Upper West Side Story

---

And then there was New York, just like I pictured it, with skyscrapers and everything. I took the Acela Express from Washington DC to New York, North America's only high speed train. It is fast and it's electric, not diesel, no waiting for switiches or freight traffic, at stations doors open and close with little time in between and we left on time and arrived on time. And these trains are frequent. I got to Union Station and tried to buy a ticket, the salesman told me that one leaves in 5 minutes. That seemed a bit soon, I wasn't keen on running for the train. The next leaves one hour later, so this gave me time to get some food and find my way around the large station; the later train was $50 cheaper. All this and it's still Amtrak. The train made stops at Baltimore, Maryland; Willimgton, Delaware; Philadelphia; Newark and finally Penn Station in Manhattan. After some confusion at Penn Station, I bought my Metro Card for New York transit and headed uptown to my hostel. I got to the hostel in the Upper West Side at 1pm, but I couldn't check in until 4 pm so I left my knapsack in a locker, and got some lunch. Then I went for a walk along Broadway. Broadway runs the entire length of Manhattan, and here on the upper west side it looks like any other street in New York, but this street scene appears quite different from the rest of North America. The first thing I noticed is that there are many small shops. In the rest of North America we either shop in malls, or big box stores. There is no room for this in Manhattan as there are only small shops below the tall buildings and each selling one kind of item: a shoe shop, luggage, bakery, grocer, small and usually independent restaurants, hardware, kitchen supplies, pharmacy etc. It's how people used to shop 50 years ago. Walmart and Home Depot do not fit into these small shops, but there is of course a Starbucks on every corner. I returned to check in, and on my floor of the building is the laundry. I did a load of laundry, the hobo wash in the sink is not effective in this humidity. The clothes don't dry well overnight by hanging. With a fresh set of clothes I was ready for New York, and if I can make it here, I can make it anywhere.

My first full day in New York was a Friday. I took the bus south to 72nd Street and wandered over to the Dakota Apartments. The only reason why this location is first on my to do list is because it was one of the closest things to see. The Dakota Apartment is a fancy residential place, where many famous people have lived over the years: Lauren Bacall, Leonard Bernstein, and John Lennon. It was outside this apartment where John Lennon was shot in 1980. Across the road, just inside Central Park, is a circular mosaic with the word "Imagine" in the centre, and a garden called Strawberry Fields. I left by bus to go further south to the Columbus Circle at the south west corner of Central Park. I walked on to the Lincoln Centre, then further south to Times Square. I did quite a bit of walking that first morning, just taking in the atmosphere of New York, the city that never sleeps. I would return to Times Square numourous times during my 12 days in New York. I just wandered about during the day past the Rockerfeller Centre, the New York Library, and along 5th Avenue gawking at the shops and getting lost in the general hectic scene. I returned to the hostel in the late afternoon for a quick rest, before heading out again. I set off for the Metropolitan Museum of Art on the upper east side, just a simple cross town bus got me there in no time. Friday evenings the museum is open late, I got there when the queues had descreased to nearly nothing - it can be really busy during the day. I headed straight upstairs to the European paintings. I got a headset and listened to descriptions of Picasso, Monet, Manet, Van Gogh, El Greco, Rembrandt, Vermeer. I was upstairs looking for quite a while, passing quickly the artists I hadn't heard of and spending more time with artists I had. The rooms were connected in a rather labyrinthine manner, a fun place to get lost. There was a room of intruments, ancient and modern, and the highlight was a golden drum presented to Ringo Starr by Ludwig Drums. The Stadivarius and Amati violins were tucked away nearly out of sight. Downstairs were the Egyptian, Greek and Roman artifacts - I was running out of time so I rushed through this floor. At 8:45 the security started to herd us out "send 'em that way" I heard one yell to another. Like cattle we were ushered out one or two doors and into the night. Like a swarm of yellow bees, many yellow taxis arrived to take us away, I took the crosstown bus back to the upper west side.

Saturday I took the bus all the way to Lower Manhattan, in a couple of stages. You might ask, "why not just take the subway? it's faster!" It's not about speed, but seeing where you go. By bus, surface transport, I can see all of Manhattan as it unfolds from uptown to downtown. I got off the bus a couple of blocks from the World Trade Center sight, currently it is a massive construction zone. Across the road is the small St Paul's Chapel, built in 1766, one of the oldest buildings in all of Manhattan. It survived the fire of 1776. George Washington attended services here immediately after he took the oath of office in 1789. And most recently it survived the collapse of the WTC across the street, covered in debris but there was no structural damage to the church. Inside the church are a few 911 displays. Outside the church is a newly forged bell erected September 11 2002, one year after. From there I collected my thoughts and feelings and walked south to Battery Park. I ate a late lunch, and then met our walking tour guide. The meeting point was outside City Hall in Lower Manhattan. There was a large group of us for the Big Onion Walking Tours, the first of four walking tours I would take. The Big Onion was the original name for New York, and this company has taken the name. The Big Apple sounds nicer, but the Big Onion says more because of the metaphoric idea of peeling back the layers to reveal more and more and more. Our walking tour would take us over the Brooklyn Bridge. 19th Century New York was known for being a haven for criminals and corrruption - have you seen The Gangs of New York? It was decided that the Brooklyn Bridge would be built without corruption, and so it happened. But not wthout problems: the chief engineer died from tetenus after a strange accident, his son took over and got a serious case of the bends while down installing the casings, and a stampeed killed many on opening day in 1889. At the time is was the longest suspension bridge in the world. We walked across in the late afternoon and got some great views of Manhattan behind us. We ended the tour in Brooklyn, How Sweet It Is!

Sunday, I took the bus south, changed buses and made my way to the Empire State Building. I looked up, way up and took a few photos. I didn't want to go to the top of this building. I wanted to go to the top of another building and see the Empire State Building. That's one thing that the view from the top of the Empire State Building doesn't have, a view of the Empire State Building. I went to the Starbucks at the bottom on the building to refuel. I walked south from 34th Street to 23rd Street to photograph the Flatiron Building, just a great old building from 1909. I had to make a couple of bus connections to make the rendezvous point for my next walking tour of Greenwich Village. I was very nearly late. Each of these walking tours are about 2 hours, and they take us to places I just wouldn't find if I were on my own, and they take us to places those double decker tourist buses can't fit. Greenwich Village is a jumble of streets that do not fit onto the grid plan of the rest of Manhattan. The reason is simply that it predates the grid plan. Greenwich Village started as a village far removed from the small town of New York at the tip of Manhattan Island. Gradually New York grew and overtook Greenwich Village, but the original street plan remained. It wasn't until the early 20th Century when 7th Avenue was extended through in a straight line and literally houses had to be cut in half to make way for this thoroughfare. During the 1920's Greenwich Village started to become a haven for Bohemians, artists and eccentrics. The most famous speakeasy's were there during Prohibition. The Stonewall Pub is in Greenwich Village, believed by many to be the sight of the gay rights movement, not that there's anything wrong with that. We ended the tour at Washington Square.

Monday was the day I went to the American Natural History Museum, just down the road in the upper west side, I spent the day there, not a Night at the Museum. I entered through the back, where there was no line up. I walked right in. Like any other natural history museum there are plenty of stuffed animals in displays from every natural habitat on Earth, jungle, savanna, tundra, marine, alpine, temperate etc. Great for kids during field trips. And indeed, there were many kids on summer programmes being dragged through the museum. As the day wore on, the place got more and more crowded and louder. I had a long break in the middle of my visit when I went to the Planetarium. This was a movie about the history of the universe, not a small topic. I spent some time in the shop deciding what to buy. I wandered through the galleries of dinosaurs, reptiles, and fish etc. There was a short film narrated by Meryl Streep on the evolution of vertebrates. Also in the galleries are exhibits on native peoples from around the world: Indians from North and South America and some information on Asian cultures. I left and returned to the hostel for a mid-afternoon break from the noise. I set off again in the late afternoon to Times Square, the Centre of the Universe. The traffic patterns have changed such that only one road goes south now, and there is far more space for pedestrians, and there are a lot of them. Can you imagine how crowded mid-town was at the end of rush hour - the combination of people leaving work and tourists wandering about. It's awesome, and it makes my commute through Burnaby each week-day as positively pastoral. Manhattan is all about noise, heat, crowds, cigarettes, exhaust fumes, honking horns, talking, yelling, hot dogs burning, cars moving, babies screaming, buses accelerating, trucks braking, pigeons, cops, sirens and life, insane life. I photographed what I could, and returned totally knackered.

I went to the Guggenheim Museum on Tuesday, a museum in which the building itself is a bigger draw than the actual art inside. I got there a little after opening and had to stand in a brutal line. The building, the famous white helix spiral was Frank Lloyd Wright''s last major work and was completed in 1959. It stands in stark contrast to all the other buildings around, rectangular and brown. Inside there is the art of George Braque, Picasso, Cezanne, Kandinsky, and a Monet, but the museum is also famous for all of its new modern art exhibits. At the top were a couple of large photographs - street photography. "Hey, I know that scene" says I. It was the corner of Richards and Dunsmuir in Vancouver. And there was an exhibit of 7 continuous loop 8mm projector films of the same old man posing in a chair from a different angles. This is art I don't get. But who am I to say when art is art and when its pretentious crap? I left after only an hour, it's not a huge museum. I walked across the road to the Met Art Gallery to go to the shop - I didnt have time on Friday evening. That evening, I returned to Times Square and stood in line at the half price tickets booth for a Broadway Show. I bought a ticket for La Cage Aux Folles, with Kelsey Grammer. I didn't know what the seat was, and when I got to the theatre was I in for a total surprise. On the ticket, my seat was described as Cabaret Seat. I was seated in the front row, at a table with four other chairs. These tables are in a small way part of the show. We were sitting in front of the crowd in rows of chairs between them and the stage, even blocking the view for some. My ticket was worth $200 if bought in advance at the box office. I bought it 3 hours before the show and paid less than half. The show was fantastic, great songs, singing and dancing. The story follows that wonderful French movie from the 70's quite faithfully. The dancers were men in drag, not that there's anything wrong with that, athletic, with plenty of singing and dancing. During one number, I was kissed on the head with sloppy red paint lipstick as they danced on our caberet tables. At intermission, I had to walk past everyone with this lipstick mark on my forehead. I got a lot of looks and smiles; it took quite a lot of work to remove it completely. Kelsey Grammer played the father of the boy about to marry, the non-tranvestite, proprieter and master of ceremonies for the caberet, Douglas Hodge plays the transvestite and star of the show. La Cage Aux Folles is the only Broadway musical to have one the Tony Award for Best Musical Revival twice, it's been around for a while now. Fantastic, and thoroughly worth watching.

---