J Is for the J Line

City Hall at night

There are a lot of subway stops near New York City's City Hall. One way to get there from Queens, Brooklyn and the Lower East Side of Manhattan is to take the J line to Fulton/Nassau and that's what we're doing tonight. The J line starts in Jamaica, Queens, stops at JFK Airport and then goes through Brooklyn. It continues to the Lower East Side to Fulton Street and then ends at Wall Street.

Whether it's violet and pink...

 



Or blue and green...

 

The newly rebuilt Fulton Center is a great sight. Actually the Fulton Center is a transportation hub not only for the J line, but for eight other subway lines. After part of the downtown subway complex was destroyed on September 11, the maze of winding halls and stairs that was made up of five subway stations built in the first part of the Twentieth century was merged into one new transportation center that is connected underneath lower Manhattan. Above ground there are shops and restaurants in a beautiful glass and steel setting. After over a dozen years of construction the complex opened in 2014.

 

The Fulton Center is crowded during the weekdays, but during the weekend it's one of my favorite places to stop in for a snack or coffee when I'm in Lower Manhattan. I promise a post later in the year with photographs of the interior and snack recommendations.

 

      

Across the street from the Fulton Center is one of the best scenes of old and new New York. One World Trade Center is on the left and surrounding the steeple of St. Paul's Chapel. St. Paul's is part of the Parish of Trinity Church Wall Street. It was opened in 1766 as part of Trinity Church (which we'll visit as part of another subway stop). After George Washington took the oath office in 1789 at Federal Hall just a few blocks away the new President of the United States went to a service at St. Paul's. Despite its closeness to the World Trade Center St. Paul's was undamaged. It served as a center of the relief effort for first responders and volunteers. I worked about half a mile south of the Chapel at the time and I remember passing it many times. The iron fence around it were covered in posters people had put up of their loved ones.

We're going back to the Upper West Side for our next few subway stops on our A to Z Blogging Challenge. No hints this time -- let's have a little suspense -- but I think we're going to have fun.

As ever, thanks for visiting. We finally had a spring day here and I hope you did, too!