New York – where we scraped the sky, brushed with fame and found we didn’t have to reach for our guns to enjoy culture. We had breakfast at Tiffanys, represented our country at the United Nations, went breakdancing in Harlem and paid our respects to the birthplace of the hot dog and Luna Park.
It was somewhat strange to travel from Pennsylvania to Pennsylvania Station.
A map of New York to get your bearings. The Bronx is up and The Battery down…
We arrived in New York like out-of-town yokels; stumbling through the streets gawking at buildings, arguing over maps and banging our bags into people.
We had booked an AirBnB apartment from a woman named Katie that was situated on 48th St opposite the Rockefeller Centre. Katie’s place was a classic old NY tenement with rickety stairs, uneven floors, dodgy plumbing and, worryingly, no obvious fire escape. Still it was clean and cosy and felt like home for the two weeks we stayed there.
While staying at Katie’s place, it also dawned on us why New Yorkers seldom cook as there is cheap and terrific food within walking distance of anywhere. Our apartment was above a sushi restaurant and when we walked on to the street we had two delis next door and a variety of restaurants competing for our mouths before we reached the end of the block.
Out the front of Katie’s place on 48th St
Writing a post on my phone at Katie’s place
Walking the Streets of New York
For our first day, I had booked a six hour private walking tour of New York with Max Vishnev. Max is an ex-Wall Street banker who left his job to run a walking tour company called City Rover.
Max’s tour was a fantastic introduction to the city and I would highly recommend it to anyone travelling to New York even if it is not for the first time. Max has a tremendous knowledge of the city and its history as well as the tricks and tips that only a resident New Yorker can pick up. These included tips on using the subway, where the best coffee shops were, how to orientate yourself anywhere in the city, local events that we should see, the correct pronunciation of local names, how much to tip at different places and tourist scams to avoid. This was invaluable knowledge. We drew on Max’s advice for the duration of our stay, often asking ourselves “what did Max say again?”
The incomparable Max Vishnev
As for the tour itself, the streets of New York did inspire us and make us feel brand new. But our feet were really sore by the end of it. They don’t mention that in the songs.
We explored Greenwich Village, SoHo (south of Housten St), Little Italy, Chinatown and many interesting landmarks in-between.
Standing outside the famous Brill Building, the songwriter sweatshop that gave us Carole King, Neil Diamond, Burt Bacharach, Ellie Greenwich, Paul Simon and many other amazing writers. Paul Simon still has his office in the building.
Washington Square
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory building. The tragic fire at this building in 1911 put a sharp curb on exploitative capitalism and led to major reforms to American labor and building laws that are still in force today. Find out more here.
Famous music cafe, Cafe Wha? in Greenwich Village. Home to Dylan and Hendrix back in the day.
A New York pizza in a New York park
A rare break in the traffic.
Little Italy
Chinatown
The Five Points – Once the turf for New York’s toughest. (See Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York). Now a playground for New York tots.
Who are these out-of-town yokels?
Bleecker Street – the Greenwich Village musical neighborhood that also formed the title of the beautiful Simon and Garfunkel song.
Riding the subway. The F line was our most frequent friend during our stay.
Slightly unreal to be visiting the Algonquin Hotel, home of the famous Algonquin Round Table or “the Vicious Circle” as it was also called. This was a group of writers and artists that would meet to chat and compete with witticisms and bon motts. The place was lot smaller than I thought but I could picture Robert Benchley or Dorothy Parker yakking away over a few martinis. As Dorothy Parker said “I love a martini But two at the most. Three, I’m under the table; Four, I’m under the host.”
Some luvvies outside The Algonquin.
The famous Algonquin Round Table
Grand Central Station
The people you see in NYC. Pennie mentioned that Andrew, Monica and Tom were travelling to New York about the same time as us. And in the hectic days before we left I had “Ring Andrew” on my to-do list but never got around to it. On the plane Michelle admonished me and said “how embarrassing would it be if we ran into Andrew in New York and you hadn’t contacted him”. Well, I considered myself embarrassed when we ran into the Phelans at Grand Central Station.
Grand Central Station is both very grand and very central. Harrie got a kick out of the whispering wall next to Grand Central’s famous Oyster Bar. Here you can whisper into the marble walls and, due to the acoustics of the archway, be heard in the opposite wall.
The two Canberran tribes have to travel to New York to catch up.
Grand Central Station
The whispering wall (No, it is NOT Harrie taking a pee).
Citi Field Stadium, Queens
What about them Mets? We attended our first US baseball game – The New York Mets versus the Atlanta Braves at Citi Field Stadium in Flushing Meadows. Citi Field replaced the old Shea Stadium, which apart from baseball, was famous for being where the Beatles played on their last public tour in 1966. It is said that the madness of this tour (and Shea in particular) led the Beatles to decide to stop touring again. To understand you just have to look at this clip from the Shea concert where the Beatles first walk on stage. The music is drowned out by the hysteria of the screaming girls which sound like a background chorus of demented crickets.
There wasn’t quite that dementia of the devoted at the Mets game but there was a strong fan base who were reasonably vocal and only slightly mad. Nothing is too over the top when it comes to supporting the home team and sledging the away team. Actors and past team players appeared on the screen giving their support to the Mets or yelling abuse at the away team. And of course the Mets fans do an even better job at intimidation.
When an umpire ruled a Mets player out, the crowd went wild and soon after their arose a slow but sinister chant of “safe”. Wisely, the umpires went with the angry mob lest a riot occur. Let’s go Mets. Let’s Go Mets! LET’S GO METS!!!
Seeing the Mets play ball at Citi Field Stadium
The Statue of Liberty
Our first combined impression of the Statue of Liberty was how much smaller Lady Liberty looks up close.
We were fortunate to get pedestal tickets which allowed us to visit the Statue of Liberty museum and climb to the top of her pedestal base. The museum had many fascinating exhibits including the original clay models of the Statue as well as her original iron skeleton which had to be painstakingly replaced piece by piece over decades with stainless steel so it wouldn’t rust. The museum also had Liberty’s original torch which had to be replaced early on as it never worked properly.
We also learned more about Emma Lazarus who wrote the poem that is inscribed on Liberty’s base. Bartholdi (the sculptor) and Eiffel (the engineer- yes he of Eiffel Tower fame) had intended Liberty to stand for enlightenment and power but Emma Lazarus cast her as the “Mother of Exiles” who with silent lips cries “Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!” instead “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me”. She welcomed the boats. Tony Abbot would have hated her.
The rarely seen backside of Lady Liberty
The original faulty torch that had to be replaced. It was commented on at the time that the torch was “more like a glowworm than a beacon”.
This is the view looking up to the staircase that leads to the Statue of Liberty’s crown. Tickets are usually sold out within hours of them coming online. They only allow 6 people at a time to ascend.
Michelle taking some liberties with a statue.
That’s our boy.
Fantastic American eagle statue at Battery Point. Great story about the debate over whether the eagle or turkey should be America’s national bird. Benjamin Franklin favoured the turkey while Washington favoured the eagle. The poor artists preparing the national seal for the Boston and Philadelphia City halls did not have time for the debate to be resolved and instead created a “teagle”- half turkey, half eagle. The avian bureaucratic equivalent of a camel (a horse created by a committee).
Ellis Island
The main gateway for all immigrants to the USA until 1954. Now a great monument and museum to honour the melting pot that is New York.
We saw great exhibits like The Word Tree that shows the ethnic origin of various American words. I would like to see “High Muck-a-Muck” restored as an honorific in public office.
Ellis Island
Loved this plaque from Ellis Island.
The Word Tree at Ellis Island
The view of Manhattan on the ferry to Ellis Island
Skyscrapers
Of course, no tourist goes to New York without scraping the sky. We had to go up the top of the two iconic Art Deco buildings – The Empire State Building and The Rockefeller Center. Both over-priced and over-hyped but I think if I had to choose, the Top of The Roc is a slightly better experience as it is more open aired and takes in a magnificent view of Central Park. The elevator in the Rockefeller Centre also has a see through roof which enables you to get a sense of how high and how fast you are travelling. Both have maintained their beautiful Art Deco interiors but again, the Rockefeller Center has the edge with its amazing murals and grand entrances.
View from the Empire State Building.
View from the Empire State Building. As First Aid Kit says “New York City sure looks pretty from way up here”.
This is one of the notorious New York “projects” the low-income housing estates built in the name of “urban renewal”. If you think they look pretty grim from up high, they are even more depressing up close.
The beautiful Art Deco interior to the Empire State Building.
The bill for the building in 1931.
The entrance way to the Rockefeller Center
The view from the top of the Rockefeller Center (the Top of the Roc).
Harrie looking apprehensively at the fire stairs which were on the outside of the top of the Rockefeller Center. No different to every other NY tenement building.
This is the grand mural that greets you when you walk in the Rockefeller Center. It is called American Progress but it replaced the more controversial original painting by Diego Rivera which was destroyed at the orders of Nelson Rockefeller because it featured a picture of Lenin (Rivera was a communist). Rivera got his revenge when he repainted the picture in Mexico and featured Nelson Rockefeller’s teetotal father, John D. Rockefeller Jr, drunk with a woman in a nightclub under a container of syphilis bacteria.
This what you see when you look up in the foyer of the Rockefeller Center. New Yorkers have been using it as a recognisable meeting place for years. So if you are asked to meet “UTC” it means Under The Crotch at the Rockefeller Center.
The Streets of New York City
The following pictures are the many random and planned things clocked by our eyes during our two weeks in New York.
An example of some of the beautiful and elaborate street art to be seen in New York
Some fine threads from a suit shop called Rickys
The Queensboro Bridge. You would know it from Woody Allen’s Manhattan or by its other name The 59th St Bridge as immortalised in the Simon and Garfunkel song Feelin’ Groovy. Hello lamp post watcha knowin’? Michelle and Harrie are sitting on the same seat that Woody Allen and Diane Keaton sat (see the next picture).
No, Michelle is not busting to go to the toilet. She is standing on the subway grate where Marilyn Monroe’s dress fluttered up in The Seven Year Itch. Because of the noise of over 2000 fans who turned up to watch the filming, the scene had to be re-shot on a sound stage in Hollywood.
Michelle and Harrie outside the New York Public Library
Uncle Sam and Nephew Harrie
This bizarre ad for the Occupy movement from a storage company in Tribecca
For all those Jay-Z fans out there, here is part of where he got his name from. All of the subways in New York are named after a letter or a number, such as the famous A train as immortalised by Duke Ellington. Jay-Z coined his name from the JZ line that goes to Brooklyn. Of course, Jay-Z’s Empire State of Mind and Hello Brooklyn feature on our current playlist of New York songs.
New York’s greatest poet, Walt Whitman. “But I was Manhattanese, friendly and proud! I was call’d by my nighest name by clear loud voices of young men as they saw me approaching or passing, Felt their arms on my neck as I stood, or the negligent leaning of their flesh against me as I sat, Saw many I loved in the street, or ferry-boat, or public assembly, yet never told them a word, Lived the same life with the rest, the same old laughing, gnawing, sleeping, Play’d the part that still looks back on the actor or actress, The same old role, the role that is what we make it, as great as we like, Or as small as we like, or both great and small.” From Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, Leaves of Grass.
Outside Radio City Music Hall. Unfortunately, we weren’t visiting in December to see the famous Radio City Music Hall Christmas show with the Rockettes.
Jean-Marc statue by Xaver Velhan on 6th Avenue
Atlas statue by Lee Lawrie and Rene Chambellan
Windows crash on a grand scale. A major multi-screen video billboard near Times Square was displaying these error messages. Harrie thought it was hilarious but I thought it gave the place a much needed display of humanity.
Jeff Koon’s Split Rocker statue outside the Rockefeller Center.
Truth in advertising. We saw this chain across America. They basically sell sweet stuff but not just lollies. They have cereals, salad dressings, drinks – anything with lots of sugar.
We went to the giant M&Ms shop at Times Square and made our own personalized pack of M&Ms.
Hard to see , but our celebrity spotting of Daniel Radcliffe. What you don’t pick up from the photo are the crazy female fans screaming “we love you Daniel”
Beautiful Memory Desserts as apposed to Horrible Memory Desserts
Us boys with our dee-vices.
Harrie at the Nathan Sawaya Art of The Brick Lego exhibition. You can read more about this on Harrie’s blog.
FAO Schwarz
Founded in 1862, it is the oldest toy store in America. You may know it from the giant piano scene in Big with Tom Hanks.
You can design your own stuffed toy (see the video of the stuffing machine) or your own custom remote control car. As Harrie kept saying “that’s really cool”.
FAO Schwarz have their own toy soldier guarding the entrance. Except that he is not a toy or a soldier.
All mine, I tell ya.
Harrie making a remote control car
The glass reflection makes it hard to see, but this is the most amazing version of Cluedo that I have ever seen. The rooms are recessed into the board and decked out in great detail like an elaborate doll’s house. Quite reasonable at only US $400.
We knew things were bigger in America but this is just ridiculous.
As you can see it’s just a “treat.”
No point in taking half-measures with this stuff.
Well, we thought FAO Schwarz was big but Toys R Us in Times Square was bigger. Housing a full-size working Ferris wheel, it is three floors celebrating the diversity of extruded plastic. Every toy line is represented with its own breakout shop and special display. Not as charming as FAO Schwarz, but bigger and big is good in this country.
The Ferris wheel inside Toys R US
Trump Tower
From FAO Schwarz and Toys R US, we went to visit the boy with the biggest toys, Donald Trump.
Trump Tower is just ridiculous. Inside, you can visit the Trump store where you can buy all manner of merchandise honoring the Donald. You can buy his ugly two-toned business shirts (the tones being colours like a yellow collar and yellow cuffs on a purple shirt), cardboard replicas of him and my personal favourite, his aftershave called “Success”. His daughter, Ivanka Trump also has a shop with her designer jewellery. And as for the interior, imagine every exterior surface of every wall, floor or furniture covered in marble or gold and you will get some sense of the place.
Your Fired!
Tiffanys
Like Audrey, we had to have breakfast at Tiffanys. All we could afford though was water from their beautiful marble bubbler. But oh what sparkling, glistening pure carat water.
Tiffanys
Breakfast.
Zabars
Zabars is something of a New York institution. An amazing deli with two floors of wondrous food and kitchenware. We visited three times during our stay and tried their signature Jewish Knishes and cheese blintzes. We also loaded our fridge full of goodies to feed us for our last week in New York.
Michelle outside Zabars
Food glorious food inside Zabars
The opposite of Monty Python’s Ye National Cheese Emporium Yes, they do have cheddar.
Central Park
Central Park originally opened in 1857 and was painstakingly sculptured to resemble famous European landscape paintings of the era. Its acres of wilderness also include a zoo, an amusement park, restaurants, baseball fields, basketball courts, the dairy (where back in the 1800s kids could get milk and hire toys to play in the park), performance spaces, playgrounds and much much more. Everything is beautifully implemented and actively used.
What was most moving though was a beautiful choral rendition as we walked towards the Bethesda Fountain.
Bethesda Fountain, Central Park
Boating on the lake in Central Park
The view of Central Park from the Met
Yes, people even fish in Central Park.
The Strawberry Fields Memorial to John Lennon.
John Lennon imitated black artists Chuck Berry and Little Richard so it was bizarre to see this African American gentleman imitating John Lennon, right down to the fake Liverpudlian accent. I’m not sure why we didn’t capture this on video. The look on Michelle’s face captures the uncertainty of our feelings about this. Well the Beatles did warn us that nothing was real in Strawberry Fields.
The Dakota building opposite Central Park where John Lennon lived and where Yoko Ono currently owns a third of the building. Interestingly, Jerry Seinfeld really wanted to live there but was turned away and now resides a block up in a building that also houses Bruce Willis.
The exact spot where John Lennon was shot.
Central Park Zoo. We all had a strange sense of déjà vu (or should that be déjà zoo?) visiting this place as a result of repeated viewings of Madagascar. We knew it was small, but we couldn’t believe how small! We lingered by each animal but were done in under an hour. Still, if you are a New Yorker and want to see more than a pigeon, then it does offer comparatively exotic treats. The highlight was the bird aviary and the sea lions, one of which (see picture) looked eerily human.
Harrie chomping down on a New York pretzel at Central Park Zoo.
Is that King Julian?
The beautiful bird aviary at Central Park Zoo.
Without intending any disrespect, I felt that Ripley Rodd had been reincarnated as this seal.
Madison Square Garden
It’s hard not to have mixed feelings about Madison Square Garden. It was built in 1968, when the developers tore down the beautiful, and much-loved, original Pennsylvania Railway Station.
We scored awesome second row seats at Madison Square Garden to see a Womens National Basketball Association (WNBA) game. We saw the home team, the New York Liberty, play off against the Los Angeles Sparks. The Liberty team rarely missed a goal.
Second row at Madison Square Garden.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Met has six times as many artworks as housed in the Louvre. There was just too much to see in the time we had. Michelle and I keep talking about places to explore further when we fancifully imagine ourselves returning to live in New York. This is such a place.
No expense has been spared in buying, borrowing or stealing great art works from all eras and all countries. For a breathtaking example, they have taken apart a complete Egyptian temple and reconstructed it brick by brick inside this museum. They have also done the same for a 16th century Venetian house and a French church as well as several ornate rooms from European palaces. Most of the money for these “acquisitions” has come from American blue bloods who are prominently namechecked on the walls containing their donated artwork. There is a real sense of competition with wealthy families trying to outdo each other to achieve more prestige. This museum is the embodiment of prestige. Money buying style and envy.
William the Egyptian Hippopotamus. The mascot of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
The medieval wing of the Met
One of Rodin’s burghers from The Burghers of Callais.
The Parisian Crillon Room
They ripped the facade of the 1825 Branch Bank of the United States from its home in New Jersey to display in the Met.
Emanuel Leutze’s famous Washington Crossing The Delaware painting.
The Van Rensselaer Hall.
Is this the earliest Gang sign?
The Astor Court Chinese Garden at the Met.
The Temple of Dendur from Egypt
The Temple of Dendur. Disassembled in Egypt and reassembled in New York.
The Polaroids we took clowning around near the cafe.
This is King Frederick’s pickup stick which is on display at the Met. The story goes that Frederick The Great, ruler of Germany in the 18th Century, would go out strolling with it and when he met a lady he liked he would unscrew the top and serenade her with a flute that formed the bottom half of the stick. If this didn’t work, he would then play a different tune on the top half which was an oboe. If that failed, he would reveal that the stick was made out of genuine unicorn horn (oooh ahhhh). If the young lady was still left un-a-flutter, he would slyly mention that, by the way he was a king, and as is known, any king wielding a unicorn horn is also bestowed with magic powers. Who needs Tinder when you have a unicorn stick and magic powers. Years later, “experts” reckoned that the stick was actually made out of a narwhal’s horn. But that would mean that an unelected German leader was misleading people and that can’t happen can it?
The American Museum of Natural History
Again, it is possible that we have seen too many movies but we couldn’t help but think of Night at the Museum. All the quaint dioramas and stuffed animals were there. I wasn’t sure if I should be amazed or creeped-out by all the taxidermy and stylised backgrounds. In the end, I decided to take it as it was intended; a boys-own wonder book of the world beyond New York.
Bully for big Teddy Roosevelt who helped set it up in 1869. Of course little Teddy (who became the 26th President of the USA) also contributed by dispatching animals required for the museum on his many overseas hunting expeditions. His biggest kill was the pack of elephants that are displayed in one of the hallways (see picture below). Of course, no modern museum would ever display artifacts in this way and the new wings of the museum that deal with space are boring by comparison.
The American Museum of Natural History.
The foyer of the American Museum of Natural History.
The elephants bagged by US President, Teddy Roosevelt.
Broadway
While in New York we saw three Broadway shows – The Lion King, the Anti-Lion King also known as the Book Of Mormon and Bullets Over Broadway. All were fantastic and performed in beautiful old Broadway theatres (The Minskoff Theatre, The Eugene O’Neill Theatre and the St James Theatre). Unfortunately, but wisely, Harrie didn’t attend the Book of Mormon and Michelle and I had to go to separate sessions. To understand why and to appreciate the difference between the Lion King and The Book of Mormon check out Hakuna Matata from the Lion King here with Has a Diga Eebowai from The Book of Mormon here. As a warning, the second clip is not for children or the easily offended.
Our Playbill for the Book of Mormon. These are given free to every major Broadway show. Of course, in Australia you would be hit up for fifteen plus dollars for the same.
The Lion King.
Coming out of Bullets Over Broadway.
The United Nations Building
We were called upon to represent our country at the United Nations. Michelle gave an impassioned speech begging other nations to remember their differences and nuke it out amongst themselves so that the zombie apocalypse can finally begin (she’s a big Walking Dead fan). Meanwhile, Harrie made some compelling arguments on child welfare starting with his call for a new video game allowance.
Michelle takes her problem to the United Nations.
I’d like to help you son, but you’re too young to vote.
I’m a gonna make a fuss, I’m a gonna raise a holler.
Some staggering figures right there.
One of the United Nations meeting rooms.
This great display at the United Nations from Cesar Lopez who is a musician from Colombia who transforms rifles into guitars.
Good Defeats Evil statue by Zurab Tsereteli outside the front of the United Nations building
Coney Island
On Saturday we visited the New York Transit Museum which is housed in an abandoned subway station and is really worth visiting even if you aren’t a trainspotter. From there we caught a 1932 subway train to Coney Island. This is where we found half of New York as well.
This is “the beach” for New Yorkers except I felt like aping Mick Dundee to say “that’s not a beach…” This is the home of the original Luna Park and the now forgotten Dreamland which apart from being the grandest amusement park of its day pioneered research into premature babies through its Baby Incubator building (it is estimated that 6,500 babies were saved).
We rode on the 1920 landmark Wonder Wheel which is a beautiful old ferris wheel (as pioneered by America’s own Eiffel, George Washington Gale Ferris Jr). I rode the 1927 Cyclone wooden rollercoaster which was quite a bone-rattling experience. Michelle and Harrie were too scared or too smart to ride it.
A great place of faded glories but still teaming with bodies and energy. We visited Lola Star who makes fantastic retro Coney Island souvenirs and got snapped for her Web site.
Coney Island also has a special part of the boardwalk where music is played and people of all ages dance, competing with each other to pull off outrageous dance moves. It was amazing to see an old Jewish woman shaking her booty with a fit young hip-hop dude.
The 1932 subway train we caught to Coney Island.
One wary passenger and one happy passenger.
Having a hot dog and beer at Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Stand. Coney Island is the birthplace of the hot dog. In 1870, German immigrant Charles Feltman came up with the idea of putting a sausage on a bun. The reference to to dog had to do with the dubious origin of the meat in the sausage. Jimmy Durante and Eddie Cantor once worked as waiters at Nathan’s.
Lunch at Nathan’s with a Canadian guy called Spencer that we met on the train. We swapped stories from the unliberated colonies.
The boardwalk at Coney Island.
Dipping our toes in the Atlantic Ocean at Coney Island.
The site of the original Luna Park.
The 1920 Wonder Wheel.
The view from the top of the Wonder Wheel.
The 1927 Cyclone rollercoaster.
Yes, Coney Island still has freak shows.
Get a load of this freak.
Poster boy for Lola Star.
The High Line
The High Line is a mile of disused railway line that has been turned into a garden.
Robert Moses who used to be the planning tzar of New York believed that the automobile was king and aggressively built a series of freeways through New York, ripping apart local communities and uglifying the city under the cause of urban renewal.
The High Line is the opposite of this, honouring the continuity of existing infrastructure and revitalizing neighbourhoods in the area. And it was a grassroots project funded by donors and run by local volunteers. This is hustling New York in action, reinventing itself yet again. This is what great cities allow for and do.
The High Line.
Urban decay juxtaposed with urban renewal (in the best sense of the word).
Sculptures along the High Line.
It was at spots like this that we forgot we were in New York.
Chelsea Market
Another New York reinvention. Once the Nabisco Biscuit factory (and the place where the Oreo cookie was invented), it is now full of artisan food vendors and quirky designer wares. You will be proud to know that Australia is represented here as well. Amidst artisan patisseries and exotic cheeses, sits the Aussie Tuck Shop stocking meat pies, sausage rolls and lamingtons. We collectively shed a tear. I think it was in pride.
Chelsea Market.
Michelle enjoying a soup.
Aussie food mate!
The Brooklyn Bridge
On a nice summer afternoon, we took a pleasant walk across the Brooklyn Bridge.
Built in 1883, it is one of the oldest suspension bridges in the world. The officials originally called it The New York and East River Bridge but people just referred to it as the Brooklyn Bridge and eventually the government was forced to change the name to reflect the will of the people. It is a mighty behemoth of twisted steel and huge granite blocks. But full of people as well as traffic and marked with graffiti stories, love padlocks and art.
Michelle on the Brooklyn Bridge.
The traffic lane on the Brooklyn Bridge.
DUMBO
ONce we crossed the Brooklyn Bridge we encountered DUMBO. Not the flying elephant but Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass.
The place was originally called Gairsville after Robert Gair, who invented the cardboard box (true). By the late seventies, many of the factories in this area were closing and the developers were waiting in the wings to build apartment blocks. In order to curb this, the locals who lived there got the numbers to rename the place DUMBO in the hope that no one would want to live in a place with such an unattractive name. The place is now a mix of artisan industries (craft breweries etc), quirky shops and apartments (yes, they came in the end – Hi, I live in DUMBO).
That sign is not aimed at me!
Brooklyn
We sat by the Brooklyn foreshore and took in the Manhattan skyline. A lively Jewish wedding was taking place right next to us and Harrie enjoyed throwing rocks from the foreshore into the East River. We then walked around the streets of Brooklyn before it got dark.
As the sun set, we had the most magical evening sitting on the Fulton Ferry pier looking over Manhattan. We watched the sun go down and the city lights come alive. I drank the most divine craft-brewed Brooklyn beer (it is called Empire and I am still seeking it out wherever I go) and we ate delicious chicken quesadillas. The whole meal including drinks cost only $25.
It was a lovely warm evening, everyone was happy and then when “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” by the Shirelles came over the restaurant speakers, the moment went straight into my top ten all-time best dining experiences.
Walking on the Brooklyn boardwalk.
Gatecrashing a Jewish Wedding.
The start of our magical evening drinking Empire and drinking in the Empire State.
The lights of Manhattan start to come on.
The Museum of Modern Art
Wow, simply wow! We thought the Met was the top but the MoMA is, as the French would say, “de trop”. It is like walking through an art text book seeing famous painting after famous painting. Like the Met, each wing was funded by a wealthy New York family each competing to outdo each other with their multi-million dollar art works. “You may have donated a $2 million Picasso but I donated a $5 million Picasso.” Naturally enough, Harrie liked the Dada works the best.
Michelle and Harrie go all avant-garde at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA).
Show me the Monet.
Andy Warhol’s famous Campbells Soup print. Warhol is reported to have remarked before his death, “Do you know that the Campbell’s Soup Company has not sent me a single can of soup?”
You may think this was done on a computer but read the next caption for a surprise.
The MoMA had special exhibit on advertising targeting women. I loved this one.
Les Demoiselles d’Avignon by Pablo Picasso
The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh
Dance by Henri Matisse
Rose by Will Ryman
To Be Looked at (from the Other Side of the Glass) with One Eye, Close to, for Almost an Hour by Marcel Duchamp. Dada at its best.
Modern masterpieces, Minecraft and the Google Maps pin.
The River by Aristide Maillol.
Dominique Ansel Bakery, Lower Manhattan
We are now three of the elite people who have eaten an original cronut! This is chef Dominique Ansel’s frankenfood hybrid of a croissant and a donut. Read more about the cronut phenomenon here.
Ansel’s bakery only produces a limited number each day and you can only eat one by getting up early. So, we lined up at 6.45am and waited with a crowd of of cronutters. What was it like I hear you say? Well, it was absolutely delicious! It had the flaky texture of a croissant with the gooey thickness of a jam doughnut. Not sickly sweet either, but nicely done. Now every second word that Harrie says is “cronut”.
But imagine our surprise when we got back to Canberra to find a local bakery had cronuts. Ansel’s lawyers shut down cronut clones in the States, so a cease-and-desist letter may be on its way.
Waiting in line to taste a cronut
Other delicious confections from Dominique Ansel’s bakery
Eating the sugary fad.
As we were waiting in line to get our cronut, we experienced another New York moment. A strange stretch limousine (see the picture below) was parked up from Dominique Ansel’s bakery.
People in the line were speculating on who would own such a car. The general consensus was that it had to be a superhero or at least an eccentric millionaire or maybe both ala Bruce Wayne/Batman. As the anticipation mounted, a scruffy looking dude (think The Big Lebowski) wearing only shorts and what looked like slippers, stumbled out of a doorway and got into the car which was obviously unlocked. He then started fumbling around for the keys which were left in the car and turned over the ignition a few times before he thundered off to wherever this shirtless crusader needed to be.
The Dude’s car
Times Square
When I was posting on Facebook, I put off posting a piece on Times Square as no photo seemed to capture the place.
It was originally called Longacre Square but when The New York Times moved their offices there in 1904 they lobbied to have it renamed Times Square arguing that the city had previously named Herald Square and Greeley Square after newspapers so they were due a place name too.
Times Square’s golden age was in the early twentieth century when it formed the hub of Broadway with fabulous theatres and even more fabulous people. By the 1970s, it had become a sleazy place full of peep shows and drug dealers. Then in the 1990s, Walt Disney (the company not the man) offered to clean the place up if they could get key sites for peppercorn rent. They started by renovating The New Amsterdam theatre (home of the original Ziegfeld Follies) and led a complete makeover of the place.
Today it is clean and safe. It is also loud, bright and busy. Harrie said he had never seen so many people in one spot and we agreed. It is Disney’s version of the Black Hole of Calcutta. It is hellish but also full of heavenly energy and wonder.
The pictures below only scrape the surface of what the place is like. To fully experience it, you need to stand next to the George Cohen statue on any night. Hear the noise of the crowd and cabs. Smell the food vans. Be bombarded by the brands and lights. And be jostled by the milling crowds from all over the world. One of a kind. Thank God.
Standing in Times Square (there is nowhere to sit).
Harrie mingles in a sea of people.
The 9/11 Memorial and Museum
We were only half interested in seeing this but were really glad we did. We ended up spending several hours there and were all deeply moved.
The museum is housed in the ruins of the Twin Towers and uses a lot of the scarred foundations as its walls. Like the Twin Towers, the museum is split into two main buildings. One is a timeline of the events with a large room being devoted to each action (such as the plane crashing into the first tower or the search for survivors in the wreckage). In each room are huge displays with artifacts from that point in time, security footage, news footage and eyewitness accounts.
The last section of the building is an attempt to understand the rationale and strategy of the terrorists. It is reasonably self-critical too; examining the CIA funding of the Mujahideen (which had Osama Bin Laden as a member) during the Afghan War and the failed attempts at stopping Al Qaeda under Clinton and Bush.
The second building is a memorial to the 3,000 people who died. There are walls of photos of all the victims and a giant video screen that provides a short biography of everyone’s life including memories from family and friends (it just goes through the victim’s names in alphabetical order).
No photography is allowed inside either museum out of respect to the victims so the photos above are just the exhibits outside of the museum. This is a great museum similar to the Holocaust Museum in being an ongoing reminder of what intolerance can lead to as well as showcasing the bravery of the victims.
The 9/11 Memorial and Museum
The moving Reflecting Absence fountain
The remains of a fire truck near the World Trade Center
The severed cables of the elevator mechanism in one of the towers
An eerily prophetic advertisement placed in the New York Times in the early 1960s before the World Trade Center was completed. This was on display in the 9/11 Museum. One for the conspiracy theorists.
One of the twisted girders from the towers.
The massive 9/11 memorial quilt
Nulla dies umquam memori vos eximet aevo as Virgil would have said back in the day
Wall Street
So named because of the wall that used to protect the original Dutch settlers from invaders but subsequently torn down to make way for commerce. Wall Street is of course home to the New York Stock Exchange, the world’s largest stock exchange based on daily trading volume. Lots of moneyed wolves roam around these parts.
Wall St. It even says so in the sign.
Wall St CBD.
The New York Stock Exchange.
The wolves of Wall St taking the bull by the horns.
Our boy has some balls.
Located right next to the New York Stock Exchange is the New York Bitcoin Center. Cheeky.
Harlem and The Bronx
We did the HUSH Hip Hop tour of the Bronx and Harlem with Grandmaster Caz as our host. As he says – “Do you get the architect of the Empire State Building as your tour guide when you visit it? Hell No! But you do get one of the architects of hip hop when you do our tour.” See here for more info on Caz.
The tour was hugely entertaining and informative for fans of hip hop but also for the layperson. We explored graffiti art, got schooled in breakdancing (see the photo of B-girl Barron below), had Grandmaster Caz freestyle on the bus, visited culturally significant sites and met some cool people. I would say this tour rocked but that would be really guitar-based-music old school.
You go girl! B-girl Barron busting the moves on the HUSH Hip Hop tour of Harlem and the Bronx. Michelle also busted her back having a herniated disc for the remainder of our trip.
Harrie down with DJ Kool Herc , arguably the architect of Hip Hop.
Michelle’s unique gang signing
Grandmaster Caz and the Bronx Street sign named after him.
Grandmaster Caz flogging his books and CDs.
An altercation on the streets of Harlem.
Rucker Park
We walked around Harlem which, like the Bronx, is such a contrast to lower Manhattan. Great old buildings, some done up but most run down and everywhere things happening.
We ended up at Rucker Park which is an outdoor basketball court where NBA up-and-comers, street hustlers and talent scouts all meet. The games are free to watch and much more raw and livelier than the women’s pro game we saw at Madison Square Garden.
The players were phenomenal but so were the off-court antics. They even had a commentator who said that he had no idea who any of the players were so he made up nicknames and back stories for them. He was hilarious; almost like an African-American HG Nelson. Unfortunately, we had to leave before the last quarter as we had tickets to The Apollo Theatre.
Basketball at Rucker Park.
The Apollo Theatre
We went to see Amateur Night at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem. You get a great sense of history walking into the foyer where pictures of jazz and R&B greats adorn the wall. Amateur Night has been going since 1935 and still operates by the same motto – Be Good or Be Gone.
The audience are encouraged to loosen up and show the acts how they really feel. And the crowds don’t need much encouragement to behave like swooning fans or an angry mob. The host was the stand-up comedian Capone and he was hilarious. He was introduced as appearing in a number of movies and TV shows (none really well known) and walked on stage to a middling applause. He looked around the audience waiting for more applause. He then said “I don’t know where you guys come from, but where I live, being in a TV show is a big deal.”
Only one act got booed off stage. An attractive woman in a tight dress walked out to wolf whistles from the men in the audience before she opened her mouth to murder Dolly Parton’s I Will Always Love You (more famously known through the torturous top-register rendition by Whitney Housten). She was then aggressively booed off stage firstly by the women in the audience and then, slowly and reluctantly by the men. It was a great night out and highly recommended for any visit to New York.
The Rockefeller Center Post Office
The one bad experience we had in New York, occurred on our last day. Harrie and I went to the post office in the Rockefeller Center to post some souvenirs home to Australia. Three hours later, we were still there.
I’ve never encountered bureaucracy quite like it and that’s saying something coming from Canberra. We firstly had to wait in a long queue because there were only two women serving. There was a third woman not serving anyone who looked dourly out at customers waiting to crush the spirit of anyone who approached her by saying “Ï only do money orders.”
We waited and waited and waited. We did the things that people do in queues when they have been waiting too long – slowly stretching legs, tapping on nearby surfaces, yawning and constantly checking the time.
When we finally got served, the woman behind the counter said that our box didn’t fit the specified US Post dimensions and that we would have to buy a compliant box (same size but a slightly different shape). We would also have to fill out a special overseas postage form which was only available from behind the counter (thus fiendishly designed so that you have to queue twice).
So, we purchased the box and went back into the main packing area to transfer the contents from our old box and fill in the form. The trouble was, we didn’t have a pen as all the pens in the post office were either stolen or didn’t work. However, other customers were asking each other for pens and some customers were being very neighborly in lending them. I went to tell the money-order-only lady that they were out of pens. She said sharply “That’s not my job” and pointed to a furtive looking woman in a open-plan cubicle behind the counter “it’s her job”. The woman in the cubicle obviously overheard this and made brief eye contact with me before putting her head back down to do whatever she was doing back there.
Eventually we found a customer (or comrade as it was by then in our shared struggle) willing to lend their pen while we filled in the paperwork. Another customer also lent us some sticky tape to seal the box. Like prisoners of war stepping in for their weaker comrades, all of the customers seemed accustomed to having to help each other out in the face of adversity.
So, we joined the queue for a second time and waited. Just as we were about two people away from being served, one of the women serving put up a “closed” sign on her counter and said to the queue “It’s my lunch break”. We were now down to only one woman serving (oh, and of course the useless money-order-only lady). After almost getting cramps in our legs, we finally got served and the woman behind the counter scrutinized the form with the sort of intensity you may have received from a border patrol guard checking papers in the old Soviet Bloc. We were dreading the worst and it happened. We needed to provide a US address that the parcel could be returned to if there was a problem. With the myriad of pointless questions on the form, I had overlooked filing this in. I asked if I could borrow a pen and quickly fill it in. “I’m sorry sir, I don’t have a pen and you will have to come back when you have properly filled out the form, Next.”
By this stage, I was contemplating giving up on US Post and possibly on life as well. But I had already invested so much time into this exercise and I wanted a result, if only to show that it was possible to beat a system so heavily stacked up against customers. I borrowed a pen from one of the inmates again and filled in the address and returned to the queue.
This time, I had ticked all the boxes and our box of souvenirs was given the all clear by the postal comandarm. We had now missed our train to Washington but we fought hard and had won our freedom in the end. We could now leave the post office and do our best to resume normal lives.
The modern and vibrant United States Post Office in the Rockefeller Center. It should be noted that all the colour was drained out of this picture by Post Office staff.
And here is our parcel when it eventually arrived back in Australia all battered and taped over and with more forms and stickers attached. As The United States Postal creed goes “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” But if it is my lunch break then you can forget it.
Last thoughts on New York
You can really believe the hype about this place. It is busy, big and the best at many things. It is more of a cultural melting pot than Sydney but safer and more harmonious in many ways. It has everything on offer within walking distance with new ideas just around the corner (as the Elbow song goes).
But, I think my most enduring takeout is that it is a city made and defined by people. Individuals like capitalist robber barons from the Rockefellers to Trump. Outspoken activists like Jane Jacobs. Civic-minded geniuses like DeWitt Clinton. Bohemian artists from Walt Whitman to Andy Warhol. And too many more extraordinary individuals to list. The influence and expression of their passions permeate every pore of the city. As do the little actions of everyday New Yorkers who add their own special touches. From adding humanity to an impersonal tenement building by spraying graffiti art on it to appropriating the names of places such as DUMBO or the Brooklyn Bridge. It is the embodiment of the American ideal that everybody has the potential to shape society and to make things happen in little and big ways.
It is hard not to love New York.
New York – The cure for tired eyes
Before we left for the US, I put together a digital mixtape of US songs. In doing this, it was my observation that there are more songs written about New York than any other city in the world. And it’s not just about namechecking New York. Think about it. The concept of uptown, downtown, east side and west side are all New York terms. Then there are all the place names such as Harlem, Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx and so on. Then the landmarks such as the Statue of Liberty and Empire State Building. Then the streets such as Broadway. And it goes on. It is a song-inspiring city for a reason. Here then is my top unlucky thirteen list of songs in no particular order that capture the diversity of New York:
1. Empire State of Mind – Jay Z & Alicia Keys
2. New York, New York – John Kander and Fred Ebb
3. New York Morning – Elbow
4. Manhattan – Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart
http://politube.upv.es/play.php?vid=51270
5. Rhapsody in Blue – George Gershwin
6. New York – Nina Hagen
7. Back in the New York Groove – Russ Ballard
8. Dirty Boulevard – Lou Reed
9. New York I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down – LCD Sound system
10. Lullaby of Broadway – Harry Warren and Al Dubin
11. New York, New York – Leonard Berstein, Betty Comden and Adolph Green.
12. New York City – Joey Ramone
13. Welcome To New York – Taylor Swift
My actual playlist runs to over 50 songs, and that’s after whittling it down from several hundred quite-okay songs. What can I say but New York, New York it’s a wonderful helluva town!
ourtripyall.com 