Ridge Caples

Mr. Waltman

English Composition

22 February 2019

My First Trip to New York City

On a cold, cloudy November day, the entire tour bus full of bleary-eyed, tired high school

sophomores were just starting to recover from their 15-hour road trip. We had driven from the

quiet suburban town of Shaker Heights, Ohio. We drove through the Holland Tunnel and when

we left the darkness, we were greeted with the sight of One World Trade Center or “Freedom

Tower”. The sight was significant in the fact that the tower dominated most of our view. On first

glance, the view was astounding; we had simply never seen so many skyscrapers before. The

glow of the Empire State Building glinted in the distance. Our first stop on this tour was the

recently built 9/11 Memorial. We were given roughly an hour to explore the memorial. A couple

of my friends and I glanced over the engraved names of those who died in the attacks. I

remember solemnly looking over the reflection pool of where the towers once stood; honoring

those who died there. Many of us left with heavy hearts, being impacted experiencing the

memorial. For me personally, visiting the memorial itself was significant in its own right.

Although I didn’t know anybody personally who was killed in the attacks, there was a certain

emotional “heaviness” around the memorial as if you could feel the grief in the air of those who

died that day. I had also come to learn a handful of my friends had, unbeknownst to be, lost

relatives that day. It was an emotional few hours, and the impact it had on the entire group was

significant.
 After visiting the memorial, the tour group traveled north along Broadway. We briefly passed

through Chinatown and soon made our way north towards Midtown. We were scheduled to tour

Rockefeller Center, but before that we stopped at Grand Central Terminal along the way. At the

train station that connected almost every subway in the Tri-State area, we ate expensive meals at

the many restaurants and marveled at the sheer amount of people we saw at the station. We heard

loud speakers announcing when the trains we’re leaving where, the majority of those in the

station seemed to be preoccupied with themselves; looking at cell phones, talking on cell phones,

others were aggressively making their way through the crowds, desperate to get to their

destination, ignoring others. After visiting the terminal, we made our way out on the street

towards Rockefeller Center. Just witnessing the sheer amount of people was incredible, since we

all came from a quiet town in the suburbs. The noises of car horns, people talking loudly, police

whistles, and the dull humming noise of the subway below us were the sounds that accompanied

us on our walk towards Rockefeller Center. Everybody walked with a hurried, rushed pace as if

time was of the essence. Along the way, there was always the constant droning noise of traffic no

matter where we went.

We arrived at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, and were soon greeted by a tour guide who lead us through

the Saturday Night Live set, the capacity for the audience was surprisingly small as the guide

gave us a brief history of the show and its contributions to American television. Towards the end

of our tour we were able to witness the studio where NBC Nightly News is aired live each night.

It was a dark, small room that projected out towards literally hundreds of cameras. The guide

explained the procedures Brian Williams (the host at the time) would do each night to prepare for

the thirty-minute live taping of the news show. Our entire group then got the opportunity to visit

the Observation Deck in the NBC Studios building. It was on the topmost floor of the building,
and had a clear view of the entire Manhattan cityscape, including the grassy expanse of Central

Park, the high-rise office buildings of Midtown, the Freedom Tower in Lower Manhattan, and

the faint image of the Statue of Liberty glinting in the distance.

The last leg of our tour was not actually any formal plan at all, but rather we were free to

explore Midtown, including Times Square, the rest of the day. Our high school class spilt up into

our own social groups, having dinner and shopping at overpriced stores throughout Midtown.

Later in the evening, we had an opportunity to see the glowing lights of Times Square. To a first-

time observer, it was truly an incredible sight; seeing the glowing tower of the square illuminate

in the night sky was a marvel to see. Many of my classmates commented on how they felt they

were on “top of the world” seeing the thousands of lights emanating from the skyscrapers.

Overall, the trip was truly an incredible experience. It was interesting to get a different

perspective on the ways of a life in such a large city, since all of us were sheltered growing up in

a quiet, comfortable town in Ohio. Some of us even experienced some culture shock coming to

such a different place. New York has a certain lifestyle of its own that few other cities in

America can match. The trip was a life-changing experience for me personally especially

because it gave me the opportunity to travel to places, I probably wouldn’t be able to see in the

future. Throughout most of my life our family had never ventured much outside of Ohio,

therefore traveling more than five hours to go anywhere was alien to us. The entire trip drew our

small sophomore class closer together. I became closer to my friends throughout the trip,

learning more about their personal lives; sharing things about themselves I didn’t know before.

Back at our hometown, we would spend time with each other during school and on the

occasional weekend. But this five-day trip was different; we were together all the time and in

that way our bonds grew stronger.

 The progression of this draft from beginning to end was relatively easy to figure out. The

significance of the event still lingers with me to this day and it wasn’t difficult in deciding what

the topic of the essay would be about. Initially, I was only focusing on getting enough detail put

through on describing my images and trying to come up with specific dialogues during the trip

proved to be a challenge. The biggest success with this assignment was describing the impact the

trip had on me socially. I truly believe that my friendships grew as a result of this trip and it

brought all of us closer together, getting to experience traveling to a strange new place we

weren’t familiar with. At least once in someone’s life, people should venture outside of their

hometowns they grew up in during their childhoods and experience new places and cultures.