Forgetting the Empire State Building

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It’s dark outside as I step out from underneath the road. Late at night, life carries on its busy way. After a quick burst of energy a yellow taxi beeps and halts before doing it all over again moments later. Despite being a clear night, drainage is rapidly flowing by. Apart from that a brief bit of silence is broken below with the sound of the subway train zooming past.

Could there be any other way to start a US trip than with these sounds and the image of you walking along Broadway towards the brightly lit Empire State Building. Struggling with your heavy backpack finding your accommodation with clearly, well placed street signs at 1030pm.

My intention was to start in either St Johns, Canada or Boston but when weather and a cancelled flight forced my hand. That meant New York was the place to be and there is really no other place I should have gone to, to start my North American trip.

I arrived in full beard deliberately to give myself the best chance to get questioned and get a hard time at immigration. You see ever since I was getting a hard time in Central Asia, Middle East, Africa even the UK because of what was in my passport. I had this impression that America would be the same or worse. Instead it was a chance to dispel a myth about US customs.

In those other countries especially Israel the sight of places like Iran, Lebanon, Syria creates a brief concern (In Israel’s case a 7 hour delay.) But add to that JP5’s effort of Sudan, Mauritania, Congo DR, Somalia. I almost had the axis of evil and their friends covered... I was expecting a rough time, “Come with me to the interrogation room sir.” But I got none of that.

In fact the guy was having jokes with me. The only time was when he saw Sudan and flicked back to it and said. “Sudan…….. Why did you go there?” “Because I did Africa for 10 months I travelled from Cape town to Cairo.” “Okay.” He stamped and hoped I’d “…enjoy my time in America,” which hardly any immigration officer ever says. (I’ll get to that annoyance later on when I enter Canada.)

I then asked how long can I stay and he informed three months but “…if you over stay by a couple of weeks they are okay about it just don’t tell anyone.” I walked off stunned and I have to admit a bit disappointed but impressed. I had never felt so welcome into a country for a while.

It was about 9:30pm by now and after waiting 25 minutes I hopped onto the train to New York Penn Station. Just before boarding a local girl picked out that me and this other Australian had an accent so she got a bit excited. I heard this happens in America when they hear our accents.

I get to my accommodation and the lady says to me after checking in that, “If you don’t like where you are staying we can refund after the first night.” That was a weird comment so when I walked up the steps I was a bit nervous of what my 3 nights would be like. I open the door and couldn’t be more disappointed. A shit hole is how you’d describe things like this place when you are being polite.

A wooden barrack feel of tiny rooms on either side of a narrow corridor. I open my door and my room is the size of a prison cell, possibly smaller. I squeeze my bag between the bed and wall, finally finding the light switch. I hear a lot of noise carrying to my room so I look up and see the roof but no ceiling. I looked to charge my laptop but there is no power socket in the room. I went to have a shower soon after and it was freezing cold. The next day it was scorching hot. I was left a bit stunned by the fact that New York allows such a dump to tourists and at $45 a night. Perhaps I should have stayed at a hostel for $65 a night like some of them are.

Half the hotel is for locals possible struggling actors or designers or generally poor people who live here all the time. The other side of the hotel is for tourists. It was interesting starting a conversation here. Normally it is the “hello how are you? Where are you from” type talk. Or what’s the WIFI password? Not here, it was “Oh man, what do you think of this place? It’s a dump ah?”

The next day was a miserable day mostly but even so New York still occupies. I headed to the Financial District first and the first thing I saw was “the sphere”. A sculpture that stood for 3 decades in the plaza of the World Trade Centre. I left the trade centre site until a bit later and walked around Battery park for a while where the sphere was located.

It was too bad to go out on the free Staten Island ferry so the closest I got to the statue of liberty was from this park. New York in its infestation of sky scrapers still manage to provide small parks throughout the city and Battery Park is a nice one. The friendliest racoons are here so much so that they would run up to you if you stood still to take a photo of something - Assuming you are about to give them food. Sometimes it would take food from peoples hands when offered.

The early 19th century Castle Clinton is a reminder of a time gone by and the Native Museum of the America Indian next to the park was full of nice artwork of the different native regions of North America. Just up the road is the charging bull statue, which is completely out of character and probably the most over rated photo for tourists.

This is where Broadway starts at the south end of Manhattan and will go north up and beyond central park. Wall street is not that far away and protesters were not hanging around the street but after the crash and GEC a fair few police were around and a bit of construction. Protesters however were near the World Trade Centre site complaining about the riches tax benefits.

Walking to there, there is a nice church at the Broadway end of Wall street and there is something about seeing a church being overpowered and looked down upon by sky scrappers. It puts an emphasis on where the priorities lie in the western world.

I approached the centre via Fulton Street and the light tapping of rain whilst looking up to the vacant sky left a screwed up face and a shake of the head to get the image of falling people out of my mind. This is a rare site in the world to see. I actually lived when this happened.

There is now a construction going on and my first sight of it was full of mist at the top. It is going to be the tallest building in the US once complete. On the west side there is wall dedicated to the fire fighters who died. There is an old man who spends all day cleaning the wall and informing something along the lines of, “Everyone is here for September 11 but lets not forget the bombing of 1993.”

With a bit of a rain shower I figured it was time to get myself started in my potential road trip across America. First problem solved was a mobile phone. Phones here have a different chip to the rest of world so simple phones don’t work. Meaning I had to buy a new one and what do I buy? Just the cheapest, crapiest Nokia phone in North America. I have a proud tradition of possessing the worst phones in a continent but this was different. I had the worst phone but unlike Africa and South America it was not the most popular phone. Instead it was the opposite as most people had their iphone scanning things, going on the Internet. My main feature was still a flashlight.

With accommodation so expensive and life in general it was time to sort out how I was going to get out of New York. I went to the Department of Motor Vehicles and found out as a 3 month tourist I can not register a car so I spent a fair bit of time sorting out other options at McDonalds, which would be my friend for a few hours a day. Xavier Rudd’s Let Me Be came on quite a bit on Maccas radio.

McDonalds was the start of my mission to try as many fast food chain outlets as I can and after my first day of breakfast and dinner my body was in a bit of shock. I didn’t realise that I have eaten quite well this trip, healthy in most cases and have kept a pretty consistent weight minus South Africa and Namibia. As well as that I have not got the shits that much but of all places I’d get it in New York.

It created a bit of a concern throughout the rest of my stay forcing me to pause for a moment to squeeze one out and keep going. And New York is such a great destination to let one rip. One, the noise around the streets muffles out the noise. Two there is a perfect excuse to look around so the pause is accepted.

Whilst making sure I didn’t poo myself I was around 32nd street and 5th avenue when I hung around to take in a moment. I was surrounded by skyscrapers and traffic and I had a brief moment where my thoughts imagined I was just surrounded by African desert. I’ve never had a flash like that before, it felt weird and I stood still for a bit and went, ‘Whoa I need to take a minute.’

In my appreciation of finally hitting America and Ney York I realised I haven’t really given myself a break yet. I have been all about travel than what’s next. I haven’t given myself time to appreciate what I’ve already seen. This is what I want to do when I get back sit back and appreciate. I don’t think I have done that yet.

32nd street is a few blocks away from Madison Square Garden and a bit further on and on 7th avenue is Time Square. It was still light so the effects of the light show from the billboards was not there. At the time I wasn’t sure if it was it. I walked around to Rockafellow Center and the NBC studios and waited for the sun to set and see Time Square for what it is. So bright are the colours when one dominates it filters the streets from blue, to bright white to red. There is a sitting area for pedestrians to the north that gives you the TV view that everyone is familiar with.

Each day in New York was exhausting and for two further nights I had to go back to Bowery’s Whitehouse Hotel. Location was pretty good it was close to Washington Square, which is NYU territory (I will get to Americas fascination with abbreviations in a later blog). With this Uni population there are some nice bars in the close by Greenwich Village that I passed and admired but didn’t enter to save some money.

After my tough beginning with fast food I moved to a pizza slice at John’s Famous Pizzeria in Greenwich. The shop front proudly says it was the pizza shop from Spiderman. I order and asked for “a slice” (that’s the way you order it) and was disappointed at first it seemed quite plain. I looked around and saw all these celebrity photos and didn’t get it. I watched the locals and they were grabbing all these sauces and spices so I followed suit and although it is not as good as Italy its good enough.

It was festival season near my accommodation too with the San Genarro Festival in Little Italy. The festival was seen in Godfather II and covers a few blocks of restaurants and stalls selling everything Italian. They even converted Euros to dollars at a far better rate than the banks. (I arrived when the Greek crises looked doomed again and the euro and Aussie dollar lost 10% in around a week. It killed me, as now, tipping was going to hurt.)

They had some really good opera singers performing and some random girl at the steps of a church started up towards the exit. The smells of the food alone would make it a nice stop over for a few hours.

I got back to my dump and realised ‘oh shit I haven’t seen the Empire State building yet.’ New York has got so much to see. So many cliché things you see in the movie, so much going on in normal day life you can forget the most obvious site. So I dragged myself up again and headed on the subway. Its dark and the top was in mist again and I got some really nice photos before heading back to the subway.

One of the endearing things I will take back is the community pride in the area. It is not a chest out type over the top pride but it has this humbling, “Yeah you know what I’m from New York and I’m proud. Things may not always go right but I’m from New York.” I was expecting a city to be too busy for the next person but there is a politeness at the first instance. Constantly at the subway I would invite someone to go ahead but they’d refuse and say no after you. That doesn’t happen in ever city.

And not every city can claim to have a park like Central Park. If it weren’t for the car noise on Central Park West and 5th avenue sometimes its as if you are somewhere miles from a city. Many people run, ride a bike or relax on the grounds, which go from 61st to 110th.

The street system is brilliant for a tourist especially coming up from the subway and you don’t know which way to go. I was proud of my eyesight when a little squint and I could see the small street sign in the distance.

A site in the distance from Central Park in Morningside Heights is Grant’s Tomb. Grant was general of the Union army during the civil war. They make a big point that he allowed the African slave to participate and arm them to fight in the war. The statue is incased in a marble dome similar to what I am expecting Ab Lincoln will be like in DC? It also gets you away from tourists and when I was there college students were debating about Obama as a first lady and that she is a nothing status.

Even with the subway pass there is a fair bit of walking because the city of New York is better on foot than the subway (believe it or not.) So to rest up I’d hit a museum if it was free and the New York Library is one of them. I couldn’t help but think of George Costanza getting an atomic wedgy and was over that thought once entering up the grand steps.

Inside, the building has museums where an 1814 made music sheet of Star Spangled banner was one of the 1st 10 editions. There is a misspelling of ‘patriotic’ just under the heading, which helps prove its authenticity. It says ‘A pariotic Song.’ Also in the library there’s a George Washington farewell speech and at the entrance a tablet from the Mesopotamia area. I was all over that didn’t need the sign to tell me what that was. I was pretty happy with my knowledge of Mesopotamia tablets; this travel stuff does increase the brains capacity.

A few things caught my eye whilst here. One was if I was living here I would be shopping for everything at Century 21 which has an overstocked and over crowded customer base, selling heavily discounted designer clothes. I was so close to buying a jacket but held back. Macy’s the worlds largest store catered more for females at least what I could find.

The major thing that bugged me was the consistent black cars with dark tinted windows beeping and zooming past with gay abandon. Some had sirens going off. This is the crap that America must have introduced to the world and it is all over Africa. I thought what a wank as the entourage follows. Really? Are you that important? Maybe you wouldn’t need the entourage if you didn’t create such a scene. Than I saw some African guy’s pop their head out which got me back to that original thought.

The black cars do create a scene because they are going at such a pace that they are in danger of creating damage like running someone over who j walks. J walking is inbred here. It is clearly the… the J-Walking capital of the world.

I enjoyed my time in New York because for the first few days I was by myself, alone, than had the experience of having friends. I met up with a few people from Contiki in 2003. One invited me to a fashion show in Chelsea area, which has become a gallery district transformed from its meat packing past. The fashion show was in a warehouse transformed into a flash bar. I didn’t find it difficult to have the ability to talk about myself during conversation with budding and semi successful models, ballerinas, designers and photographers. Travelling in hostels prepares oneself for that.

But my friends weren’t able to put me up due to circumstances and timing. A surprised weekend by the boyfriend almost foiled by me, well actually I spoiled the surprise. The poor guy had to tell my friend the day before. Whilst the other had his girlfriends brother over and he had priority of the couch. These thingw happen quite a bit for me. So I was left with a decision to make. Hostels all booked out, couch surfers not replying. I potentially could be homeless. A sleep in the park was a quick thought.

There was so many things I missed in New York like a Yankees game, something inside Madison Square Garden, see a show on Broadway or off Broadway, be in the crowd for show like David Letterman the list goes on. But that is not why I came to America. I came here to see middle America so after having 3 beers that cost me $27 at 430am at the Australian bar to see Australia vs. USA in the World Cup Rugby I had a decision to make. Should I get a car or not? I said bye to my mate Mike at the pub and said I’ll let him know by the end of the day.

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For those disappointed that I didn’t do a Seinfeld tour here well I’m sorry but New York has too much to see in 5 days I physically couldn’t do it. Plus I travelled from Milan to Minsk – I think that made up for it. I did go to Monks café and a few other stuff. If I put a photo up I’ll give the details of where it is. Forgot to go to the soup Nazi… Devastated with that one.

There are a few things I will be starting up at the completion of most blogs and Fast Food chains I will be adding below. Obviously ratings are in fast food comparisons not food in general.
McDonalds breakfast – 7/10 (The breakfast is really good in comparison to Oz) Other meals 5/10
Subway – 7.5/10 (they provide a few extra fillings to the rest of the world)

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