Of all the cities I have been too in the world, New York is the one that immediately excites from the time you arrive.
Anywhere that has as many cultural and urban icons as New York will have you looking around for that next familiar site you have seen so many times in the media, movies, television or had described in books and literature. But what makes New York such a brilliant place to visit is its intensity and the way it just breathes life from the moment you arrive. Despite all of the familiar building and imagery and the sheer architectural size of the place, it is the lifestyle that makes this place immediately special.
I spent just four days in the wonderful city, from February 20 – 24, 2010, so this isn’t meant to be a detailed travel critique, but just an account of an Australian in New York (and the United States) for the first time. Straight up, my main advice if you don’t have a huge amount of time to spend in New York is not to just scramble around trying to see all the sights – that would take months anyway – but to enjoy the vibe of the place.
I arrived late on a Saturday for a conference beginning of the Monday. I was there working for New Holland Publishers and caught up with a South African colleague and then some of his friends who were working in the city. Coincidently we ended up at an Aussie themed bar called Van Diemen’s at 383, 3rd and 27th Street. Despite its name and theme, I got the impression that for them it was quiet the novelty to actually have an Aussie there! They had problems understanding my accent, then there was the usual problem in the difference between real-English and American-English – don’t ask for a serviette as you will just get a blank stare until you ask for a napkin. They served the Australian beer, Tooheys New, but it was so rare for anyone to actually order one that they were being lined-up in front of me before I even got to place an order. It could be they had a basement full of the stuff and just wanted to get rid of it.
The next day (Sunday) was the chance to do some sight-seeing and as I always recommend when in a new city, I took advantage of one of those hop-on hop-off tourist buses. I figure it is the best way to familiarize yourself and you can always do back later and see particular places in more detail. I chose the City Sights service – just buying a day pass from one of their hawkers at their stops. It cost about US$50, which was pretty could value given that included discount passes for admission to attractions, although I never did use them.
Normal Sunday service takes places amidst tourists at St Paul's Chapel, next to Ground Zero
By the way, I stayed at the Novotel Time Square, on 52nd Street just off Broadway- a great location and not a bad hotel for the money. It was from just near here I caught the first leg of the tour on that cold late winter’s morning – well cold by Australian standards. We travelled along Broadway, past Madison Square Garden (the current building isn’t square and doesn’t have a garden!), past the old textile district, through Greenwich Village, then tor Wall Street and then got off near the World Trade Centre site. My entry to Ground Zero was, through chance not design, through the St Paul’s Chapel, but as it turned out it is a remarkable introduction to the events of September 11, 2001. I had just passed the impromptu memorial site known to people around the world where photos of the missing where placed on a wire fence in the wake of the terrorist attacks in the Twin Towers. St Paul’s contained more impromptu memorials, particularly for the emergency workers who lost their lives. Access to Ground Zero is through a cemetery at the rear of the church. Another moving part of this chapel is that it was a refuge for those fleeing the burning World Trade Center, and yet despite it’s remarkable proximity to such devastation, the building remained virtually undamaged – perhaps there was some divine intervention amongst the carnage that day.
Ground Zero - February 21, 2010
The resilience of New York in overcoming the adversity of 9/11 is remarkable. Overall during my stay, you could have visited Manhattan and if you had not gone to Ground Zero the impact on the psyche of the city wouldn’t be apparent. But to me there were two symbolic interactions with the people of New York during my sight-seeing that made it all too clear that the trauma is real – as it should be. One was at St Paul’s where there was an odd collage of the normality of day to day life nine years after the terrorist attack combined with the reality that this building had become an international tourist attraction. While I walked around the chapel looking at the memorials and the store setup inside selling memorabilia, the parishioners were there worshipping at their normal Sunday service. They had clearly become attuned to the changed status of their religious community. The other encounter was with the tour guide on the coach, who was a journalist retrenched because of the Global Financial Crisis. He remained upbeat, as tourist guides tend to be, until reflecting on the Brooklyn Bridge and how it was the pedestrian escape route for himself and thousands of others to escape the toxic air of Manhattan on that day in 2001.
As with many major sights around the world, the thing that strikes you when you get to see them first-hand is their size. There is no way that television coverage can ever do justice to the size of the site of the former World Trade Center – at ground-level it is impossible to photograph in a single shot, and aerial shots may fit in the entire site but loose a sense of scale.
Anyone visiting New York in the aftermath of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre is destined to want to visit the site, not only because of the stark images engrained in the memories of all us through the media, not only to pay tribute to such a loss of life and the bravery of those who perished, but also because this site, irrespective of what is built in the future, is the location of a key event in World history. However, it is important not to dwell only on the Twin Towers and to recognize New York for the living and breathing city of the world it was before the attack and continues to be now and in the future.
To feel the bustle of the daily life of New Yorkers, you don’t have to go any further than my next stop after Ground Zero, the Staten Island Ferry. My colleague and I spent ages trying to find the ticket box for a trip across on the ferry, only to find out to our embarrassment that it is FREE! Gee, I wish Australian cities had this. A return trip on the Staten Island Ferry is a must for the views of the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island and of course the skyline of Manhattan. This trip truly puts into scale the size of the place. Mixing with the locals throughout the city also shows you one of the truly remarkable aspects of New York. It is a seething mass of people and yet it also has a truly remarkable sense of community and identity.
Most tour buses will take you on a route from the ferry though other districts of Manhattan which show the cultural diversity of the borough – a diversity which is maintained despite high-property values through subsidized housing programs. Chinatown, Little Italy, Hell’s Kitchen and much more are all within a few blocks of each other.
The second tour (all within one day) which was included in the same ticket price headed north and took in the entertainment and cultural precinct that was once home to the neighborhoods seen in pop-culture such as Westside Story. We drove around Central Park, passing the Dakoda Building where John Lennon as assassinated and Yoko Ono still lives (her apartment is differentiated by the drawn white blinds) and through Harlem, passing the famous Apollo Theatre and then around the other side of Central Park pass the Museum of New York and so many other institutions that will have to wait until my next visit. Unfortunately the season and recent snowfalls meant Central Park was a brown quagmire and not the beautiful green urban oasis that it is usually depicted as, although I did get to see from the bus my first and only sighting of a squirrel!
Ice Skating next to the Rockafeller Building
A tip for anyone wanting to go to the top of a skyscraper but is time-limited and wants the best view, don’t go to the Empire State Building. I went to the top of the Rockafeller Building. A few stories shorter but here are the advantages: it only costs $US23, there aren’t the lengthy queues and you get a 360 degree panorama including better views of Central Park and the Chrysler Building. The Empire State by comparison allows you only to go to two corners and has lengthy waits. The Rockafeller also has the advantage of seeing the outdoor skating rink that is often used as a location in movies and television.
Even though I was only in New York for four days, there are too many other locations to mention in any detail –Macy’s, Radio City Music Hall or Broadway’s theatres. And as three of my days involved work in attending the conference there are many places I just so much want to see, but didn’t have the opportunity. I only got to go to Manhattan, but would love to go to the other boroughs, particularly Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx.
But you know what?
Times Square - A week after Valentine's Day and the ice hasn't melt!
As I have already mentioned, I don’t regret one bit not using every second of my spare time trying to squeeze in as much sight-seeing as possible because then I wouldn’t have got the best experience of New York as possible. What I did do, -given the hotel and the conference venue were close to Times Square- was just absorb the spirit of the city.
So many cities of the world have their cultural icons, but when you get there they are spread out and in the void is the blandness of modern day urbanism which tends to have a generic feel in any Western country. Few cities have appeared as much in pop-culture –be it songs, movies, stage, television and literature- as New York and when you get there, the idiosyncrasies of New York aren’t just clichés they are real.
I have never been to a place that is so much alive and like walking on to a movie set – the street-food vendors, the steaming drains, the Yellow Cabs, the delis and the general streetscape.
Out of the three U.S cities to which I have been, New York wins hands down compared to San Francisco and Los Angeles. In fact it is one of my favourite places in the world and in saying that, my other favourites are too diverse to truly compare.
