South Ferry station is the downtown terminus of the train. It is built on a very tight curve - you can only get out from the first few cars and they have these extending platforms to cover the gap. These three imaages show the platform extended - note two yellow strips and …

here is the platform retracted.

An hallmark of the New York subway is the lines of pillars close to the platform edge arising from they way they do cut-and-cover. This is Fulton Street station on the and lines.

An exception to the cut-and-cover construction had to be used at Washington Heights which include the highest natural point in Manhattan at 81 metres (265 feet) above sea level. So the platforms here at 181st Street station on the tunnelling construction was used. The line is reached by "three massive elevators" and and we have a wide space free of pillars.

Clearly the subway builders were not familiar with deep tube building techniques. There was a fatal accident during construction in 1903 and in 2009 an eight metre long section of the brick lining collapsed.

And even here, if we look in the opposite direction along the platform, they have reverted to their beloved pillars.

But by the time we get to Dyckman Street the subway has become overground.

World Trade Center 1 lurking behind other buildings seen from Battery Park

Emma Lazarus wrote The New Colossus, a sonnet which appears on a plaque in the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. It includes the words: Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
To get us in the mood, they force us into an huddled mass waiting for the security screening which is almost as strict as airport security.

Picasa's pathetic attempt at stitching together four images of downtown Manhattan

Windows Live Photo Gallery's superb bit of stitching. The new One World Trade Center is in the center.

These crude dog outlines at the foot of the pedestal are pivoted to move about in the wind and in fact are very effective at scaring away the seagulls

This rather sweet mini fire truck is stationed within the terminal because ceiling heights especially down at the platforms would not allow a regular truck in.

One of the few sensible things that Americans do is talk about "track" numbers not platform numbers.

++++ use Draft:Steves & Sons. Link to more similar from previous US trip.

Dump no waste - drains to waterways, ie. to the Hudson. See message cast into the plate at the bottom of the photo. Compare with "no dumping" photos in other parts of the USA.

As well as being at full capacity, they are worried that the present bridge may collapse because it was built on the cheap and uses the same style as a bridge in Minneapolis which collapsed in 2007.
The location of this bridge was chosen because it was the closest they could get to New York City without the bridge coming under the Port Authority who would have demanded the tolls. Compare with the Thames where the City of London's control of the river extends a long way up and downstream from the city.

Officially Sing Sing Correctional Facility. Americans still cling to the notion that prison can correct people. They bang up 478 per 100,000 of their population — three and half times the European rate.
I found this undated image on this web page. Curiously, I need to flop it to get a very close match to my image:

The telephone poles nearer to the tower are gone but the lattice towers carrying various railroad cables seem totally unchanged.