New York trip 2009

On arrival at school at 4:15am on Tuesday, 12th May, 20 excited students and 2 members of staff boarded the coach to Heathrow to catch our flight to JFK Airport New York,

Once we had checked in to our hotel The Hotel Grand Union situated in Midtown Manhattan, we set out to explore the local area until the time came for our evening visit to New York’s tallest building the Empire State Building. We took the lift to the 86th floor where on the observation deck you can see the amazing views of NYC for miles around.

Early the following day we took the subway to Wall Street in Lower Manhattan and walked to Battery Park to take the Ferry to Liberty Island to visit the Statue of Liberty. On the way back from the statue the ferry stopped at the Immigration Museum on Ellis Island where, between 1892 and 1954 over 12 million people arrived at Ellis Island from other countries in search of freedom and new economic opportunities in America. After Ellis Island we took the Ferry back to Wall Street to walk through this famous financial district. We saw the New York Stock Exchange and stopped to pay our respects at Ground Zero where they are now building a monument. To end the day we took the subway to Canal Street and walked through to Chinatown stopping then at Little Italy for something to eat.

On Thursday, we had a Business Studies workshop and tour of Macy’s the world’s largest store looking at merchandising concepts, visual techniques, marketing and recruitment. That evening we all got dressed up to go to Times Square and Broadway where we ate at Planet Hollywood and saw the brilliant show Mary Poppins.

On our last day we took the subway back to Times Square to end our trip with another Business studies workshop and tour of Madame Tussauds before heading back to the hotel to get our coach to JFK for our evening flight home.

Overall a very tiring but exhilarating for days!