I was standing on a high bluff in Weehawken New jersey looking across the Hudson at the most spectacular view of the New York skyline I had ever seen. The sun was about to set and the soft golden light presented the scene in what seemed more like a painting than the reality of the moment. Ferry boats in both directions navigated the wide waterway of the Hudson in route to piers along each shoreline.

I tried to imagine the number of people that were packed into the buildings and streets of such a large city. The pictures I had seen of New York in the past had never showed the true dimension and land mass of the multiple Burroughs that stretched endlessly in both directions. I wondered if the people living on this side of the Hudson took this view for granted as they went about their daily routines.

There was a ferry pier directly below where I was standing with a large metal stairway with over 15 landings fastened precariously to the approximate 200 foot drop to the banks of the waterway. Every so often a person in a rush would disappear from the sidewalk and start descending the stairs, the clanging of their footsteps on the metal stairs fading into the distance with each landing they reached.

The sun sank further below the horizon and the lights from the buildings twinkled in the twilight. It occurred to me that the scene would constantly evolve as the light patterns for each building changed as people within came and went.

I could see the streets of the great city were still jammed with cars, buses and taxis as people presumably struggled to shed the masses for the serenity of their own homes. I marveled at the mechanisms and logistics which accomplished the dance of several million people moving daily between the glass and steel canyons from job to home. It seemed like the relatively uncrowded expanse of the Hudson offered a brief respite as people escaped the clogged streets and sidewalks on their journey home.

I was amazed that such a large boisterous city did not swallow the New Jersey shoreline with a barrage of noise, but standing where I was looking across the expanse, I could barely hear a sound save the occasional fog horn from the ferry boats that ploughed the waterway of the Hudson.

There is a captivating magnetic pull from the city which gave me a feeling I was missing something and that something could be found within.

The sun sank lower below the horizon and the night sky took on a dark purple hue. The building edges fused into neighboring buildings and the softer edges resembled an impressionist painting. Huge lighted antennas and needle like protrusions soared into the night sky as if to puncture the veil of darkness. As I turned from the scene I was confident that adventures awaited a person who was willing to immerse oneself in the mystique of the great city we know as New York.