NYC!

---

On my first night in New York City there was a snowstorm. As I got out of the taxi it fell around me in chunks of shiny white and settled like a wintery blanket over the cars and roofs. Out the window of my friends’ apartment in Brooklyn, I looked on the city outside and felt like I was in a movie.

My first few days were slow and easy and it felt pretty similar to home. We spent most of our time in Brooklyn, wandering through vintage shops, eating lots and drinking interesting beers at quirky little bars. Beth had met me at the airport and it was amazingly easy for us to slip back into our friendship. The girls we were staying with, Emma and Claire, I met in South America. Hanging out with them was easy and lovely, like seeing old friends.

The excitement and pace and fervour of the city took a while to creep up on me, but when it did it was overwhelming.

There’s Times Square with its thronging crowds and blinding unashamed ads everywhere.

There’s the dingy, noisy Subway that just feels dodgy and incomprehensible at first. But then you see that every station has beautiful mosaics on the walls and the 24-hour trains connect the city up like veins.

There are the dive bars with their long lists of IPA’s and cocktails (lots of free one’s from Emma’s work). One of the bars was Honky Tonk themed where you broke peanuts straight onto the floor and listened to a band with members clad in cowboy hats and shirts. Another was a dog themed bar, populated with people and their excited pooches. Another had a happy hour offering cheap Bloody Mary’s, skee-ball and free pretzels.

There’s the Brooklyn Flea market, a vibrant mish-mash held in a stunning old bank.

There seems to be hundreds of beautiful parks, with the enormous Central park – we spent hours there and barely explored half – full of ponds, bridges, paths and an incredible array of buskers.

There’s Katz’s deli (from When Harry met Sally), which has no illusions of grandeur but still manages to have people lining up out the door for a chance to eat one of their big heavy sandwiches with a generous side of pickles.

There’s the Museum of the Moving Image, with amazing souvenirs from decades of films, as well as a whole host of fun interactive activities, which Beth and I delighted ourselves with for hours.

There are the incredible thrift stores (op shops) and junk stores, filled with an amazing array of clothes, furniture and all kinds of quirky kick-knacks.

There’s the resplendent sights that you see in every TV show or film: the imposing Rockefeller Centre, the stunning Grand Central Station, the Chrysler Building, the Empire State (with it’s light shows at night), the enormous Freedom Tower, the bull at Wall Street, the surprisingly small but still breathtaking Statue of Liberty, the elegant Brooklyn Bridge with it’s wonderful views of the water and the city.

But what most excited me about New York City was the non-stop, excited feel to it. It pours out of every crevice, you feel like there’s always something happening there, that something exciting or big is about to start.

This is reflected in the gigantic arts scene that thrives there. The struggling artist seems to be celebrated in the city, there are avenues everywhere whether for professionals or amateurs. We went to MOMA but we also went to the Museum of the Native American and to an art walk that’s held weekly through the multitude of galleries in Chelsea. We visited the Highline, which was an old abandoned rail bridge, but had been turned into a garden and art space. We went to see the filming of David Letterman’s Late Show (with free tickets we scored in Times Square) but also saw hilarious stand-up comics at the New York Comedy Club and some less hilarious stand-ups at the Knitting Factory in Brooklyn. We saw Sigur Ros at Madison Square Gardens (!!!!!!!!!) who were mystical and mind-blowing and gave me the same feeling as being in love. We saw the musical Once on Broadway with it’s incredible Irish band/orchestra and heartbreaking arrangements that gave us goose-bumps and made us weep. We also saw a little jazz duo play at a bar in Brooklyn that has live music every night, and we ourselves belted out many tunes at karaoke in Korea Town. We battled with about 100 other people to fit into the tiny Nuyorican Poetry Café and watch the most incredible slam poetry competition. We left feeling inspired and wrung and incredulous that so many people would line up for an hour on a freezing Friday night to see poetry.

There were also moments when the city seemed to kick your ass. With so many people you seem to have to line up for everything. Most things were absolutely worth it, but some were not. We spent many hours lining up for the chance to get cheap Broadway tickets only to miss out every time. We were jostled and pushed and swindled in Times Square. We got hopelessly lost on the Subway, ending up in the Hassidic Jewish neighbourhood during Passover (needless to say, we stood out like sore thumbs) and having to walk for an hour to get home. We were rained on and frozen by the icy winds. Sometimes it got a little overwhelming and our persistent positive attitudes started to wane.

But then great things would happen and the other stuff suddenly didn’t seem to matter. A man on the subway befriended us and gave us a guided tour of the 9/11 site; pointing us in the right direction and then going off to work, just because he cared about the history of the city. While waiting in line for the David Letterman show, an acapella band that were also there to see the show struck up a fantastic version of ‘Brown Eyed Girl’. When exhausted and grumpy one night on the subway, a group of young boys performed an incredible break dance show. Emma and Claire also endlessly reminded us how generous people could be, giving up their beds for us, taking us out to the club that Emma’s boyfriend Ted designed for a great night out, hosting an Easter shindig in Ted’s warehouse complete with bloody mary’s, devilled eggs and Wii Rap. And there was also the incredible food and drinks to always cheer us up, whether it be the delicious black bean tacos, or big slabs of red velvet cheescake, or completely vegan BLT’s, or pints of sour beer at Emma’s bar, or whisky sours at Bossa Nova, or giant floppy slices of pizza, or amazing chive dumplings served unceremoniously in Chinatown, or cream cheese bagels from a tiny deli, or churros in Washington Square, or discount cosmos in Manhattan, or giant amazing bowls of pho, or frozen margharitas in Chelsea.

New York was rough and crazy but all of that only made me love it more. I left feeling exhausted from all that we had been doing, sad to be saying goodbye to such an enchanting city, but sure that I would come back again.

A few days after I left I stumbled across this quote about NYC that I really like.

“I honor this city. There’s lots of glitter here, but there’s also more real life than anywhere else I have ever known.” – Lucie Brock-Broido

---