Here's the second part of Declan's New York Diary

click here to see Declan's report from Wall Street

The best free ride in this city - in fact, probably the only free ride - is the ferry from Manhattan to Staten Island.

Staten is one of those bits of land that come between Manhattan and the Atlantic Ocean.

Ship-bound emigrants to America at the start of the last century would have passed it even before they reached the Statue of Liberty.

The island is one of the five boroughs that make up New York City, so is meant to be an equal partner, but it's so little regarded by Manhattanites, they don't even bother to look down their noses at it.

By and large they just ignore it. It's not a rival like Jersey or Brooklyn; it's just a suburb, and it's also its dustbin - Staten stores Manhattan's rubbish in its landfill sites, and is home to one of the world's biggest dumps.

In the City that never sleeps, even the landscape keeps changing.

All of which gives it an unfair reputation. Staten Island is also one of New York's lungs. It is overrun with trees and open spaces. I'm told it's an ideal spot for outdoor pursuits, hiking and mountain-biking.

And its free ferry gives you one of the world's best-known views - the Manhattan skyline from the bottom of the island all the way up to mid-town. All for just 25 minutes of your time.

But you can see something else from the ferry deck.

Across the river from New York, there's the state of New Jersey. And it's looking mighty busy. Right now, there are several new towers being built on Manhattan's neighbour and rival - and the intention is to take paying customers away from New York.

Leaving Manhattan

Moving to Jersey is something many companies have already done, and it's something many more have threatened to do.

The rents are cheaper than downtown, and the union laws less rigid. That's the thing that always surprises people about New York - it's the citadel of global capitalism, but has some of the toughest, best-organised and least-flexible labour unions on the planet. For many bosses, Jersey seems a managerial paradise.

In recent years, the squeeze on office space and the high rents in southern Manhattan have sent businesses scurrying in all directions.

Some moved further up the island to mid-town. Some defected to the other New York boroughs of Brooklyn or Queens. And because money talks loudest of all over here, there were no sacred cows. Even the New York Stock Exchange was said to be planning to move out of Wall Street, until it was offered a deal to stay put.

And as well as sparking a building boom on Jersey, the squeeze spurred some clever building work at the very tip of Manhattan. Right down by the river, there's a massive new office complex called the World Financial Center.

It's home to share market giants like Merrill Lynch. The atrium between the different towers is so large, it was able to house some sort of World Orchid Tournament (yes, the flowers - I just happened to walk into it). And all of it is built on reclaimed land.

It's quite a feat of modern engineering; where years ago there was just sea and sludge, there's now a village of mammoth buildings.

Add that to the re-development of the piers along the edge of the island, and you've got a view that the immigrants of the last century would not be able to recognise in this one. In the City that never sleeps, even the landscape keeps changing.