"The next stop is: Penn Station," a robot announces with a monotony that could never reflect the excitement that wells up inside you. In 120 minutes you've been transported from sprawling suburbia into one of the world's greatest metropolitan playgrounds. You've just arrived in New York City!
Nancy: This probably better describes how I felt, this being my first nibble of the Big Apple. Steff had visited several times prior.
This was how we first came into NYC, from Stony Brook via the Long Island Railroad. Given the distance and the cost of visiting the city from Suffolk County, Long Island ($47 for both of us, round trip), we only saw the city on three separate occasions: as a visitor on the train, as described above, as passengers in a car, and as temporary residents.
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| Some guerrilla street-art |
The car ride into the city was perhaps the single most terrifying and nerve-wracking experience of the last ten months. We would never recommend that a New Zealander attempt to drive on Manhattan Island, because he or she would never get anywhere. We can see our hypothetical Kiwi motorist now, indicating (or signalling, depending on your country of origin) and wondering why nobody will let him/her in. This driver might die waiting for a gap. When we rode into the city, our driver was a competent, experienced New York driver, but that didn't save us from dozens of near misses as we crossed the Queensboro Bridge, to a chorus of honks and curses. It wasn't that we were driving recklessly--New Yorkers live their daily lives to an unending serenade of car horns (hypothetical New Zealand motorist: "That's rude!").
On our third foray into the city, some friends very kindly allowed us to stay in a recently vacated apartment of theirs, which overlooks Central Park. This allowed us to play at being locals for almost a full week. Of course, there was no way we could ever pass as real New Yorkers--they're far too well-dressed.
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| The view of the park from the apartment |
And here are our findings, from our three urban excursions, dutifully reported back to you, readers:
New York is dirty, smelly, loud, busy, and tremendously exciting. As to what is exciting about the city, we, like thousands before us, couldn't quite pinpoint it, although we did try. It is an inexpressible energy that surrounds the city's landmarks and residents. The intense murmur of a rich and scandalous history lies in every street, in every sight, in every old building, in every neigbourhood. It is a city of so many people, with so many stories to tell, so many pulses beating simultaneously, so much life. We don't want to say "you had to be there", but, well...you have to be there. The city is separated into several different areas, although every list we've found defines these neighbourhoods differently. We'll look specifically at the ones we went to.
Greenwich Village:
And how could we not go, given its incredible literary and musical history? "The Village" is central to the writings of (among others) Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs, Capote, and Dylan Thomas. Some of the biggest names in jazz (from Ella to Coltrane) played in Greenwich Village, and many major artists started out or got their big break here (artists like Simon and Garfunkel, James Taylor, Joan Baez, Stephen Stills, and Bob Dylan, to name a few). We found that the area is nowadays mainly populated by hipsters ("indie kids", to our New Zealand readership). Ironic moustaches abound in this tidy, arty neighbourhood.
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| This particular hipster is unable to grow his own facial hair. How marvelously ironic! |
While in Greenwich, we visited the Stonewall Inn. Again, how could we not visit what is arguably the birthplace of the gay liberation movement?
Astor Place and St. Marks Place:
We visited Astor Place primarily to see the Blue Man Group perform, but we took our time and explored the area while we waited for our 8 p.m. show. What we found was a great big cube perched on one of its corners, in the middle of the street. It is an art instalment. We had been told that it can spin on its perch, but we suspect that this is just a dirty trick played on tourists to make them look stupid. We saw several such tourists from Japan, heaving, shoving, and pushing with all their might, and snapping photos in between, but alas, the cube did not budge. Readers, answer us this: does it actually move, or is it a huge practical joke on tourists?
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| The cube in question |
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| Cable-tie art on Lafayette |
Chinatown and Little Italy:
Chinatown is the most population-dense area we've ever failed at walking in in all our lives. There are simply so many people that one must drop one's head and charge aggressively into the madding crown. We had the best Chinese food ever at Wo Hop, and were very discreetly approached by elderly Chinese women selling "real Louis Vuitton" purses.
Little Italy lies just north of Chinatown. It is an odd experience walking from Little Italy into Chinatown, because very little divides the two neighbourhoods. One minute you're in Europe, the next you're in Asia. Go figure.
West Side:
On the West Side of Central Park is the Museum of Natural History. Nancy had never been, and it didn't take long for her to see the appeal. For one thing, it's filled with ex-animals! We also visited the Dakota Apartments, the site at which Mark David Chapman shot John Lennon. It was exciting, in the way that historical landmarks are exciting.
Upper East:
One Sunday morning, we woke up in "our" apartment and walked down Park Avenue to find a place to have breakfast. We only ordered bagels and coffee, but we lingered for almost an hour in the cafe, watching the poeple meander past, which we found to be an excellent way to spend a morning. They were immaculately dressed and accompanied by every breed of dog known to man. All the stores were extremely expensive, so this was one of the only forms of entertainment that we could afford on the Upper East Side.
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| Nancy outside the Guggenheim |
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| Steff on Park Avenue |
Times Square/Broadway:
Times Square, despite being one of the most populous areas of the city, was almost completely devoid of New Yorkers. We checked it out briefly before we stopped in at FAO Schwartz, spent far too much on over-priced candy, and sugar-highed our way down Madison Avenue in childishly high spirits.
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| CANDY! |
And of course, Steve Jobs had just died. New Yorkers paid tribute at the Apple Store.
Financial District:
We had set out looking for the Occupy Wall Street protest the morning after oggling at wealthy people on Park Avenue. Unable to find OWS, we gave up and went in search of the WTC site instead. On the way, we quite unwittingly found ourselves standing in front of Zuccotti Park. We spent a good part of the day there, chatting with protesters. OWS was a peaceful protest attended by a huge number of people, and the protesters we spoke to were intelligent, well-spoken, and very clear in what they were standing for. The vast majority were "normal" people: elderly people, middle-aged people, nurses, construction workers, teachers, (ex)businessmen, families, and so on. They were not the violent, hippie, vagrant, criminal, or brain-dead protesters that the mainstream media were (and still are) portraying. A friend working for a major news network in New York noted to us that footage of the more ignorant protesters is deliberately picked out of hours worth of filmed interviews from OWS.
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| These entrepreneurial protesters would spray paint messages on anything you brought them. It turned out to be an especially lucrative arrangement for the "I [heart] NY" t-shirt vendors in the square. |
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| This woman was knitting for peace. |
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| The People's Kitchen |
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| A sing-along |
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| Protesters embellished this statue. The sticker on the briefcase reads "don't tell me the skies [sic] the limit when there's footprints on the moon. #OWS" |
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| The new "Freedom Towers". A work-in-progress. |
Never mind, we thought, we'll check out the visitors' centre...Or not. There was a line of people outside the centre waiting to join another line of people inside. And with an armed guard at the door letting people in two at a time, we decided to spend our time elsewhere...
Like at Battery Park, to see the Statue of Liberty. Here it is.
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| Keep looking, it's there. |
What left more of an impression, perhaps, than the famed Statue, was the fact that we lost each other. To date, we had spent eight months together on the trip and had managed not to get separated. And where did we break this trend, with one phone between us? New York City. We like to aim high. A panic-stricken hour ensued before we were reunited, again accidentally.
New York City was, undoubtedly, an incredible city. There are myriad activities to partake in there--in spite of this, our favourite activities were walking, people-watching, and singing. Singing, you ask? There's almost a song for every street in New York. And, being the tremendous music nerd that Nancy is, she has made a Google Map showing the songs we sang, and where we sang them during our stay in the city that never sleeps. We are completely aware of how geeky this is, but we're going to post it anyway, because that's just how we roll. Here it is, in all its nerdalicious splendour: Nerdy New York Music Map
Until next time, readers. And now that we have Internet access, "next time" should be sometime within the next 24 hours.
The Quest Quotient by Nancy Howie and Steff Werman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at thequestquotient2011.blogspot.com.
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