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Published: July 28th 2011
Brooklyn
is this the first day of Spring?Once again dear readers, we find ourselves in a familiar situation. Facing a blank screen trying to recall what happened four months and four thousand kilometres ago. But thankfully, New York City ain't the kind of place that you forget in a hurry!
If I recall correctly, it was quite a warm afternoon as we jumped on a bus from the airport, heading towards the trains of Manhattan. Despite the fact neither of us had ever set foot in the Big Apple, immediately we were pointing to familiar old sights and features - the Apollo in Harlem, recalling song references to the A and the D and the F trains, the East River and Hudson, and our heads were abuzz with songs and movie scenes and all of a sudden we were lost on the streets of Downtown Brooklyn... Focus, find our bed for the night, and out we go exploring. Our first wanderings were just meant to be around our local block to get our bearings, but before we knew it we had accidentally come across the most famous of NYC lookouts - looking across to Manhattan from near the Brooklyn Bridge, and once again we were overloaded with
view to Manhatten
an afternoon stroll ends down by the East River buildings and stories and songs which we seemed to know well. As it got darker, and the streets of Brooklyn cleared out on the eve of the Easter long weekend, we started to feel a bit uneasy and a bit out of our comfort zone. Police sirens nearby, vacant streets, people hanging on corners watching us walk past and why does this block feel so sketchy??? Oh, look, its a giant high-rise prison that we're standing at the entrance (and more importantly exit) door of! And so we walked another block or two, and slowly the streets were starting to liven up. We walked into a packed little French bar, where the musicians were going crazy and the bar man was plying us with free exotic beers, and oh the food and this is more like it!
Days two and three were spent checklisting the sights and activities, from the Staten Island Ferry past the big statue, to Ground Zero (a massive construction zone which us tourists mill about), through Chinatown for some lunch. This was all very nice and impressive, but as usual the most rewarding times were spent lost in the backstreets. For me the highlight was
even the jails are high-rise in New York
and this may explain why our walks home through this part of town always felt a bit sketchy busing and walking and getting lost through the middle of the Hassidic Jewish communities of Brooklyn (and it happened to be Passover), with all the crazy traditional clothes and hair and hats, then hitting the 'former' mob territories in Greenpoint and Williamsburg. Our main aim in this little adventure was to find Pete's Candy Store, which once was indeed a candy store, but nowadays is a small music venue and bar. And what a find - quite possibly one of the most imaginative and cozy music venues to be we've come across yet. We spent a lazy afternoon checking out a few low key bands, and chatting to the lovely bar lady who filled us in on the mob heritage of the area.
Having come from a cold Toronto still trying to break the shackles of Winter, the warmth, sun, leaves and flowers of New York City certainly provided a pleasant and somewhat unexpected welcoming. And when the sun came out on our final day in town, and the mercury hit the mid-20s we made a bee-line for the famous Central Park. Here we basked in the sun and were treated to everything that is amazing about NYC. Grabbed
ourselves a hot dog or two, watched some awesome break-dancing and wandered our way through a glorious Sunday afternoon, before heading out to get some amazing Cuban food back in Brooklyn and taking a well earned snooze in the city that never sleeps.
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