It’s 4th of July in Jersey City, and the city is bustling.
Streets are closed, police are posted, and you can only enter prohibited areas with your vehicle if you can prove residency to get to your home. Wyclef Jean performs at 6 pm, and it’s looking like we’re out of the weeds when it comes to thunderstorms and rain.
Jersey City and stage performers are free to give their all.
As new Jersey City residents, we are doing our best to explore all that the area has to offer. We are starting by walking all the streets of New York City from bottom to top.
First on our list was the Financial District of Manhattan, and we went over to the city this morning for a few hours.
For a nice half day of walking, these are some great highlights to see in the Financial District, with a touch of the Tribeca neighborhood, too:
- 9/11 Memorial & Museum
- World Trade Center Oculus
- New York Stock Exchange
- Federal Hall
- Fearless Girl Statue
- Charging Bull Statue
- Bowling Green
- Stone Street
- Fraunces Tavern
- The Battery
- Battery Park City Esplanade
- Brookfield Place Shopping Mall
- Tribeca Neighborhood
- Ghostbusters Headquarters
The southern tip of New York City offers visitors food, parks, and amazing views of Jersey City across the Hudson.
It is a vibrant area for those interested in history.
Global history has been made and changed due to circumstances and events that have played out on the land now, the Financial District—from the 9/11 terrorist attacks to Alexander Hamilton’s founding of the Bank of New York and the birth of the New York Stock Exchange.
Although often turbulent, we can thank our American financial system and the people behind it for being the pillar it is for the world, which relies on us to make much of our human activities happen.
Table of Contents
From Communipaw to PATH’s Grove St Station in Jersey City
To get to New York City from our apartment in the Communipaw area of Jersey City, the first step is to make the 20-minute walk to the Grove St Station in the heart of JC.
We don’t mind the walk, as it’s our chance to let our dog go to the bathroom before he’s put in his side sling and taken on the PATH train.
Today, the weather wasn’t too hot, and not over 90, but we still set off at 9 am to get a decent start on the day.
Now, the PATH system (Port Authority Trans-Hudson) is wholly fascinating.
As a major bloodline from New Jersey’s biggest cities, Newark and Jersey City, into New York City, it’s been operating for over 100 years and is a marvel of engineering.
The PATH trains are an almost 14-mile rapid transit system that allows you to get from Newark/Harrison to Jersey City, to Hoboken, to World Trade Center in New York City, or all the way up to Midtown to 33rd St. In an almost horrifying fashion, the PATH tracks are in cast iron tubes that sit on the bottom of the river, so you’re literally speeding along on a train inside the river. It’s wild!
In Jersey City, you can catch the PATH trains at three stations:
- Journal Square
- Grove Street
- Exchange Place downtown at the waterfront
We made our nice, easy walk to the Grove St station, as it’s closest to our apartment, popped Turtle Dove into his side sling, and down into the underbelly we went.
Once you climb down the stairs, the Grove St station is pretty straightforward and small, and you’ll just wait for the train that’s labeled to your destination. If you’re heading to Lower Manhattan in New York City, be sure to hop on a train that says “World Trade Center,” and when heading back to Jersey City, you’ll get on a train that says “Newark.” If you want to get northward, you’ll want to grab a train that heads to Hoboken, and then from that point, you can travel up to 33rd St, getting you directly to Madison Square Garden and the tallstanding Empire State Building.
For ticketing, single rides are $2.75, and you can grab a pay-per-ride MetroCard at any of the vending machines right at the entrance of each PATH station gates.
Since we use PATH often, we also have their PATH SmartLink cards, which you can order online, which enables us to link the cards to an online PATH SmartLink web account, and pay for and refill our cards online.
On the PATH system, small dogs and cats can travel on the trains if they’re confined in a carrying case. We use the side sling pack to have full control over him and haven’t had any issues with attendants asking us not to ride.
As for the smell, being underground before you get onto a subway or PATH train always smells a bit like the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland. That’s the good part, mixed with a bit of gym smell. That’s the bad part.
9/11 Memorial & Museum + World Trade Center Oculus
After you jostle and jolt down the tracks (basically exactly like a subway), you get to the World Trade Center right quick, walk up the stairs, and you come out on top in the World Trade Center Oculus itself.
The Oculus is a new architectural highlight in New York City that stands in the complex; the large, white building of spiny spikes along its peaks. Above, light gleams through openings between the spines, sitting like an iceberg cap, with a hive of subways and rail lines below, zooming throngs of people to wherever they need to go in the city.
Visiting ground zero for the first time can be a humbling experience.
This was probably the fourth or fifth time I’ve been in the area, and it’s both somber and exciting.
The new One World Trade Center rises high and proud into the sky.
Art is displayed on nearby complex buildings, families speaking languages from far buzz around in awe, and water pours endlessly into the depths of each of the footings of the two once-standing towers of the World Trade Center.
We paid our respects for a few moments and then continued on our walk southward through the rest of the Financial District.
Wall Street and Broad Street: New York Stock Exchange & Federal Hall
From the 9/11 Memorial and World Trade Center complex area, you can take Cortlandt St eastward, turn right, head south, down Broadway, and then do a little left-hand turn onto Wall Street once you see its little alley sign.
It’s like a little Diagon Alley, the entrance to Wall Street.
But, before you get onto Wall Street, don’t forget to ooh and aw at the Trinity Church sitting on the corner.
Once on Wall Street, you’ll walk down into its rolling cobbles to the intersection of Broad Street and Wall Street. This, right here and surrounding, is one of my favorite areas in New York City. There’s something so full-circle and surreal about the future-forward New York Stock Exchange shadowing Federal Hall, where George Washington signed and was inaugurated as our first President of the United States—and where you see how deeply intertwined our financial and political powers lay.
The buildings are also so very tall in the Financial District, and quite impressive.
The sun doesn’t shine strong, and it’s very dark and shadowy. Like Gotham city, and its streets are sometimes empty and dreamlike on weekends, when the many financial workers are shoveled away hiding in their apartments sprinkled throughout the surrounding areas.
Every once in a while, if you’re a stock photography buff like myself, you’ll catch a glimpse of Peter Michael Tuchman, at the entrance of the New York Stock Exchange, taking pictures with fans. He’s that man you see in photos of the stock exchange in media, most often, with wild, white hair, yelling into the crowds of fellow traders.
Fearless Girl & Charging Bull Statues
Across from the New York Stock Exchange is the Fearless Girl statue, who in full bronze, facing with confidence the halls of power before her, standing as a representation of gender diversity in the workplace.
After you wander down Broad St for two blocks, you can make a right on Beaver, and right on Broadway, and the Charging Bull statue will be right before you.
The Charging Bull is gigantic and looks like it weighs about a million pounds because it just about does.
At over 7,000 pounds, it’s always worshipped by a constant crowd of people, at least any time I’ve ever visited. I’ve never waited in the line to take a picture with it, but always laugh at the people taking pictures with both the bull’s front and “back” bull parts.
Ultimately, the Charging Bull is supposed to represent financial prosperity and optimism.
Bowling Green to Fraunces Tavern via Stone Street
Once you fill your camera’s memory card with a gaggle of photos from the Fearless Girl and Charging Bull statues, you can take pause at the little circular Bowling Green park that sits right behind the Charging Bull in the traffic triangle.
Bowling Green is New York City’s oldest public park, dating back to 1733. It sits right in front of the National Archives at New York City, the US Bankruptcy Court, the Federal Transit Administration, the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles, and investment firms. To also note, the Bowling Green subway station headhouse dates back to 1905 and is quaint and stunning, with Celtic-esque adornments and masonry.
Take a pause with the locals on one of the benches, and then hop down Broadway to Stone St, where you’ll dance on the cobblestones to Fraunces Tavern.
Now, Fraunces Tavern has a special place in my heart, as I’ve been there before, and it’s also where George Washington headquartered, negotiated peace with the British, and where he bid farewell to his men and offers, and gave cherished, personal words to each.
The inside of Fraunces Tavern is exactly what you’d hope it to be. Coats hang at the entrance, tight passageways and unknown corridors take you to quaint corners or large dining halls, with a bar below, and museum above. And yes, once more, this is an “oldest” when it comes to bars in New York City.
The Battery & Battery Park City Esplanade
Once you’ve had a drink or two if feeling extra merry, at Fraunces Tavern, you can hightail over to The Battery for the beginnings of a walk through waterfront parks with gorgeous views of the Upper New York Bay and Hudson River.
At the Battery park, you can visit the Korean War Memorial, Coast Guard Memorial, East Coast Memorial (WWII memorial for Atlantic casualties), and the Castle Clinton. The Castle Clinton was built after warfare times, and peace had already come with the British, so it’s had many uses—from military admin office, to beer garden and entertainment center.
If you need a bathroom stop at this point in your walk, I found the Battery Park public restrooms at the north end of the park were clean, large, and doors weren’t locked.
Now, this is where you’re free to leisurely walk down the Battery Park City Esplanade all the way to Rockefeller Park. It’s just simply so beautiful. With cityscapes across the Hudson River of Jersey City (and our little community of Communipaw to the left by Liberty State Park), you walk past the North Cove Yacht Harbor, Pumphouse Park, delicious-looking restaurants like Mezze on the River, Esplanade Plaza, and more.
Don’t forget to stop into the Brookfield Place shopping mall for a quick snack or shopping! I grabbed a yogurt parfait and Evian water. Not the biggest fan of Evian water, but I was thirsty.
Listen to the waves, watch runners zip by, boats sailing in the harbor. It’s those little moments in life where I breath in the air and rest my mind for a moment, that I realize how precious it is to live.
The Irish Hunger Memorial by Rockefeller Park is also worth a visit, built with stones from all the counties of Ireland, and paying homage to the lives lost during the Irish famine.
Tribeca Neighborhood & Ghostbusters Headquarters
After we rested long enough at the waterfront, we cut east to make a stop at the Ghostbusters Headquarters.
Firehouse, Hook & Ladder Company 8 is an active firehouse, with exterior shots used for the Ghostbusters movie franchise, and chosen as Dan Aykroyd was familiar with the building and area of Tribeca. Fans also raised money to have a Ghostbusters sign displayed year-round outside the firehouse.
Once we got our pics, we began our short walk back to the World Trade Center area through the Tribeca neighborhood.
Now, it seems to me that other than the Tribeca Film Festival (helmed by Robert De Niro), if you aren’t living in one of the luxurious apartments or renovated townhouses in the area, eating at one of the nice restaurants, or buying art, there aren’t too many reasons to visit, but the area is worth walking through to view its beautiful architecture and brownstones.
Did you know? Tribeca is short for “Triangle Below Canal Street.”
Also – residents of the Tribeca neighborhood include Taylor Swift’s multiple properties and $20 million penthouse, Mariah Carey, Meryl Streep, Jay-Z, Robert De Niro, and Jake Gyllenhaal.
Now I’m wondering, was that illustrious baby grand corner piano in a highrise condo…Taylor Swift’s?
Getting Home: World Trade Center PATH Station Back to Jersey City
At around midday, we tucked back into the Oculus, like retreating bees to a hive or mothership on a hot summer day, and grabbed our train back to Jersey City.
As mentioned previously, if you’re at the World Trade Center Station for PATH, the trains will say “Newark” when heading back to New Jersey.
Now, I’m finishing up some photo editing and wrapping up this blog post, and then it’s off to Liberty State Park this evening to catch fireworks views of the Hudson. This year, we’re excited to have fireworks on the New Jersey side of the city instead of on the East River.
I sit here, appreciative and thankful for the PATH system, allowing myself, husband and small pup, have access to New York City for a full day, at the small cost of only $11.
The Financial District in Lower Manhattan is worth visiting in New York City.
As someone who loves history, there are a lot of “oldest” marks in that area, and I highly recommend making it a priority to spend at least a half day meandering through the streets in the area.
Plus, from the Battery Park City Esplanade, you get the best view of my hometown—Jersey City!
Want to take this same 4-mile walking path through the Financial District of Manhattan in New York City yourself?
Use this link on Google Maps to view a customized map of the 4-mile walk. If you don’t stop, the walk will take you one and a half hours, or plan on the walk taking you three hours if you take your time, take pictures, and enjoy a more leisurely pace.
