Liberty was better.

I went with my then girlfriend, she knew a couple in SoHo that had a spare bedroom for us. Happened to be in the same building where Gregory Hines lived. Hines invited any residents of the building to his rooftop penthouse to watch the fireworks that ringed lower Manhattan. Most awesome fireworks ever... I don't think there was ever a better display before or since. Also there was the parade of tall ships and the re dedication of the Statue Of Liberty... we did the sailing tour out to the Statue of Liberty and back.

The couple that invited us also gave us a tour of their office on something like the 90th floor of the WTC where they both worked. I have no idea if they were still working there or not 15 years later... I hope not.

One of my fondest memories of traveling to NYC.

even though I didn't know you.

My family is having a discussion about the accuracy of our memories.

We sat in the section reserved for police and firefighters on the East River in the 30s and lay on a strip of grass with fireworks going off over our heads. Felt like I was on hallucinogenics while fully sober. I’d never been a big fireworks fan (went to Disneyland and local SoCal displays as a kid) but the NYC experience was mind blowing!

Watched the tall ships come in from my 38th floor cubicle. We used to watch the QE2 sail down the Hudson then through the harbor, and thought it was a pretty large ship. Until - we saw the aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy come in for the celebrations just as the QE2 was sailing out. The carrier absolutely dwarfed the QE2 as they passed each other - it almost made it look like the ships boat. The fun was seeing this carrier get turned around in the Hudson by the tugs - it almost spanned shore to shore.

I went to the office the night of the big fireworks show, and was able to look DOWN at them as they went off. I'll have to see if I can dig out some of the photos I took that night. It was a great show, from an amazing perspective.

(The building was at 130 Liberty Street, and it was the big black building that wound up with a 24-floor gash down the front when the South Tower of the World Trade Center, which was right across the street from us, came down. It had large flag and then a black cloth covering it for several years until the insurance was settled, then it was deconstructed floor by floor, since it was so tight in the neighborhood that they couldn't do a regular demolition. I had left there in 1992, a few months before they set the truck bomb off in the WTC garage.)