the same marble sculptures that can be found on the top floor of the Durham Light Infantry Museum

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New York City was simply fantastic, quite possibly the most exciting city I have ever been to. Combining the bustle I love about London with the consumerism and ethnic diversity of the American Dream.

Getting there was a bit of a palaver, however. We found a Trek bike shop by chance near the Mcafee motel and they replaced half of Neil’s bike for a surprisingly low price. In the meantime, we crossed the road to a diner; once again we had missed breakfast. I had got hold of some muffins, juice and coffee but Rob turned his nose up at this and Neil, in true hobbit-fashion, wanted a second breakfast. Rob had a hamburger. (“Hamburgers! The cornerstone of any nutritious breakfast.”) It was at this diner that I begin thinking about whether I wanted to go back to the UK at the end of the summer and start a career in local government or whether I wanted to work my way around the world first. At the time, and to a fair extent ever since, it struck me as enormously appealing to find someplace in backwater America (in the North of course), work in a diner, have an affair with a simple but devoted diner worker, avoid talking politics with anyone, reading books and newspapers, improving my Spanish or popping off to some great America city now and again to avert boredom. When the desire took me, I would hit the road again and see another part of the world.

At Neil’s earnest request we returned to the Franklin Mineral Museum but once there he decided he didn’t want to go inside after all and having exhausted the amusement possibilities in the area we picked a spot on the map, ‘Tomahawk Lake’, and drove half an hour to get there. It was a private beach requesting $19 for the privilege of using their slides. We promptly told them to bugger-off thank you very much and as there was absolutely nowhere to stop by the lakes that didn’t require a fee or membership, there was nothing to do but head back to the Dairy Queen where I sucked strongly at the thickest milkshake I have ever had.

Rob dropped Neil and I next to the car park at Newark airport where we sat for well over an hour half worried, half excited at the prospect of being picked up at gun point for lingering with intent to terrorise. Actually I don’t think Neil found the idea exciting. A bus to the terminal and another one away and we were at last in New York

We stayed the night in the Gershwin Hotel, a fourteen story hostel with Andy Warhol type art everywhere. What’s more it was on Madison Avenue, who I am sure are a band or something. We had to split up and I ended up in a room with a Spanish man and a black man. I had never slept in a room with a black man before, or even talked to one for any considerable length of time so it was briefly very unusual. The other nights we spent on West 104th Street - very close to Central Park. We were all in one room with a subway station and a stall selling bagels with cream cheese at 75c on our doorstep. New York bagels are different from others because the dough is boiled before it is baked for a unique flavour. I’m not sure mine cost enough to be boiled first but they were good all the same.

There is enough to keep you occupied in the city for at least a week’s solid tourism - we didn’t even set foot outside of Manhattan. We visited the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building of course, both of which were grand but the real highlights for me were the United Nations Building and Broadway. The United Nations tour took in the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council and the General Assembly meeting rooms as well as the various gifts that member states had bestowed upon the organisation, competing in terms of size and grandeur. There was the world’s largest tapestry and a huge ivory carving (made before the ban on its use the Swedish guide was quick to mention) that took eight Chinese men two and a half years to make. The American’s mosaic was Christian themed with some biblical words of wisdom. I didn’t see anything from the Brits. From a conservative, warmongering, imperialist nation we stepped into a peaceful and liberal international territory and were shown charts illustrating how a fraction of the $750bn spent on armaments worldwide each year could be used to eradicate illiteracy or end starvation. The proportions spent on welfare and suchlike were shockingly low in comparison, I hope one of the boys took a photo of the chart. Another interesting fact - fifty five thousand people per day die of easily preventable diseases or starvation. When you look at the two together, I defy anybody to assert that the problems of the third world are insurmountable. We were enlightened with plenty of other pertinent statistics and facts but instead of boring you with them all, I’ll just say that I found it a privilege to visit the centre of world power and am now perhaps even more of an internationalist than I was before.

One outlet run by the Marriot sold Broadway tickets at discount prices on the day of the show. The whole Broadway area is full of theatres , far more than the West End but there is only one outlet that we discovered. ‘The Phantom of the Opera’, performed in perfect English, or rather non-descript accents was most definitely the best musical I have ever seen. The ever-changing set was half the experience and there were two hours of flawless, flowing transitions. The singing and acting was of the finest quality and after a brief doze at the beginning, of which I was much in need, I was on the edge of my seat for the whole time. A visit to a nearby bar/pub (every drinking hole in New England seems to be at least partly Irish) finished the evening perfectly with semi-drunken conversation dominated by politics. It was determined that Al was a fascist, Leo was apolitical and flat tax was bad. A yellow cab ride with a friendly Indian driver later, (I do like friendly Indian men), and we were back in the hostel where I foolishly called an intoxicated Andy’s bluff and he kneed me in the face and was surprised to find he had split my lip.

The show was so good that we returned to Broadway the following night to see Chicago. As part of my ongoing musings over whether to work my way around the world, I inquired how hard it was to get a job in a Broadway theatre - bloody hard. Chicago was a bit of a disappointment after the previous night with only a band stalls on the stage and several mediocre singers who Andy, our resident singer, suggested were understudies.

Ground Zero, which would be more accurately called ‘Building Site’, was rather dull but its history made the journey worthwhile. The Empire State Building, once again the tallest building in New York, commanded good views of the city although they would have been better had it not been cloudy and then raining. Enrobed in my Niagara Falls poncho, I was fine for a while but soon escaped back into the gift shop where Andy inquired after souvenir towels. A second gift shop next to the queue for the lifts down (I went 86 stories without swallowing to pop my ears) was only small but dominated by Christmas paraphernalia. As Christmas is five months away and has no clear connection to The Empire State Building I thought this was bizarre. We looked out again when the rain had passed but I think it would have been more spectacular, impressive as it was during the day, to go at night as Neil and Leo did. On the first night I ate a bison (buffalo) burger in a restaurant at the bottom of the building. It tasted much like beef but supposedly contained more iron and less fat and it wasn’t cooked to medium as I had requested. The bison were nearly hunted out of existence by gun-loving Americans, much like the Indians, but their populations have now recovered to some extent and they are being farmed.

The previous day when we went to Liberty Island to see the Statue of Liberty the weather was also clouded and drizzly. The ferry out was very pleasant as boat trips usually are but the trip back was better as the sun had appeared. The Statue itself was fatter than I expected. You can no longer climb to its head for fear of terrorists (I don’t know which would be more impressive, blowing it up from the bottom or blowing its head off) and as there were several informative signs around its base, we didn’t bother with the museum either. It was a gift from the French in a time when American and French Republicanism were not dissimilar. Made from copper, it was shipped over in pieces a few millimeters thick. The broken chain around her foot represents freedom from the shackles of tyrannical government, the torch: the enlightening of the world and the book of Roman law she is carrying with the date of the declaration of independence on the front, symbolises, unsurprisingly, the rule of law. The ferry called at the nearby Ellis Island, where immigrants to New York arrived for many decades. There is now a fascinating museum and whilst Rob, Leo and Neil failed to discover anything beyond the rather empty central rooms, Al, Andy and I explored the immigration process and regulations. Arrivals had to prove that they were not going to be a burden on the state but were not allowed to have a job organised, had to have $25, be accompanied by a man or meeting a relative and had to be healthy and sane. The ways people evaded such rules were varied and only two percent of immigrants were sent back. It would seem that both then and now the American immigration service barks louder than it bites.

On the last evening, before Rob had a parmo, we visited the art galleries of Chelsea. On Thursday nights many have their openings, complete with wine and cheese. The first was fairly standard featuring an Andy Warhol, the same marble sculptures that can be found on the top floor of the Durham Light Infantry Museum, presumably different editions by the same sculptor, and unusually, some paintings of world maps with the oceans and much of the land filled with the names of all the different islands and seas, in an untidy way. The second gallery was more controversial and cutting-edge. In the window there was a moving piece of art in which a wooden chair repeatedly humped an armchair motion. Another exhibit was a series of movie clips edited together which first showed lots of men hitting women and then lots of women hitting men. The third was unremarkable.

Saint Patrick’s Cathedral was worth a visit but rather disappointing for a cathedral, although a handful of statues of saints with information about what they had done was diverting. More impressive was Saint Patrick’s church. This had the largest something or other in the world. It was a solid block of sculptures and statues, perhaps ten meters high on the wall behind the alter. Saint Paul’s Chapel, where George Washington’s regular pew has been kept intact in its original location by a small pen, was practically a museum with much information on its role in the 9-11 rescue efforts, it being situated close to Ground Building Site. Parts of it were particularly moving, a replica alter was littered with cards and posters of missing persons that family members had left on the real alter which had been situated outside the church.

The City Library had a photo exhibition within it’s classical pillars compiled from the archives of a gallery that has now closed. We took the free tour and when we left we were hurried down the steps and across a police line as there had been a bomb threat nearby. It came to nothing I assume, but one of the steam pipes that warm the city in winter exploded for an undetermined reason hospitalising at least twenty people and killing one lady who had a heart attack. You can read the story on the BBC website here

Andy, Al and I saw it on the news in a bar, they turned the music down and the television up and everybody watched. Incidentally, I managed to blag my way into getting served in this bar by handing over my passport when requested and coolly maintaining that I was 21, confusing the waitress who thought she must have added up incorrectly. We phoned the others who were nearer and they went and got a better view of the steam rising. The car above the manhole reportedly jumped something like seven feet. The next day the NYPD, army, FBI, Red Cross, Fire Department etc. were all over the streets nearby wearing gas masks due to initial asbestos concerns. We couldn’t get close enough to see anything but it certainly added to the exciting atmosphere of the city.

Culinary notables included a hot pretzel from a hot dog stall. It’s basically salty bread although I brushed off the gravel-like chunks of salt scattered liberally on top. These made it too salty even for Andy. We stopped at a McDonalds on Broad Street because last time Andy had been there, somebody was playing a baby grand piano. This time there was not but my three chicken snack wraps made a change from a Mcburger and cost only 60p or so each - bargain basement. In another restaurant I ate buffalo wings again and they were lip-smackingly good. I wanted to shout out Yeeee-har with every bite. How anybody could eat ten of them for a starter I do not know. The waitress was Irish so I made some more enquiries about the logistics and possibilities of working in America. Dunkin’ Doughnuts are all over the USA so I popped in for a quick snack and was recommended the Boston Cream. This was a good doughnut. It was not ring shaped but solid with custardy type stuff in the middle. Americans loooorve their doughnuts. Especially the police, so the Simpsons told me.

For those of you who are interested, some of the other places I visited include Wall Street (short), the NY Stock Exchange (the front covered with a massive flag), a Korean War Monument (international), Castle Clinton (ticket office), The Chrysler Building (tall), NY Postal building (classical), some basketball stadium (round) , Central Park (huge and full of joggers and black squirrels) and Macy’s (the biggest department store in the world with ten floors).

We walked for miles around Manhattan and I never ceased to be in awe at the height of the buildings around me. Rob was ready to leave for a quieter place but I could have stayed for months if I had something to occupy me there. Some of the people are certainly unpleasant; I was called a white boy twice and white trash once and I saw someone shouting viciously ‘don’t touch me, don’t fucking touch me!’, his finger about an inch from the delivery boy victim’s face. There are plenty of good people here as well, although I have had more communication problems than anywhere else. Coffee really is pronounced ‘quarfie’. My morning cup has become a key institution of my day and a dollar or two, depending on whether I want sizeable or enormous, bought me a fantastic coffee in New York, always with milk, not creamer. NYC embodies much about the USA that I dislike, for example there are homeless people dotted about everywhere and many of them are absolutely bonkers and in need of treatment. Still, it embodies what is left or ever existed of the American dream. Forty percent of its population was born overseas and from the architecture to the theatres, the financial district to the coffee, everything New York does well, it does very well. The parks and squares dotted around offer some respite from the speed of the city and in the summer often have free entertainment in the form of bands, orchestras or movies in the evenings. Looking back to the permanent daytime of Times Square for the last time, I was sad to be leaving.

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Comments

[Mary Dobson]

following in my footsteps!
Ed you've just been doing exactly what we did! you stayed in the same hostel on W104th and you went to the little church at Ground Zero where we sang...Also to the cathedral where we sang which had an insane reverb going on - not that impressive atm because of all the building work though? I've just been putting NYC photos up on fbook - think you might recognise some of them! Loving the blog - Flo, Alex and I keep telling the other one about it and laughing a lot! you've definitely been missed though at all the random parties and meals we've been having!! xxxxx