This morning I woke up early to exercise and heard a loud BAM! I looked out our front door and saw a little sparrow, its mouth gaping open and closed, open and closed. After maybe three or four seconds, its mouth closed and didn’t open again. I went outside, picked it up, but it was dead already. I love birds – and all wildlife – and it was such a sad way to start the day, holding a bird that has just died.

But fortunately for me, I got to see the other side of the life cycle today as well. This morning my meandering took me to 55 Water Street (check out their webcam accessible from that link) – the 14th floor to be exact, where a family of Peregrine falcons have been living and had hatched four baby birds. This morning was their turn to be banded so that they could be tracked and cared for over the course of their life.

I arrived at 55 Water Street around 9:45 and before too long we were on our way up to the 14th floor. Right away, I noticed that it looked familiar, a gigantic room full of loud noise and humongous equipment…then it hit me. I had been up here before when we set up the Wi-Fi for the Elevated Acre (where I got to go out on the ledge through a small crawlspace – that was fun and scary!).

Once again I was with my colleague, Jason, and he leaned over to me and said, “Here’s your meandering, walking through all of these passageways.” We essentially were walking through the nooks and crannies of the 14th floor, moving through small hallways, climbing through raised doorways until we came to the corner of the building, where the falcons nest was located.

When we got there the folks from the New York City Department of Environmental Protection’s Wildlife division got all harnessed up and stepped out through the crawlspace out onto the ledge to grab the mother so she wouldn’t hurt them in her desire to protect her young. While we couldn’t see until he grabbed her, we could hear her screeching at him. But when we saw her, whoa, not only was she gorgeous, but she is one fierce bird. At one point she almost took off a piece of a woman’s hand.

Once she was settled, they started bringing in the babies, all fluffs of white and brown feathers, with no idea of what was happening. They were much easier to handle and each of the four was placed into a separate box. After all of the babies were brought inside, they were brought downstairs to a room filled with a large brown table, laid out with the necessary tools, surrounded by reporters and photographers.

The gentleman overseeing the care of the birds laid each baby bird on a towel before his colleagues and then went to work. They checked for feather lice, for earworms, for any problems with their mouth, how their wings were, and then they banded them. The birds screeched throughout, but probably more from the chaos and people than any actual pain.

Then we wound our way back to the 14th floor, through all of the nooks and crannies and found ourselves at their nest once again. They released the baby birds back into their nest and got out of there before the mother could get too angry with them. Check out our other pictures on Flickr.

Considering how my day started, it was even more amazing to stand only inches away from these incredible, powerful, birds, seeing the life they had, the future ahead of them, and all of these people committed to their health and safety.

It was a great way to spend my morning in Lower Manhattan.

At the Skyscraper Museum: A photograph of the rooftop testing track of the Fiat Lingotto factory in Turin, 1916-23

A colleague, Jason, and I walked out last week to take some pictures. But it turned out to be a meandering because we covered almost every single corner of our district.

It started simply enough. We wanted to change the home page image and wanted to take a picture of an exhibit at the Skyscraper Museum. We left our office on the Pine Street side, walked over to Rector and then headed down Trinity Place to the pedestrian bridge over the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel entrance. We continued on to Battery Place and ambled along until we curved up to the museum.

Unfortunately, I forgot to check when they are open — and on Mondays, they are not.

Incredibly, we bumped into someone who works there outside the museum, and she was kind enough to help us gain access to some pictures they have of the exhibits. One down, two to go.

Next up was the African Burial Ground National Monument. We walked up West Street along the bike path, which Jason called the best bike path in the city. We crossed over through the maze of cars coming out of the tunnel, and then up to Rector where we made a right and then a left on Trinity. We walked through Zuccotti Park, because I like the illusion that we’re walking through nature (and because the greenmarket opened there on Tuesdays so I can start getting my weekly supply of delicious apples).

Then we walked up Broadway, out of our district, past City Hall, all the way to Duane Street where we made a right. In all my years of being down here, I’ve never seen the African Burial Ground and it is a pretty powerful monument.

African Burial Ground National Monument

We snapped some pictures, which you can find here,  and remarked on what a unique location it was.

Two down, one to go.

Now we headed over to Peck Slip, the part of the district I know the absolute least because I have spent almost no time up there. We started down Centre Street (which turns into Park Row near City Hall) and made a left onto Spruce, drawn by the captivating ripples of the new  building going up at 8 Spruce Street, a 76-story residential tower designed by Frank Gehry.

Frank Gehry's 8 Spruce Street

As we got closer and closer, Jason and I marveled at it, the complexity of the design, how neither of us would’ve wanted to be the project manager on this building. You absolutely could not put a piece in the wrong place. We probably spent 20 minutes taking pictures and admiring it from different angles. It is the tallest residential building on this side of the Atlantic Ocean (870 feet) and already has an elementary school in it (as well as incredible amenities such as a golf simulator on the 6^th floor).

After we returned to the office, we uploaded our photos, which you can find here. I shared them with colleagues — and even with my wife and kids, I thought they were so cool — and  I realized two things.

One, in the excitement of the Gehry Building we completely forgot about another place we wanted to photograph. (We had to go out another day). The second thing I realized was that I took some pride in the fact that one of the coolest buildings built in the last 50 years in this city of incredible skyscrapers was built right down here in Lower Manhattan.

Today I left our building on the Cedar Street side with a mission: I needed to get tickets from the TKTS booth at the South Street Seaport because my wife and I planned to celebrate Valentine’s Day a week late by seeing a Broadway show.

I made a quick right towards Nassau and walked up a short block before I made a right onto Liberty, which then merges into Maiden. It was my first snow-free look at the new Louise Nevelson Plaza. Originally, there were a couple of buildings on the location that were destroyed to improve access to the World Trade Center. This particular photo is interesting because it looks like the building was right on that triangle where the plaza now stands.

What I didn’t know is that Louise Nevelson was a woman (thus Louise and not Louis) and a sculptor who lived (and died) in New York City. Those are her sculptures around the park! I had no idea!

But I was on a mission and couldn’t stay too long. I continued walking along Maiden and passed Gristedes and was reminded that when I first started working down here we didn’t have any supermarkets.

In case that wasn’t enough to get the point across about the district’s changing demographics, I then passed by 100 Maiden Lane to see a dad at 10:45 AM helping his little girl on her tricycle. To me, the rapidly growing residential community’s contrast with the brisk workaday environment is one of the more interesting facets of Lower Manhattan life.

As I made a left onto Pearl, a right onto John, then crossed Water Street, I really began to notice how much this area has changed since I was last here. It was my first look at the new Imagination Playground and it was unlike any play space I had seen before. After all, not many playgrounds are designed by famous architects like David Rockwell, like this one was.

Had I ever seen a playground down here? I don’t think so. I watched the kids running around, missed my own, but marveled that you could live down here, walk to a playground and play and then hop on a subway to anywhere. It certainly wasn’t always like this, that’s for sure.

I had a long time to wait on line before I could buy my tickets, but I did and got two tickets to see Colin Quinn’s Long Story Short for Saturday and a lovely romantic evening with my Sweetie. Mission accomplished.

(By the way, did you know you can buy matinee tickets for the next day at the Seaport TKTS booth? That way my wife and I didn’t have to waste our time tomorrow standing on line. You can’t do that in Midtown!)

My next meandering will be in Florida, but since I’m a nice guy I won’t tell you about it, though I am probably enjoying the pool with my kids while you read this.

I’ll see you when I get back, but in the meantime, where should I go next time?

My Lower Manhattan Meanderings is a way for me—and you—to get to know Lower Manhattan a little better as I pick a direction and write about what was interesting along the way.

Today, I decided I was going to start walking north. Our building, 120 Broadway, is cool because it has four exits, one for each direction, because it took up the entire city block (and caused some issues as well). Another cool thing about our building is because of its H-like design, I can look out a window to see outside into another window in the same building and even see out their window on the other side of the building. This is fun when it is snowing (as has happened once or twice this year), because out our window it looks like it is snowing up (like Lucy told Charlie Brown) because of the wind tunnel, but through the building on the other side it is clearly coming down.

Fortunately, today it isn’t snowing, but it is cold. Again. After I left the building, I headed north, up Broadway. I walked past commercial and residential buildings (I wonder what it must be like to live in a building that used to be commercial, but is now residential? Did you know that the two other locations I worked at in Lower Manhattan have converted to residential. They were 99 John Street and 20 Exchange Place. But we can talk about residential conversions another meandering)…

Instead of continuing north, I made a right onto Maiden Lane because I used to come here all of the time and hadn’t walked down the street in a while (I used to have a favorite pizza place on Maiden). I walked past what for many years was a vacant lot, but is now a Holiday Inn with the Federal Café actually located on the spot where the lot used to be. It is amazing how old this area is and yet they are still able to build new buildings while maintaining the historical significance and uniqueness of the area.

Of course, right before that hotel is that tiny, slightly scary alley off Maiden Lane called Liberty Place. I’ve walked up that many times, but that day I didn’t and instead crossed Nassau Street and passed the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

For a long moment, I imagined what it would be like to get my hands on some of the 7,000 metric tons of gold bullion supposedly stored in their building (that equals about $270 billion with a B).

Somehow I kept moving and despite how cold it was, the sun was blinding and I could barely see where I was going and actually started walking up the handicap ramp entrance to the building on the opposite side of the Fed because I really couldn’t see. It was only the slope of the ramp that told me something was not right and I had to turn around and get back on the sidewalk.

It wasn’t too embarrassing.

When I found my way again I noticed the fountain in front of 59 Maiden Lane, which was completely frozen and interestingly beautiful. I continued walking through the plaza at 59 Maiden Lane with its wide space, brick flooring and benches, covered in snow. Another really nice place if—I mean, when—the weather gets warmer.

I came out at the middle of William Street and walked across to Platt Street. Down the street I saw the Libertine’s chalkboard sign standing outside with the following words “Warm up in the Libertine.”

If you believe it strong enough, maybe the warmer weather will really happen sooner rather than later.

That would be nice.

In the meantime, maybe I’ll see you walking down the street meandering along. If you see anything I should check it out, just e-mail me at jschneider@downtownny.com.