Buried Treasures and Traffic Devices

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Recently I was asked the question - "if you could only travel to one country for vacation (yes, vacation it was an American asking me) for the rest of your life which country would you choose?". Without hesitating for a moment I answered - the United States. The cynical readers amongst you may suggest my answer only derived from me being charming and polite; the really cynical amongst you will know I am never polite and would suggest that as I was talking to my boss at the time and as it was two weeks before bonuses were handed out I chose the country that would best please my boss and my bank balance. Well viva America! I was in the fortunate position of having pondered the same question before and having seen a bit of the USA during my time here I'm certain the US is my number one choice if any bizarre travel restrictions are placed on any impending bail orders against me. The US has it all. And before half of you readers start retching and vomiting and generally feeling green at my pro-America stance; consider this - the US has Hawaii's beaches to its west, Colorado's mountains in its centre, New York's bustle on its east and Sarah Palin growing shiny, little pearls of pro-life wisdom to the north. Few countries can really offer you all this and still say "hey we have Louisiana and Puerto Rico too!".

That being said, the US is not always the easiest place to travel within. If you have ever experienced an 8 hour delay in Chicago with Continental, a forced landing after a passenger has taken ill from eating a (purchased) meal on American Airlines, or had $20 worth of New Zealand confectionery stolen from your backpack by United's bag handlers, you will know getting places in the US can be an ordeal. I've experienced all three of these events in the past 12 months in the US. After an extended spate of blogging lethargy I have decided I want to get back into my travel blogging. Yet I'm reticent to fly in the US these days. Having already risked life, limb and olfactory sense spending three months commuting on Chinatown buses for (then) Senator Obama, busing about the country is out too. Consequently I have decided to make New York my own traveler's playground and try and explore some of the sites that are a little further afield than the consumer sluttery (I don't care if that isn't a word) of Times Square and the ever lasting security lockdown that is a trip to the Statue of Liberty.

As I mentioned before - the US is diverse. And its diversity and rich history are great when you are bored and feel like having an adventure. Typifying history and diversity is New York. I'm sure it is redundant now to tell you that New York is big. You all know that it is a huge collection of buildings and cars and people and overpriced cupcake stores. However New York has this great ability to be so crowded and so big that things can get lost in the noise. You can walk down a street a thousand times a month and then one day stop outside a storefront and realise that two blocks from your place of work is "Spandex World". You've never known that "Spandex World" was there, judging by the dated signage and the inch thick dust on the, ahem, garments, this World of Spandex has been on W. 38th street for some time, yet you have never noticed it until the organza and purple clad mannequin fell over in the store window as you were passing yesterday and burned your eye. (This did happen to me yesterday. "Spandex World" exists and I will provide evidence ASAP.)

So I am on a mission to seek out the hidden but not so hidden treasures of New York. To see the things that tourists may not see but locals may ignore as well. My first target - General Ulysses S Grant. No-one in New York seems to know that the 18th President and his wife are entombed on Manhattan island in the largest mausoleum in North America. Mention it to some locals and they all say very nice positive things that Americans are so good at saying, such as "Really?! That's Great", "Oh, I did not know that. I'm so pleased you told me!". but never do they say - "oh yeah you mean the giant tomb up there on Riverside Drive?". It's one of my favourite things about living in New York - if you do a little digging you can find something hidden very quickly and impress anyone with your local knowledge even faster.

Ulysses Grant was a bit of a dude. He was President AND General-in-Chief of the Union Army during the civil war. A career military man he went to West Point Military Academy and then went and fought in the Mexican-American war which he strongly opposed. His career halted when he abruptly quit the army and went to work in a variety of jobs which he sucked majorly at. He then joined a militia for the north, led some good battles, became chummy with Abe Lincoln, was elected President, smoked a lot of cigars blah blah blah died of throat cancer. My cursory research into Grant really got stuck at the point where Ulysses suddenly quit the army in his early days. Nowhere could I find a good reason why he suddenly up and left a well paid and well respected job in which he was, by all reports, quite gifted at. There were a few hinted references to Grant being a bit of an alcoholic and rumour has it that he was found drunk on duty one day and he was given the option of quitting the army or being court marshaled. Being the pussy that he was he left the army and went back to work for dad in Ohio. Wait. Wait. This sounds so so familiar. Does anyone remember another failed businessman drunk who kept going back to daddy for jobs before he finally became president despite being a doofus?? Ah no-matter, lets leave the historical parallels for another day.

So now I had my hook. Grant was a drunk! And I knew just the place to go and find out if it was true or not. His resting place! Grant's tomb sits alongside the Hudson river on what used to be a giant park. It now shares its space with buildings and student accommodations for Colombia University. The mausoleum is run by the US National Parks Service and according to their website they run thrice daily talks about the tomb and the man himself. That's it! I would ask a Smoky the Bear type whether it was true that Grant spent most of his military campaign pissed off his nut in the back of a tent. I like to imagine that he drank so he could look his wife in the eye - Julia Grant was born with terribly crossed eyes and I figure Grant could gaze into those darting pools of light if his own eyes lazily rolled about in his head as well. Once she became First Lady Julia was asked if she would like to undergo an operation to correct her eyes but the President forbade it and said he liked (to drink) Julia just the way she was. A likely story!

Arriving at the tomb I have to say I was pretty impressed. I had brought with me not only my thirst (ha!) for a drunk Grant story but a real live American who could impart some of her knowledge of her fine country as we walked around the tomb. Lets call her, Tamara, for the story's sake. Tamara and I were both impressed. This tomb is BIG. It is an imposing structure that looms down at you. With two eagle statutes on either side of the staircase to greet you - the motto "Let us have peace" (Grant's slogan for his first election campaign, man it shits all over the ethereal "yes we can") which is carved on the front of the building seems more a declaration of war than any peaceful welcome. Once you arrive at the tomb you know this guy was THE MAN.

Inside the mausoleum I was equally impressed. The soaring dome funnels light so that it floods the lower level of the tomb where Ulysses and Old Crossed Eyes lie in eternal decay. The building, designed by John Duncan, apparently was neglected for many years and was the subject of a great deal of vandalism and neglect. However since the late 80s it has been nurtured by a newly interested public and the actions of New York City which only acted to restore the tomb after Illinois threatened to relocate the President and his wife to the mid-west. With any new-found interest comes a gift shop. I rushed over to the gift shop nestled to the side of the tomb to find out when the tour was starting. I had already bored Tamara with my conspiracy theories regarding Grant's drunkenness and I wanted to have an expert view on whether Grant was sloshed when he signed his anti-Semitic order expelling all Jews from the union forces under his command back in 1862.

The tour was scheduled for 2 PM - and so i asked Smokey - who was lazily surfing the web behind a stock of Grant's autobiography.

"Will the tour be starting soon?"
"No"
"But the website says it will start at 2"
"I'm not doing a tour!"
"Ah, but the website..."
"I cant do the damn tour when I'm the only one here, can i?"

With a dirty look and a sharp logic that could cut diamonds I backed meekly away - deeply disappointed with myself that I had not researched US National Parks staffing guidelines before I dared to ask Smokey when the tour was beginning.

Tamara buoyed my spirits as best she could as we toured the rest of the tomb and took inappropriately enthusiastic photos of us standing in front of civil war memorabilia and dead presidents. But I couldn't let it go. I knew Smokey knew something about Grant - or at least the damn building. He had to. I thought I would throw him an easy one. There are no toilets in the tomb. I know this because it clearly states on the National Parks website that Julia Grant expressly stated that there was never to be any restrooms (no American website would ever say toilet!) in her resting place. Clearly the woman who spent almost her entire 70 odd years tending to a drunk couldn't bear the thought of any more unwelcome noxious liquids splashing near her again.

I made Tamara go and ask Smokey where the toilets were. Rousing from his vintage car induced hibernation (he was valuing vintage cars on the web) he told Tamara she'd have to go across the street.

"There are no restrooms in here..."
...
...

That's it? That's what my US tax dollar goes to? Come on Smokey! It was such an easy one. A quick explanation of how one crossed-eyed woman had forever condemned poor French tourists to awkwardly skip across the road to find the loo? Is that too much to ask? Apparently it was. Tamara and I spent the rest of our time touching all of his precious civil war gifts - who knew there was so much to choose from?

As we walked down the stairs I felt a little dejected. My first foray into finding "hidden" secrets in New York had been stymied by a surly public servant. I would never find out if Grant, a four star General, really enjoyed a tipple or if he kept falling off his horse during battles because of a nasty inner-ear infection.

Walking towards the river I stopped to sit on one of the bollards that blocked traffic to the park behind the tomb. I noticed it was star shaped. And there they were, four bollards in a row, formed in the shape of stars to commemorate the four star general buried 20 metres away. It was a nice touch. A subtle one, and one I felt was a little hidden. I pointed them out to Tamara and we happily walked off into Harlem for ribs. We never found out if Grant was a drunk but we did find some uniquely shaped traffic blockers. I'm calling it a success! On the way through Harlem we came across a van parked on the road that was emblazoned with the US National Parks logo. Feeling particularly patriotic to my newly adopted country, I slashed its tires...

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Photos

This is my favourite flag of the three
No Tour - No matter

I could still smell the booze
Embalmed by whisky.

All good presidents have their own doll
Hang on I think I had an Obama one but it's now considered un-PC...

Comments

[MIchelle O]

Lovely!
Oh Patrick, I so enjoy reading of new Americans enjoying the pleasures of our country! I too attended Grant's tomb and was denied a tour, but note, my hubby is on it! Let no other American be denied access to our great history! And that Tamara you are with is quite lovely I must say. Sincerely, Michelle O.

[Athena]

Give up your day job
Patrick Love reading your travel jounal so much I recommend you give up your day job and become a travel writer... seriously.. Athena