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Published: August 23rd 2008
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****photos to come******* Sitting on the New York to Toronto bus at one o'clock in the morning, I may as well get myself updated.
On the fifth day, I woke up feeling a little battered from the previous evening - I suppose it didn't help that dinner had consisted of approximately three delicious plums - and crawled downstairs for my free bagel, apple and coffee. Having taken my time over this, I felt much better and decided to venture out on an excursion to the Bronx Zoo. Keenly aware of the reputation of the area, I was relieved to notice that it had its' own subway station.
In fairness, the short walk from station to zoo didn't feel too bad. You could tell the area wasn't fantastic, but it didn't seem overly unsafe. The thing I'd found with New York is that it has, in recent years, got a lot better. In the evening the chap on duty in the hostel came out onto the terrace and was telling us how going back a few years, come 9pm you'd be having to constantly look over your shoulder, even in downtown New York. In Harlem, which is located
north of Manhattan (on the tourism maps that twist the city a few degrees for convenience anyway), the area the hostel was in (113th Street) wouldn't have been safe at night, and only someone who couldn't afford a fistful of sleeping pills or a Swiss euthanasia clinic to do the job would venture beyond 125th Street.
That's changed. The hostel worker (I can't think of a better term, and frankly having put up with the guy who unblocked the toilets and cleaned the showers at camp being known as the “Chief Sanitation Engineer” I think it's time to add a little balance) suggested that they'd just pushed all the criminals to outer boroughs, but that's fine with me! New York police adverts on the subway seemed to think there had been a 75% reduction in crime over the last few (ten perhaps, I'm not sure) years, and from the impression I got from people, this could be true.There were lots of blacks on the street all day, more so the further north you got, but it never felt especially unsafe and they seemed to leave us alone. Doubtless there are still some no go areas, but it is a
city changed.
I did wonder though, whether fears for my safety may be better directed in the direction of the Bronx Zoo. The lions were kept in an enclosure with, it appeared, an easily jump-able ditch and a slightly thorny bush between a deadly several hundred pound mixture of fur, teeth and claws... and its dinner; which was me. On the other side of the path from this enclosure stood a row of memorial benches, and I sincerely hoped their location was a mere coincidence!
The rest of the zoo was fairly standard stuff, but done to a high level. I did think the polar bear's enclosure was a little small, but aside from that everything was good. I was amused to see though, that as part of the justification for snatching animals for their native habitats to display for money (that statement wasn't meant to sound quite so pejorative), there were posters everywhere encouraging conservation - especially relating to the threat to tigers. Apparently the entity behind the posters was unable to imagine a world without tigers in the wild. I tried, and found the imagined world fairly easy to conjure up. The main difference probably being
the Chinese having to find another animal to grind up. I was also reminded of something Jeremy Clarkson once said about just that possibility, something along the lines that it made next to no difference to him if a tiger lived in a forest he'd never visit, and indeed he rather hoped that if his child was to go trekking on a gap year she wouldn't see a tiger. Just a thought...
In the evening, stayed in the hostel. Generally, the secret to a good hostel seems to be one which is basically clean, has working showers and, most importantly, somewhere for guests to congregate. Travelling alone for these first few weeks this becomes especially important if I don't want to be driven slowly mad by loneliness and boredom in the evenings. The hostel, 'The Wanderer's Inn West', met all of these criteria, and so I found myself having a few beers on the rear terrace until ten, when we had to move inside. Then come twelve, a sour Chinese man (in marked contrast to the attitude of the other hostel worker on duty) ordered us out of the kitchen and took a cat into the basement. I'll
rise above any sort of 'dinner' comment...
We then sat on the steps at the front of the hostel, but he reappeared (without the cat this time) and shooed us away to engage in illicit drinking on the streets of Harlem. Which sounds far worse than the reality of moving just ten feet away from the hostel gate....
Day Six
Woke up, and was glad I hadn't drunk that much the previous night. In the morning I went for another swim in the free pool in Central Park, then headed out to see an anatomy exhibition entitled 'Bodies', which used several preserved specimens from Chinese prisons takes us on a tour of the body. (if there's a disclaimer saying that the company cannot 'independently verify' that the bodies don't come from those executed in prison, I think it seems a fairly safe assumption)
Typically each room dealt with one aspect of the body, the skeletal system, blood flow, the nervous system etc. There were then relevant body parts and information, and generally one or two 'whole' bodies. In some cases, they had, from the same corpse, separated the muscles and the bones for example, or
preserved just the blood vessels, creating an eerie red figure.
Also preserved were the blackened lungs of an adult smoker and a box for people to disregard their cigarettes. It was effective enough that with the resultant haul one could open a small newsagents.
As it was nearby, I then went to see ground zero. I wasn't sure whether to go or not, but the experience is perhaps important. It's just an empty space in one of the most densely packed cities in the world. There were still cops everywhere, and the area itself was fenced off, housing a few cranes. For me, the lack of anything, more than any other factor, is at the heart of its' poignancy.
Day Seven
The final day in New York. Packed my bags early and arranged to leave them in the hostel until the evening. In the morning took a tour of Madison Square Garden, and in the afternoon visited the observation deck of the Rockefeller Center to witness New York from the sky.
Update, 5:30am: I am now in Canada, having successfully passed through the border. Haven't got much sleep on the bus, and the wireless service
that seemed so promising at first isn't working anymore. Gah! Still, I'm not quite sure what crude racial stereotyping can be used of Canadians, so I look forward to finding out!
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