Big Apple

View of the lower Manhattan from the Empire StateBuilding an 102-story iconic American skyscraper located in the Midtown Manhattan.  It was designed in the Art Deco style and its construction was completed in 1930.  It stood as the world tallest building for forty years.

TimesSquare is a major commercial intersection and neighborhood in Midtown Manhattan at the cross sections of Broadway and Seventh Avenues.  It has a pedestrian plaza which is the hub of Broadway Theater District. It is rightly considered New York’s entertainment district.  Enormous ads light up the buildings around the plaza day and night.  The plaza is the place where New Yorkers gather to celebrate the arrival of New Year.    

New York Stock Exchange is located at 11 Wall Street is by far the World’s largest exchange by market capitalization with the value of its listed companies at $16 trillion American dollars as of February 2015.    

The first Trinity Church was a modest rectangular structure constructed in 1698.  The church was destroyed in the Great New York City Fire of 1776 that left thousands of New Yorkers homeless.  A second Trinity Church was build in 1788; but was torn down after being weakened by severe snows during the winter of 1838–39.  The third and current Trinity Church that belongs to the Episcopal Diocese was finished in 1846 and at the time of its completion its 281-foot (86 m) spire and cross was the highest point in New York.  The present church is a classic example of Gothic Rival architecture and has been designated as a National Historical Landmark.

The Grand Central Station is the busiest terminal in the country.  Its main concourse leads to near 100 platforms and tracks. Its vast spaces are decorated with meticulous attention to detail.  The floors were built with Tennessee marble while on the exterior imposing sculptures or Poseidon, Hercules and Athena are found on the 42^nd street façade.

OneWorld Trade Center is under construction at the site of the original Twin Towers, which were destroyed at the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001.  The Freedom Tower is a 104-story skyscraper that has been completed and is currently the tallest building in the western hemisphere.  Its height is 1776 feet a deliberate reference to the year the United States Declaration of independence was signed.

Ceres

Today on March 6, 2015 the spacecraft Dawn launched by NASA in 2007 reached the dwarf planet Ceres in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. It is the first mission to use ion propulsion to travel the 3 billion miles distance to Ceres.  Ceres was discovered in 1801 by Giuseppe Piazzi. Ceres is so large that it encompasses about one-fourth of the estimated total mass of all the asteroids in the asteroid belt. Today, it’s classified as a dwarf planet.

Ceres is the only one of Rome's many agricultural deities.  The Romans saw her as the counterpart of the Greek goddess Demeter, whose mythology and cult was introduced in the Roman art and literature.  Ceres was credited with the discovery of wheat (Latin far), the yoking of oxen and ploughing, the sowing, protection and nourishing of the young seed, and the gift of agriculture to humankind.

As much of Rome's grain was imported from territories of Magna Graecia, Romans considered Sicily as Ceres' "earthly home".  From the end of the 3rd century BC, Demeter's temple at Enna, served both deities and was considered as Ceres' oldest, and most important cult center.