New York City :: USA
This is a Brooklyn bound L train.
Places: New York, New York.
Coolest thing I did: Watched kids snowboarding in the Park.
Coolest thing I didn´t know: People here are far from rude, in face I can't recall the last big city where people talk to strangers so much.
I'm going to try hard not to resort to hyperbole when describing New York City, but it's going to be hard. To try and hold it off for a short time, I will describe my day today, just to give you a taste. I spent the morning walking over the Brooklyn Bridge and wandering around the brownstones of the town of Brooklyn Heights, which includes a spectacular view over the North River to Manhattan. I had a pasta lunch that could only be described as spot on (I assume this is because this is where the actual Italians all moved once the Lower East Side became decrepit) and took the subway back to Manhattan to spend the afternoon lost in Greenwich Village before going up the Empire State Building to take the whole place in at miniature scale. That rates as a rather slow day since my arrival four days ago as I'm writing this instead of bar hopping around the East Village, which is where I happen to be staying.
As you can tell, I'm having the best time.
I've been in hyper tourist mode since I got here as there is no city I've ever been to that's been so good at promoting itself and every time I do one thing I find a vaguely remembered reference to something else very close by. My first day was spent wandering around the canyons of lower Manhattan, which alternates between the very old and the ultra new. Just around the corner from the brass bull statue out the front of the neoclassical facade of Rockefeller's Standard Oil building lies the NYSE and Wall street, the very heart and aorta of the capitalist animal. While the gold and cash have been replaced by innumerable electronic signals, it is no less the hub of our globalised financial system. There is no place on the planet, London, Frankfurt and Tokyo included (or even combined) has the feel of an unrestrained free market as Wall street, which must be why it gets to be the only logically straight road in the incongruously random streets of lower Manhattan. While the rest of the city follows the logic of vertical Avenues at right angles to Streets, the layout near the tip of the island looks almost Old World.
I took the Staten Island Ferry out for a close look at the Statue of Liberty and wasn't disappointed by either the view or not taking the option of walking on Liberty Island itself. If you were still able to climb the statue, I'd have paid to do so, but no one seems to see the ultimate irony of protecting the very symbol of liberty from the “evil doers” by taking away...erm...the liberty of the people to climb it.
I also went to look at the world's most evocative hole in the ground, where two towers originally hated by New Yorkers stood. It's hard, even now, to engage in conversation with someone who has lived here long enough to call themselves a New Yorker and not have the subject of those twin cavities or the saga of their replacement come up. Everyone has an opinion here, and isn't afraid to give it out. I love that.
I spent a day in the middle of Manhattan looking at all those skyscrapers that make the place famous. In stark contrast to the business like nature of the Downtown, the beauty of some of the structures just south of Central Park can't be denied. I was fascinated by anything art deco even before coming here but seeing the Empire State, Chrysler and Rockefeller Center up close has moved me to almost make this a love letter to all things with vertical bars and gods on them. Sure, there are some monstrosities. Take the UN building, or even better Donald Trump's love letter to both extreme capitalism and himself. Looking at the GE building compared to the gold and red marble edifice that is Trump Tower only shows that there's no accounting for taste, and that the old money of the 30s at least left us something beautiful, whereas I can't see too many people falling in love with the debris of the 80s.
Having said that, the ode to the combination of capital and labour written by John D Rockefeller and engraved outside his eponymous Plaza is pure gilded age piffle that could have easily been penned by Ayn Rand (in fact, I wonder if the Atlas statue out the front in any way inspired her book title?). As a man that spent his life running an empire provided by his father by engaging in business tactics that are now illegal in most of the world it seems a bit rich for him to be telling us about the beauty of humanities achievements through the sweat of it's own brow. It's a reminder that just like the monuments left by every other civilization before this one, it's the veneration of the rich and powerful that leaves the lasting mark on the world. I guess that's the price we pay.
The Met also lived up to the hype. While they have none of the most famous artworks from any particular artist, period or culture, the sheer number of works can easily fill a day or more to see. My only regret is the most famous picture, of Washington crossing the Delaware River wasn't on display because the extensive American wing was closed for some reason. However a whole truck loads of Rembrandts, Dalis, Van Gogh and Monets more than make up for that. The Americans don't seem immune from the prestige projects of the late 19th century that saw the Met end up two entire Egyptian temples taken from their home land and reconstructed on US soil. I'd assumed that was a European kind of arrogance but it seems that in the struggle to define itself as a real country, the game of oneupmanship that infected Europe at the time crossed the Atlantic too.
As an added treat, the winter that never came ended on Saturday night with almost a meter of snow falling on the city. This left Central Park blanketed in snow and the Sunday afternoon crowds out to enjoy it as best they could. There were cross country skiers, tobogganers mixing it up with snowball fighters and snowman builders, but by far the coolest thing was the snowboarders. These kids built a jump at the bottom of a stair case and were going down at full tilt over the jump to the applause of a waiting crowd. All nominally in the middle of a city. This place is beyond unique.
So the hostel is a dive, but it's got a good crowd and it's located on the border of the East Village and the increasingly less dodgey Alphabet City. When compared with the gentrification of the world famous Greenwich Village on the other side of Washington Square, the East Village is a combination of down and out and hip. I've been going to a different cheap restaurant, bar or club every night (sometimes several bars) and there's no end of new ones in sight. I'd have thought going into these hip places would leave me feeling like an outsider but I reckon I've yet to get more than 10 mins after ordering a beer without a conversation starting with a complete stranger. God, these people love to talk. I admit, it's about work more often than not, they do seem to take an interest and love the chance to talk about themselves to a foreigner just as much. Pity the bar staff are so universally surely. Perhaps they'd rather be out on a Saturday night.
It does, however, seem like a tragically hip and naive part of town. Whilst sitting at a Belgian bar at about 3am, myself and an English bloke I happened to be out with noticed two blokes started slapping each other and rushed out into the street for a fight. It was like no one had ever seen one before. While we gave it a subtle glance over our shoulders and continued drinking the place emptied to go and watch. I guess when everyone is dressed like it's a Napoleon Dynamite conference you don't get many fights.
Right, my love letter to my new favorite city (sorry Berlin) has to end for now, but more is sure to come soon.