18 New Jersey Seashore and Boardwalk, Long Island, Jersey City, Manhattan, World Trade Center

August 8 Monday

We stayed overnight last night in Eddystone, PA just south of the Philadelphia International Airport and Philadelphia, so we could visit with two customers near here this morning.  First we visited with UTC Overseas in Eddystone where we met Pat Edger and Kara Sunderland.  Then we stopped to see Benchmark Export Services in Essington where Scott Hoffman and Mike Smith gilled burgers for lunch.  We do transloading and local pickup and delivery work for UTC and Benchmark.  We didn’t do any sight seeing in Philadelphia and just passed by on our way to Manalapan in Central New Jersey to visit with David Zhao of Jilin Company, for whom we provide warehouse and distribution services.  After our visit with David, we continued east on NJ State 33 to Ocean Grove on the Atlantic.



Beautiful day on northbound I-95 nearing Philadelphia



Philadelphia skyland in the background. 

No, I’m not related to David  - former place kicker for the Philadelphia Eagles.



After getting to the coast at Ocean Grove we turned north and kept to the street closest to the beach. 



Asbury Park Casino and Carousel

A genuine boardwalk.

What's a corker?



wipeout



Continuing on our way north on the Atlantic Coast and then west towards NY.

We stayed here in Leonardo, NJ on State 36 before going into NY in the morning.  The manager recommended Vicci’s Pizza a few miles away for local Italian, and we really enjoyed it.

August 9, Tuesday

We left the motel about 930 for a 1:00PM meeting in Valley Stream, NY near JFK airport on Long Island – about a 60 mile drive.  We allowed 3 hours for the 60 miles, and we were pretty close to on time for our meeting witih Margy Klayman and Charlie Castelagna of Alnor Oil Companyl.  Alnor is the leading U.S. supplier of a worldwide variety of imported and domestic vegetable oils, all from renewable resources. .

State Route 36 in NJ on way to the NY.  NJ has lots of divided highways with concrete dividers no left turns or U turns and we learned about “jug handle” turn system, which seems to be unique to NJ.

We went right to Perth Amboy

Bridge to Staten Island

Outerbridge from Perth Amboy to Staten Island in the background  - $8.00 toll welcome to NY.

Richmond Parkway crossing Staten Island

On Staten Island

On Staten Island

Notice how it’s starting to cloud up after our sunny morning start.



Verrazano Narrows Bridge – toll $13.00




Trying to take pics of Manhattan skyline in background.  Plenty of rust in the foreground.  A little deferred maintenance?



Verrazano Narrows Bridge looking back from

Long Island Belt Parkway

interchange



Partially obscured sign says Welcome to Brooklyn “How Sweet It is”



 Still have never been to Coney Island.  Next time?

Our destination is just past JFK Airport after coming around the eastern edge of Long Island

We left Alnor in Valley Stream about 2 to go to Rochelle Park, NJ to meet our customer UTC Overseas.  It was clouding up and started to rain.  We traveled via the Belt Parkway, Cross Island Parkway, Throgs Neck Bridge, Cross Bronx Expressway, and finally, the George Washington Bridge.

6 miles to the George Washington Bridge

 behind this guy all 6 miles

Finally  -- it took 1 ½ hours to go the 6 miles

 lower level George Washington Bridge

still on othe bridge

It took about 4 hours to go the 32 or so miles from Valley Stream to Rochelle Park to visit UTC Overseas, so we got to UTC’s NJ office about 6, where we met Maria Cocoillo andYC Khoo and had a tour of the office.  ESNA arranges drayage and other transportation for UTC customers in Los Angeles/Long Beach and other ports around the country. We also do transloading and onforwarding for UTC at our warehouse in Fullerton.  We went for a wonderful dinner with Maria and YC at the River Palm Terrace Restaurant in Paramus, NJ.  As it turned out, Maria and YC are also Fritz Companies alums, but I did not know either of them when I worked for Fritz. 

After we finished dinner and got in the VW to go find a motel/hotel for the night, we discovered that the headlights were not working -- again -- after several hours of rain during our drive.  It had been light more or less as we drove in the rain, so I didn’t pay any attention to whether the lights were working or not.  It’s not as if I could have done anything about it anyway.  So, we tried the Hyatt Place Hotel right next to the restaurant, but they were fully booked.  This was the first or maybe the second time that a hotel or motel was full when we looked for a room, but no big deal.  We got back on SR4 and went to a Ramada Inn we had seen near UTC’s office.  We called first to see if they had room.  No problem and they gave us good directions to find them.  It was less than a mile, so not too much drama even without headlights – our emergency blinkers worked.

August 10 Wednesdsay

The rain has passed.  I replaced the fuse for the headlights, and we have a bright, sunny day for a 20 mile drive west to Livingston, NJ this morning to visit Berliss Bearing.  Berliss manufactures roller bearings and also imports and distributes bearings.  We met with Daryl Rubenstein and Darin Vogt  -- I hadn’t seen them since we first met in Los Angeles and started handling their warehouse and distribution business about 10 years ago.  Berliss was one of ESNA’s first customers.  Darin took us to lunch at the Ritz diner – somehow this was our first meal in a “real” diner even though they are all over.  The variety of choices is just short of overwhelming, but we managed.

From Livingston we drove back to Jersey City, which was about 20 miles, to meet John Vischio, who manages the NJ customs brokerage operations for CH Powell, an international logistics company.  (We first worked with John to handle a project for LEGO retail stores.  We also did some transloads for another customer of John’s and arranged intermodal truck/rail transport.)  John’s directions to his office were to go toward the Holland Tunnel but to not go into the tunnel.  We were to turn off the highway into the downtown waterfront area at the last exit before we got to the tunnel.  Well, all along the highway there are signs pointing to the Holland Tunnel, but they don’t say how far, so we were a bit anxious about getting trapped in the traffic being funneled to the tunnel.    We were stopped at a traffic light and looking at our map that didn’t quite have enough detail (no GPS for us) when a fellow in a pickup truck next to us asked where we wanted to go.  We told him and he said follow me.  He led us off the highway just before it entered the tunnel, and he took us almost all the way to our destination.  People are nice everywhere in our experience.  Again.

approaching Jersey City



 we followed the pickup truck – downtown Jersey City just ahead – and followed him off to the right

After visiting with John until about 5:30, my next stop was Manhattan to visit River Trading in Manhattan.  Reyna didn’t want to make the trip on the PATH train under the river from NJ to NY to the World Trade Center station with me.  It’s been 20 years or so since my last visit to Manhattan.  First challenge was to figure out how to buy a ticket at the station.  Once again the kindness of strangers as a young woman saw me puzzling out how to use the ticket machine and offered to help.  Next thing I knew I had a ticket in my hand.  Thanks.  Then I needed some instruction on where to put the ticket to get through the style.  Boy am I out of practice.  Thanks again young lady.  Fortunately, I was going into Manhattan at 6, so against commuter rush and not too much in the way of the locals as I was busy being a tourist.

Coming up out of PATH station into Manhattan – lots more people headed down to the trains and home.





The new One World Trade Center building right outside the PATH station

 Even thought it had been 20 years or so since my last foray into Manhattan I still thought I knew where I was going when I came out of the PATH station and set off to meet River Trading at their office on Broadway.  And there was evn a sign for West Broadway right in front of me when I came out of the station.  How could I miss?  Well, I was on West Broadway just like the sign said, but West Broadway does not become and is not Broadway.  I gave up and called River Trading and went back to where I started at the WTC Path station where I managed to rendezvous with Vincent Kong with the help of a few more cell phone calls.  We went back to River Trading’s office to meet his brother Raymond.  Vincent and Raymond trade in scrap materials.  We pickup from their suppliers, and then load containers for export.  Vincent and Ray took me out for cocktails and hors d’oeuvre at Les Halles Downtown, which is one of Anthony Bourdain’s restaurants.  I like Anthony’s travel/food show "No Reservations" and enjoyed his restaurant too.

WTC at night

Not so busy at 9 at night.

I got back over to Jersey City and Reyna and I headed south on I95 toward Baltimore where we had a date for tomorrow to go to the Crab Fest put on by the Propeller Club.  We stopped around midnight – not sure where now.