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Published: October 18th 2007
NYC Skyline
Approaching the citySo Luke, Jimmy and I made our way down the highway and into "The Big Apple". On some advice, we parked Shazza on a safe street on the border between Brooklyn and Queens to have some time to relax after carrying all that extra weight for the last week. We jumped on the metro and made our way over to our Manhattan hostel.
Jimmy and Luke stayed for 2 weeks, and Nat joined us for a week. I hung around after the others left because another good friend, Tal, flew in to spend his birthday in NYC.
Rather than run through a daily account of 3 amazing weeks in New York City, I'll attempt to summarise the highlights under the following travel-guide type headings.
The People:
First off, New York City is the coolest city on earth. Everything New Yorkers do exudes such a high level of funk and style, seemingly without even trying. A night-time stroll through one of the the hip neighbourhoods, past boutiques, hairdressers, restaurants and bars, is like walking through a real-life museum of modern style and trends.
Sure the locals are arrogant, pushy, outspoken, even rude, but I think New Yorkers all
Navigators
The boys on the ball to direct us in suffer from a rare condition that makes them speak whatever is on their mind- be it good or bad. The sooner you come to terms with that, the more you'll enjoy it, and even appreciate how refreshing it is in the modern day. You can walk down the street and within minutes be abused for not leaving someone enough room from someone, followed by a compliment on your shoes from another. They just tell it like it is in NYC.
Fascinating human interactions occur at such regular intervals, it makes for the best people watching imaginable. Notable incidents we witnessed were:
-A van running over the front wheel of a stroller (with a baby inside) when it was being pushed towards us on a pedestrian crossing. It was a very close call, but what was amazing was to see was a cab driver behind it abuse the van driver, who replied by calling him out for a fight. After helping out the nanny, who was in mild shock, we received a thank you call from the mother later that day.
-A guy on a bmx bike chase down and kick the back of a cab, after it had cut
Priorities
Getting our first "New York slice" him off. When the cab driver looked to get and of his car, the bike rider took off his bike chain and start swinging it above his head and daring him to get out.
-A 60 year-old man abusing a 90 year-old couple who didn't leave them enough room on a footpath in Central Park.
-In trying to remove Jimmy from in front of a homeless person who was wrongly accusing him of kicking him, I felt a big wad of spit hit me in the back of my head. I was stunned for a second, but quickly thought "What do you do if someone spits on you? You give as good as you got!". Childish I know, but I turned around and spat back at him. People later tell me, you haven't really visited NYC unless you've been in a spitting match with a homeless person.
Pubs, Bars and Clubs
McSorleys Tavern
Picture a basic Irish pub located in the East Village area of NYC 100 years ago, with beat-up wooden floors, covered with saw-dust and spilt drinks. The walls are decorated with random memorabilia ranging from items from the civil war, to horse racing posters from Ireland,
Times Square
The boys on night 1 to tent-fighting sporting cards. This is no place to go mingle, this is a drinker's bar, where the quick service from the Irish sounding servers keeps your mouth wet at all times. The only drinks they serve are house-brew light or dark beer. Everyone drinking inside creates a loud and rowdy atmosphere that changes the most proper of guests into crude animals.
Now fast-forward to present day, where not much has changed. The only question you're asked by the thick accented server is "light or dark?". Women were only allowed to enter the premises 30 years ago. The crowd may be dressed differently, but its still one that comes to drink and get rowdy. One of our trips there turned our table joined in with 2 others to create a continuous 3-table, beer-sculling waterfall. Later that night (without any prior intentions) Luke and I started a face-slapping contest that evolved into throwing salt and pepper in each other's eyes. Its just that kind of place. Its coincidentally also the same night that the infamous spitting match took place.
The most underground bar we went to was a prohibition time "speak-easy" that is a hidden room at the back
Harlem Shave
Putting myself to the knife of an alleyway, behind a toy shop. Book cases were secret doors and drinks are still served in coffee mugs and jam jars. The most unique was a bar that had a courtyard out the back with a huge wall of graffiti that gets updated on a regular basis. We made it into a couple of clubs in the elite "Meat-packing District" as well as got denied from our fair share (unless we purchased a $300 bottle to enter). We also caught up with an old Canberra friend, Chris Green, for a night at a local comedy club, where the list of previous comedians read like an "all star list" of the past 10 years.
The Food
Its said "you can eat around the world in New York City", and its completely true. What amazed us was not just the fact that there are such culturally diverse neighbourhoods across the 5 "boroughs", but that they are often so closely located. Little Italy is literally joined to Chinatown, meaning you can be eating Peking Duck for dinner in a street without any English signs, then walk over 1 street for some Gelati for dessert. In Queens, one street is entirely
McSorley's Bar
"Light or Dark?" Spanish speaking, and the next is like little India.
We did our fair share of eating a wide variety of foods, including plenty of New York pizza. One night, Luke and I sat down with the sole purpose of eating a full 18 inch pizza each. That wasn't so bad, but the next challenge of drinking 1.5 litres of water straight afterwards was tough. Nothing expands plenty of pizza dough like plain water!
Entertainment
Chemical Brothers Concert
Only finding out about The Chemical Brothers playing a couple of gigs in NYC when we arrived, we were amazed at how easy we got tickets. We were even more impressed when we saw the venue- an old, drained swimming pool over in Brooklyn. It was such a great way to see a concert- looking across the river at the lights of the Manhattan skyline and listening to beats echo around an abandoned pool.
Central Park
While there aren't many things that are free in NYC, we were thankful Central Park is one of them. We spent plenty of time soaking up the atmosphere and characters that make "the lungs of the city" so special. There are many spots in
Ground Zero
The guys take a view at the 9-11 site the park where you can relax amongst the thick trees and not have a clue that you're in the middle of a major city. Then there are areas when you know that you must be in NYC because nowhere else in the world would you see such sights. The roller disco held across weekends in the bottom of the park certainly falls into this category, where a DJ and massive speakers keep the eccentric roller skaters and bladers grooving to the beats in front of large crowds. "Supermodel Sunday" as Jimmy dubbed it, is where all of NYC's beautiful people (and there's lots of them) all gather in a grassy section and basically hang out and look good. One weekend we stumbled across a chess tournament, where hundreds of very focused kids sat and battled each other and recorded their history of moves. We saw 'Baltic Beatbox' perform live on an outdoor stage in the middle of the park, which was a great way to spend a warm evening. But my favourite day was "Jack in the Park", where Jack Daniels and Coke joined us for a sunny day of frisbee throwing and people watching. With alcohol officially illegal in
Statue of Liberty
Cruising past on the Statten Island Ferry public, when the Jack was gone, we had to buy some beer from the "underground beer runners", pulling their trolleys around to thirsty customers.
The Late Show
After lining up several times, we got our free tickets to see The Late Show with David Letterman (filmed in the afternoon). It was funny to see how enthusiastic they make sure the audience is. We saw one guy told that if he didn't clap and cheer louder, he would be switched with someone at the back that was keener.
Other entertainment events included seeing pre-season hockey game at Madison Square Gardens, with the New York Rangers taking on their local rivals, the New Jersey Devils. While good to watch, the boys were most upset that there was no fight in the game.
We were able to watch the Aussie Rules Grand Final in an Australian Pub packed full of Aussie ex-pats and tourists (as well as a couple of locals who didn't know what was going on).
Activities
On our first full day, we walked up to Harlem for a look. Stereo-typical as you could get, the first shop we came across was a fried chicken place. Luke
Pizza Eating Comp
Luke and I on our first pizza for the meal and I sought out a local barber and sat down for a shave. At the end of our trip, we went back up there with the intent of seeing a Sunday service at one of the famous gospel churches. Unfortunately, so did hundreds of other tourists, and we missed out. We did stop in for some "soul food" brunch, which did its job of gluing itself to our stomach walls.
We took a tour of Ground Zero and tried to picture what it used to look like. The surrounding buildings are only half the height the Twin Towers once stood, and it was quite a somber view.
We joined a bunch of other photo-happy tourists on one of the open-air, double-decker tourist buses for an overall tour of the Manhattan and Brooklyn. The tour started in Times Square, which after seeing once, quickly became an area we tried to avoid.
Another free activity is the Statten Island Ferry, which passes the Statue of Liberty on its way across for some great photo opportunities. Having a beer while cruising past the majestic lady would be a relaxing way to return to Statten from work for many commuters.
Manhattan to Brooklyn
Aboard the tourist bus With a massive range of world class museums and galleries on offer, we went along to see the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) for a great look at contemporary pieces, followed by a visit to the Museum of Natural History, which included a great planetarium show.
We went shopping at several neighbourhoods including Brooklyn, Queens, SOHO and Greenwich Village. The boys especially took advantage of the strong British pound, stocking up on stylish clothes.
Rather than line up for the Empire State Building, we went up the slightly lower (but better views) Rockefeller Centre, right on dusk. The view over the Empire State and beyond was amazing, as was the huge black rectangle of Central Park.
After 3 weeks in New York City, with my wallet, liver and cholesterol levels haven taken a fair beating, I made the trip back to Shazza to attempt to leave. Everyone says New York City is hard to leave, but I wasn't expecting what was coming. I arrived to find poor old Shazza with her rear window smashed and glass spread everywhere. Luckily nothing was taken, but the poor old thing had been abandoned and abused while I was having a
Chemical Brothers
Hanging on the edge of the pool before it started ball in the city. She was pretty shaken up by the whole thing, and taking her to the wrecking yards in Flushing (which resembled little Mexico) didn't help. We were able to get a replacement fitted and the glass vacuumed for $50, and she was as good as before (at least physically). She still didn't speak to me as we negotiated our way through the Manhattan traffic and south through New Jersey. I had some serious making-up to do.
Next up- tracing some famous steps in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.
Distance Travelled So Far: 9,850 miles
Spanish Known at This Point: We were busy learning New Yorker: "Hey I'm f*%$ing walking here!!"
Horoscope for the Week: Cancer (June 22-July 22)
Life will imitate art this Tuesday when a multi-planar figure of a woman stands languidly beside an abstracted carafe of wine.
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