long.
Since I have been here I have also decided to go all out in a pursuit to land a job with a large investment firm or hedge fund. My good friend Paul that went to Rice with me just landed a job with a hedge fund and knows the recruiting process very well.


Jewish Heritage Museum
I think the Jewish culture was one of the few that I never came in contact with as a young kid and have become rather curious about their history and especially their success in America. The Jews only represent 2 percent of the American public but make up 10 percent of the US senate, 23% of the wealthiest Americans and 30% of elite college faculty (check here for more facts). This seems pretty remarkable if the numbers are correct. I came here right before it closed at the end of my day and was the sole person in here. The lighting was rather poor and since I was the only person in here I could hear background noises from some video exhibits. It was rather creepy and I did my best to be careful when going up stairs and looking around corners for the unexpected. Seriously, the museum area was secluded far from the lobby down a narrow corridor...

Here are a couple slideshows of some nightlife...yup there is beer pong in bars
here.

I also went to the Bronx zoo...another slideshow below

Ive done quite a bit more, but it'll have to wait