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Published: March 11th 2006
A street seller
One of many street sellers in New York - the is one on every corner.After months of hype, planning, counter-planning, checking, triple checking - my first hours in New York were always going to be disappointing. Even though our first day experiences were tainted there were still little things that had already astounded me.
Firstly, as we flew into New York, unsurprisingly nowhere near Manhatten you start to see the differences between the houses. You can see how the suburns spawl as people who have made there money have built their fancy upstate New York places will grandoise back gardens, tennis courts and swimming pools are mandatory.
Then you step off the airport and you a greeted with the sight of an horrendous customs queue - it's not us
it's DC shouts out some attentdent in a big time American accent. This was a thrill to me. As was seeing all the officials looking mean with a uniform that included a belt of all sorts of nasties - including a gun and a tazer.
Myself and Ben were a little delirious and were very eager to venture into New York so we stepped straight into a taxi. I attempted to engage in some sort of conversation with the cab driver - clearly that was not gonna happen - he was from New York and in no mood for conversation.
We kind of sneaked into New York through a tunnel so no real sight of the skyline - as we turned into Bowery Street we saw derelict houses a plenty and we stopped outside one of these buildings and we were dumped out on the pavement. So much for my painstaking research - but still I was mindlessly optimistic that it would be ok inside. This thought quickly vanished from my head as I saw several tramps in the reception area. The reception itself was behind bars, and the guy behind let us see to room to 'let
Times Square
Its Midnight @ Times Square NYC and there is a cop on a horse riding through the crowds us know what we were in for'.
The corridor on the floor we were on was approximately 4 feet wide and there was a series of 20 wooden doors on either side - not dissimilar to what i would expect of the third class quarters on a ship!!! Our twin room didn't have room to swing a cat - but we really didn't care. We went and paid for the room dumped our bags and ventured out.
Instead of taking a bite out of the big apple, my first impressions on the mean streets of New York that its was gonna take a big bite out of me a spit me out. The huge scale of everything, people everywhere - our first hurdle was to somehow figure out somewhere to eat, not an easy task when you are confronted by literally hundreds of options. Streets are wide, the traffic lights are different - we hastily retreated back to our hostel - which seemed more welcoming second time around and went to a jet-lag induced early bedtime.
May 16th 2005 - Clasping the Lonely Planet USA in one hand, DK guide New York in the other and Manhattan and ellis islands
The south - middle end of Manhatten Island. The south downtown is to the right. Mid manhatten (with the Empire State) is in the middle and then Ellis Island to the left. This is the view from the Statue of Liberty. the rough guide USA in between my legs I would venture forth and banish a trying first day behind me. Well at least get a look at the Statue of Liberty!!!
Woke up at 3 am, sweating profussily - no it wasnt those recurring Britney Spears dreams - our hostel was clearly not air-conditioned and crammed to the rafters. But this was, what backpacking was all about. Though i was probably expecting to wait until i got to the South Pacific for this type of experience.
Bizarrely, given the time we got up we actually got down to the southern tip of manhatten too late to pick up the exclusive tickets to go up the Statue of liberty - so we forewent the decision to actually go on the ferry and do the New York harbour thung for the day.
Yes, readers I once again had to deviate from my carefully laid plans. My plans consisted on tactically exploring Manhatten from Bottom to Top (ideally starting at the Statue of Liberty which is at the entrance to the harbour). This meant a tour of the commercial heart of New York/ US/ The world. We meandered around
New York Stock Exchange
Do you think the US is trying to compensate for something with this flag. the East River past the slightly disappointing World Financial Center and then across to the former site of the World Trade Center dubbed 'Ground Zero'.
You cannot shake the eerie feeling of ghosts of 9/11 here and the montage at the front is done well - i hope they finish whatever it is that they are gonna build here soon because the building site is ugly. I wondered before I got here how I would feel about this place - but just being here made me realise the immense effect that the whole 9/11 issue had on New York, the United States and even the world. There is a sense being 3 and half years later of New York attempting to move on but this is a living reminder that all is not right in this world.
The tour continued as we headed across Lower Manhatten to South street seaport via the CBD Lower Manhatten. We saw many important looking people in suits and passed one important business building after another. I guess at the end of the day they are all just buildings - The New York Stock Exchange perhaps being most memorable with a mammoth US
"Ground Zero"
The harrowing former site of the world trade center. Flag draped over it. The South Street Seaport was a little dissapointing though the views over the Hudson river were still fantastic - but a shame you really dont see many boats only ferries shipping people across. A quick bite to eat - and we marched onto the Brooklyn Bridge.
The Brooklyn Bridge - like most bridges built in the early 20th century - was an important and amazing feat of engeneering at the time. After spending all morning marvelling at the skyscapers of Manhatten, we were relieved to be in the fresh air over the Hudson looking back at Manhatten and looking forward towards Brooklyn. But looking at Brooklyn and then back toward Manhatten we decided that there was so much more of Manhatten we wanted to see that we went back into the the animal to seek out some more interesting neighbourhoods.
The afternoon of our first full day sightseeing - took us into five districts that are squeezed between Lower Manhatten and Central Manhatten. First stop, is the amazing sight of Chinatown.
As an interesting sidenote - the bottom entrance to Chinatown is right next where the majority of Gangs of New York is
Little Italy
The three or rour restaurants that is left of Little Italy - New York City set 'Five Points'. It is now largely a childrens playground. Interestingly enough, in the film the Chinese were just beginning to infiltrate New York at that point and today Five Points is essentially in Chinatown.
After wandering around the suits of the CBD, suddenly it seemed as if all of New York had transformed itself into Beijing - everyone around me (apart from Ben) looked as if they were Chinese. At first it is a little eerie - i mean is there some kind of portal or something that as soon as you walk through the entrance to chinatown you are instantly transformed - I went to find my mirror out of my daybag to check I hadn't transformed (heaven forbid) too. The other thing to stricke me was how closely packed it all was - stalls of wierd food and mad chinese jibbering going on all over - it was just bizarre.
But then as quickly as you are in Chinatown you are out of it - we moved through the area known as Little Italy - which actually amounted to 4 or 5 overpriced restaurants. Unfortunatly no mafia gangs (a la Grand Theft auto 3) -
Upper West Side - Central Park
The view of the skyline of Upper West Side over a lake in Central Park New York and very little Italian about the place at all. I later learned that Chinatown had essentially taken over Little Italy and most Italian Americans had moved out to the Bronx etc.
A thought to myself was why had these places sprung up - well more of that tomorrow when I would go to Ellis Island and see the story of immigration into New York.
The next two nieghbourhoods we looked through was Soho and Tribeca - There were loads of Cast iron buildings more like the friends / Seinfield type buildings I thought I would see more of in New York. But other than that not really much to repot here.
Greenwich village was a little more striking - if a little gay - the first thing we noticed was the amount of men holding hands with each other (ich). But it was nice, lots of trees and small nice buildings. Loads of little arty farty cafes - small streets and just a hint of 'village' amonst the spawl of Manhatten.
After a loong first full day we grabbed some cheap pizza and went to bed still a bit jet - laggy and wanting an early
Hans Christian Anderson Statue
Some Statues look much like another - not this one a really good one of the well known Childrens book author start to go to the statue of liberty the next day.
May 17th 2005 - After a frenitic first day, we wanted to take a little more time to apprieciate two of the most striking and symbolic parts of New York. The Statue of Liberty and Central Park. Yesterday we showed up at 'Castle' Clinton (a very unimpressive little fortification surronded by people trying to sell you watches) too late to get the exclusive ticket to get to the top of the Statue of Liberty. Ben and I were determined to do this (the statue) right - so we got there early and queued for the 'Time - out' special. In the queue itself we discovered NO-ONE is allowed to the top of lady liberty anymore - since 9/11 it has been closed. Our ticket gets us a talk from some National Park Service guy and to walk around on the the lower platform of the statue. Still this extra bonus was free and we only had to pay the price for the ferry (which we would have had to pay anyway).
The Stutue of Liberty was a present to America from France (these two
The New York Public Library
One of many iconic buildings on Fifth Avenue New York countries used to be best friends) and it was designed to be a welcome to The US for ships coming in to New York Harbour. In its early days it was no doubt a welcome and uplifting sight for wiery immigrants who had been stuck on a sticking disease infested boat for months. Of course now most people who come in to America arrive at the less personable airports and the first view of the statue is with her back turned towards you - oh well that is a females usual response to me.
The ferry took us around the statue - I must admit my finger was hammering the camara constantly as we took Libertys photo from all angles - and droped us off on the bigger than I had imagened Liberty Island. I had images for some reason, that the statue was mounted on some kind of small little rocky island - i didn't realise there was a military base here as well. We wandered into the base of the statue to get our rather interesting talk by the National Park ranger - he was this Jesus looking like guy who clearly sounded like he worshiped Lady
Roar - the Tyrannasauras
The skeleton (thank god) of the tyrannasauras from the Natuaral History Museum Liberty. He started on about this thing how he would like to sleep with her and stuff it was wierd. Then we wandered up to look from the highest platform we were allowed to get to - which gave us nice sights over Manhatten and the various features of new york. The East and Hudson rivers, New Jersey, Brooklyn and the various islands in the harbour, for example.
The ferry was a round trip - Manhatten - Liberty Island - Ellis Island - Manhatten. So we next went to Ellis Island that proved to be really a place to reflect on what has made New York into the 'monster' of multi - culturalness that it is today.
Ellis Island is where all the immigrants came to be processed on their arrival into the United States. The place now has been turned into an impressive free muesuem - the most interesting thing to me was the graphs showing the amazing number of people that actually came through Ellis Island before setting up in the US. It made me understand what a diverse amount of people live here - and how you get communities like China Town, little Italy, Little
Americana
By the way - not all the water hydrants are painted like this in New York. But i thought this was funny - USA is A O K Ukraine, Astoria (read Greektown) existing. The US, has and still is seen as a place you can make your dreams come true and I guess I will see if that is indeed the case when i get to see it in more detail. It was interesting to see that the majority of immigrants came from countries under a communist regime and of course this was fully commmented on in this muesuem.
In the afternoon we went for a change of tact - it was a a hot day 25 degrees and the sun was out - so we did what any self respecting New Yorker would do went to Central Park. We went into the vast park from the south side and wandered past an in action Baseball park and stopped to have a look. Then we went on one of the lawns and sat back opened a book listened to our mp3 players and zoned out a bit. I took a look around at the type of people that were out - there was lots of sunbathing going on, lots of friends style chicks and young mothers (no doubt wives of rich stock exchange yuppies).
We decided
Staten Island Ferry
The Staten Island Ferry - the biggest bargain in New York - its free in the late afternoon to have a look at mid manhatten - so we walked down the infamous 5th Avenue at rush hour which was quite an experience.
The Collection of buildings in mid-town manhatten are well known to anyone who has watched the various movies set around New York (Ghostbusters, spiderman, the day after tomorrow etc.). You have the Chysler Building/ Rockefeller Center and the Empire State Building which are all impressive awe inspiring buildings. I was also impressed by the New York Public Library. It seems amazing seeing all this stuff in person.
It seemed to take us forever to get down back to the hostel we was actually opposite 3rd street and we started on 51st when leaving Central Park.
Tonight we ventured out to have a first proper restaurant meal, I was actually looking forward to it. I am not really one for nice meals - i am always happy to make do with meat and two veg or something similar. But tonight i fancied something special - we went to this funny Italian place... i could have sworn we had Woody Allen sitting on the table next us.
The meal was ordinary, the staff were extraordinary. Our Waiter was some kind of strange robotic type charactor who clearly did not want to be here, but had very camp like expressions like "Its my pleasure" every time you asked something. You had two other charactors one was an Italian-American who was obsessed by keeping our glasses of water full. At one point me and Ben downed a glass just to see him scurrying quite emotionally to get our glasses back to the full level. There was also this Ukrainian guy who was the take the dishes man, he was also ultra efficient whipping away your plate as you finished your last mouthful.
May 18th 2005 - This was our last full day in New York before we would return to meet up with Adam and Tim. New York clearly had much more than the 4 days we had planned to see it to offer and we were pleased that we knew we would come back again in a couple of months time. Today we felt like checking out one of the measuems and we were eager to see Times Square by night. Although New York is crammed full of big monumental sights (Statue of Liberty/ Ground Zero/ Empire State/ Central Park etc.) it is the little things that help the city go round that amaze me. Again I realise once again that by New York, I mean Manhatten, you must forgive me.
But back to these little things - The Street vendors for one, they are everywhere in there little vans all pretty much selling the same thing coffee, pastries, hot dogs and pretzels - it seems tho' that all are slightly different and quite a few have regular customers and literally have the order ready for there customers as they walk up to the truck. The food isn't really much to write home about, but this is New York (Manhatten!!) you eat on the fly.
Another little thing is the street layout - at the lower end it is not the grid layout i expected more of a European style complex of streets - probably because this is where people first lived on Manhatten. As you move up into Mid-town manhatten you get the numbered streets and avenues. But what really amazed me is how each street and avenue had its own identity. 7th Avenue runs into Broadway at Times Square, 5th Avenue had loads of chic shops, 6th Avenue is named Avenue of the Americas. 3rd Street contains Little Ukraine, just one of a myraid amount of micro-communties on Manhatten alone. John Lennon was shot on 72nd Street and so on and so forth. You can soak all this up by just walking around, just amazing.
Back to the days activity - which was primarly to go to the Natural History Mueseum which was in the neighbourhood classed as Upper West Side (Upper west of Central Park). Unfortunatly a mistake was made on the train and we were dumped off in Upper East Side, we then went the wrong way down the street into Harlem. Though not as extreme as Chinatown - you sense a change of personal again - everyone is either Hispanic or Black. The area is a little run down and a bit scary so we hastily retraced our steps and decided to try and cross Central Park to get to The Natural History Mueseum.
When ever I get an image of a Central Park I think of a large FLAT expanse, with big open spaces and ponds and playing fields . But it seems I am wrong this part of Central Park was most certainly not flat and it was quite a tricky thing to actually cross straight across and we ended up zig-zagging our way through to the other side. I was surprised to dicover that Manhatten was American Indian for Island of Hills - the only remain hills that haven't been flattened are contained in Central Park.
We took a good 3 hours in the Mueseum - it does have lots of cool exhibits - although I was getting a little tired of the whole "Man is destroying it all" message that seemed to be a common theme. I enjoyed the top floor that was full of dinosaur stuff the most - there were several well informed displays about the various skeliton bones on display.
In the evening we went on a long walk to see what New York was like at night. The first thing that got me was the amount of people around at night time - this truly is the city that never sleeps. But also what i noticed was that no-one was drinking or drunk. In England you could gaurentee that 90%!o(MISSING)f the people you would see wandering about at night would be drunk/stoned. There were also very few people under the age of 18 about.
Times Square is a brilliant display of Neon lights, and Broadway with all its thetres looked magnificent. I was tinged with regret that I was not really into the theatre enough to demand to go and see a show during our time here as it is clearly one of the things to do in this city. Times Square is a smaller area than I was expecting - I thought for one (quite reasonably) that it was a square it was more a small triangle and it was a case of get your picture quick befor eyou were barged out of the way.
May 19th 2005 - So it was suddenly goodbye to New York, the first stop on the massive world trip. I wished I could stay here longer but alas it was time to move on thanks to my exhaustive itenery. I consoled myself that i would have time to do stuff that i missed when I got back in a month and ten days time. Conidering the distance we had to cover in that time (to Vancouver and back) that suddenly didn't seem to be very long at all Woke up later than I wanted to, Ben was shoving me to get up
get up you lazy fat walrus
I ended up not having a shower and indeed smelling like a lazy fat walrus all day.
Our last mission in New york was to find our way to La Gaurdia Airport without using the crappy taxis. This meant we had to connect with a bus that stopped in Harlem that was a scary thought. But, it was fair less torrid then first assumed and we got to the airport in plenty of time to catch our connecting flight to Quebec City via Montreal - time to brush up on my pidgeon French Que-ce-Say
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