New York City

I recently went on a trip with my group from Uni, around 50 of us let loose in the middle of New York City. We had an amazing time and came back with stories that I will never get tired of telling. I don't know if it was just the jet lag but at first I wasn't that excited by New York, as we walked around on the first day I felt as though it was just another city and feeling almost like I was in London. As time went by the city grew and grew on me, I think it really kicked in on the second night when me and Declan got the Subway to Brooklyn to take some photos. The view of the city at night from across the river was incredible and it started to feel real, the following day a small group of us went on a mission and without really planning too much we had an epic day. It started with a walk to Central Park which was covered in snow and so much bigger than I expected, then we headed down 5th avenue and checked out some of the shops. Along the way we went to Rockefeller Center and took the elevator to the top, The view of the city from 70 stories was unbelievable in all directions, seeing the Empire State Building and the city rolling back behind it left me pretty speechless. It was surprisingly peaceful up there and we spent some time sat on top looking out and it made me think back to the disaster of 9-11 and how it must have been on that day, so we went from there to Grand Central Station to get the subway to Ground Zero. I'd heard stories from a couple of years ago that when you get there its strangely quiet but I didn't think that was the case when I got there, I know that this is a result of the new development taking place and its amazing how the city appears to have recovered and is moving forward. It was surreal to stand there now and believe what I know to have happened there, we went into a store there and looked at the plans for the new buildings and memorials planned and also listened to some emotional stories and tributes. After that we stopped into a bookshop on our way back to the hotel and also managed to find a bar with buy one get one free beers and a replay of Man UTD Vs Newcastle from 1996 on the telly, too perfect...

 

Mixed in with this were some really cool visits to places such as The Museum of Modern Art, The International Center of Photography, A talk with Win Initiative who are an Image Library based in Soho and also a Live project from Resource Magazine. The University really did pull out all the stops and organised a fantastic trip for us, these are some of the photos I took whilst I was there.