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An adventure: A day trip to Staten Island

Today is the last day of the 2005 Labor Day Weekend. For all none Americans: Labor Day is a national holiday which is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers.
That basically means that I had a long weekend starting with a short Friday (the last short Friday where Magnum closed at 1 p.m.), ending with a Monday off.

I had a great weekend. The weather was wonderful throughout the entire weekend. It was sunny and hot but it wasn't humid which even made the midday hours bearable. I didn't really know what to do Friday evening and was assessing of whether to go out or stay at home. I ended up turning some relaxing music on. I listened to "Freundeskreis" which means circle of friendship. "Freundeskreis" are a German band, they do a mix of Hip Hop and Reggae and sing in 4 different langages. Esperanto, German, English and French. You might want to check out "Freundeskreis" on Amazon.
Anyway, so I turned that music on, laid down on my bed and started to drift away... I got a lot of sleep that night which made me well rested for the following day.

Saterday morning I met Irene, another Magnum intern from Mexico. We took the ferry to Staten Island and got on the bus to go all the way down to the end of Staten Island. We were on the search for an old ship yard another co-worker told us about.
The bus drive took pretty long, about an hour and a half probably but it was an interesting ride. We got to see a lot of Staten Island which is again totally different to the rest of New York. You somehow have the feeling not to be in the city anymore. It's totally suburban with a lot of one family houses, a front porch and tons of American Flags flying. There seem to be some rich areas and a lot of middle class areas. I also got the feeling that the majority of people living there is white. Someone told me that Staten Island is known for it's racist infringements but I don't know if that's true or not.

After arriving at Arthur Kill Road and Roosville Avenue we stood in front of a long fence which environed a scrap yard at the water front. We went along that fence and found a small stream which dug a hole underneath that fence just big enough to crawl through. Alright, the adventure can start... We got inside that scrap yard and saw the old ships lying in the water behind a small hill. We walked around a little bit and tried to get on the other side of that hill to get closer to those ships. Unfortunatly there was a lot of water between us and the ships... We should have tried to get in at another spot which would have led us nearer. Still an interesting surrounding. All those half sunk old rusty and damaged ships which offer a new home to all sort of birds and other animals. We have been sitting there for a while and decided to leave when we heared voices nearby. See a satellite image of the ship yard on Google.

Out again we went inside a Saloon to have a drink and eat something. Man let me tell you. Totally western style with some Harley Davidson bikers having a couple of drinks and playing a video game where you hold a rifle shooting deers. The food was good. Strengthened after lunch we continued our exploration of Staten Island and kept on walking on Arthur Kill Road. Visited an old cemetery, talked to a guy who was flying an old US Flag on his front porch which only had 31 stars in it and suddenly stood in front of a prison. Actually it's not called prison in North America but Correctional Facility...

We then took the bus back to the Staten Island Ferry station to get back to Manhattan. The light was wonderful at that time. Warm and rich. Back in Manhattan Irene left to meet somebody and I stayed near the ferry station to take a couple of photographs in that great light. A good and interesting day with a lot of new discoveries. I enjoy these days of just walking and looking around so much!

Posted by Martin Fuchs on September 5, 2005 09:09 PM