5 days in 'The Big Apple'

Friday 13th March

Well after leaving Burbank Airport near Hollywood at 9pm on Thurs night I landed in NY at 5am. It’s fair to say this was stupidly early and I knew I had a big day ahead of me with just 2hrs of restless sleep on the Jet Blue plane. After getting through Terminal 5 I found myself on the Airtrain which took me to the Subway. It was bloody cold that morning and day. About -4 degrees C. This was dam cold to me after CA and the fact that it only got to 1 degree C that day meant I was cold for the whole day.

So I hoped off the train at 6.20am in lower Manhattan right by the World Trade Centre area. Since little was going on and cause I was cold and Hungary I ended up in Macca’s for the first of many coffees to keep me warm and awake for the day.

• Headed out to the northern tip of Battery Park City on the Hudson River and made my way south. This is a park like residential ‘suburb’ within the concrete jungle.
• Stayed warm in the new World Financial Centre. An impressive building.
• This was a pretty place, this walk alongside the River with the sun breaking out.
• Checked out the Castle Clinton Nat Monument and Battery Park itself.
• Hoped on the free Ferry to Staten Island to get a closer look of the Statue of Liberty and the Manhattan skyline. Didn’t stay on Staten Island, it’s just the burbs anyway.
• Spent a little while in the impressive Smithsonian Building where they have exhibits of Indian Culture.
• Next couple of hours was spent around the Financial District, Wall Steet, Broad Street, Exchange Place Etc. All well kept areas, very tiny streets, huge security, lots of history and some very cool buildings such as the Trinity Church, New York Stock Exchange and the Federal Hall National Monument and The Vietnam Veterens Plaza. What struck me here is the one-sidedness. I kinda expected it but it’s all about their losses and fair enough but nothing said of the devastation on the Vietnamese. After seeing the museums in Saigon, well this whole site seemed very selfish/too patriotic and missing the point of war. There are always 2 sides, it well left little to be desired after seeing he images of small girls being burnt by Agent Orange. Soldiers choose (well unless enlisted by law) to be there. Small children playing in the streets before being acidified are the true losses/innocents.
• Checked out the South Sea Port commercial zone. A nice spot for food and some shopping right on the waterfront.
• Walked over Brooklyn Bridge. Great views, great bridge and a great thing to have done. There were good views of the adjacent Manhattan Bridge.
• Made a long walk to DUB Pies along the industrial water front of Brooklyn. Unfortunately though the pies were still meat pies it was a waste of time really. Small, not that tasty and way too expensive. Though it’s all relative. Some guy walked in and ordered two dozen for a party. At $5US a piece. Yep. You can get a better one at a Gas station back home for a buck.
• After walking miles and miles and miles and my feet being so sore I hoped on a Subway after walking through some pleasant Brooklyn Suburbs around Pudding Hill to both sit down and to check out Coney Island.
• Wow what a dump. It was all shutdown because it was cold and not summer so no rides were going and it was deserted. Numerous depressed Soviet Style Apartment blocks were there, shitty shops and dubious people. The beach itself was ok and got some cool views from a pier. After another coffee form Dunkin Donuts and pleased not to be ‘mugged’ I hoped back on the train for Manhattan. Got a call from Derek and we planned to meet up at his Buddies Place.

Derek was coming from JFK and I from Coney Island. As it turns out we both ended up on the same train to his mates place in Harlem. Anyhow Harlem really was different. Wow. It was cool to see and spend a while there. Matt whose place we stayed at was a good guy and we had a couple of good nights. Though there were many poor people around I felt pretty safe overall as there were always heaps of people round and the Subway Station was right by his place along with a great Deli. Deli’s are everywhere in NY where you can order much good heart food such as bacon egg rolls or crème cheese bagels.

That night we headed out to the Soho Area and had a drink at the Red Lion and some other lounge bar. Dinner was had a great Peruvian Restaurant called PioPio. Top top chicken there.




Saturday 14th March

After a late night and an experience of being on the Subway at 3 am (it’s still surprisingly busy) with a dude being handcuffed in the station for what looked like pickpocketing/burglary. I woke up late and had a Deli Breakfast before making my way down to the Times Square Area for the day. Times Square was cool to see and I would be back here but it was touristy as hell with crowding on the streets like I had not seen since Bangkok. It was all glitzy with heaps of theatres and shows, cheap touristy junk shops and restaurants galore.

I checked on MOMA for a few hours. (Museum of Modern Art). This sorta place often bores me eventually, though it was all good stuff. Its has been said to be the most influential museum of modern art in the world. Of course much of it is weird as hell and really some of this contempory art is well no art in my mind. Bits of chopped up cardboard box stuck together with masking tape is hardly a profound masterpiece if you ask me, but then they certainly don’t ask people like me. Geez some will find the meaning of life and the deepest inner workings of the artist’s mind from such a piece of junk. They did have lots of Picasso though and the odd Van Gogh along with Warhol, Boccioni, Bacon and Monet to name a few.

That evening we had some takeouts then went and hung at one bar in Hell’s Kitchen called ‘Rudy’s Bar and Grill’. I like this place. A real dive bar with cheap beer and free hotdogs. Yep. From $7 for a pint in Manhattan, well you can’t go too wrong. We spent hours here just chilling and drinking on the duck taped seat covers before heading back to Matt’s for some much needed shut-eye.




Sunday 15th March

Derek left for the airport at 11 and I also headed out about this time. Today I made my way across the Eastern side of the Manhattan Island to Central, Central Park where The Met. Or The Metropolitan Museum of Art is located. This museum has a collection of more than 2 million items and is one of the world’s largest galleries. Nuts aye. It opened in 1872 and the building itself is a masterpiece. The interior is very cool indeed. After spending 6hrs in there it shut on me and I had skimmed lots of it and missed a heap more. Though I confess it was enough for me. The Ancient Egypt collection was great and the biggest outside of Egypt. The Middle Ages collection was also cool with the full suits of armor and all the weaponry. The Greek and Roman art was also super awesome. The interior was all crafted with large roman pillars and what not, and the number of sculptures and statues was impressive as was the food prices in the Café which resembled more of a food court.

After being sick of being told off by security guards and they are everywhere for wearing my backpack inside the galleries I left and walked (yep a continuing theme of shin splints in this trip) through half of Central Park towards Times Square/Hell’s Kitchen where my hostel was. It was a little bleak as was the whole city really; however in summer Central Park must be great when the grass if actually green and the trees are not bare. There were many people out enjoying the park amongst the skyscrapers though which was good to see.

I caught the end of a busker show. Good God they are money hungry. I missed the first half but they collected money in huge bags before they actually concluded their show with a guy jumping over a couple of people. Not too impressive, and I mean they went around a number of times making sure that they missed no-one from their collection. Of course the Dutchman in me refused, especially since I was skeptical as all they had done was talk smack since I was there and then proceed to say how rude people are for not giving them money. I like to see what I am paying for first. They were basically begging. Pffft. Whatever, they did not deserve my money.

On the edge of the park I walked past the ice skating rink which was cool in amongst the park and buildings back towards concrete jungleness. The geologist in me spotted many great slabs of rock polished smooth when the glaciers reached this far south in the last ice age 10,000 odd years ago.

That night I checked out a movie after eating some great $1 pizza slices across the road from the dinky wee hostel I was staying in. The movie was called ‘The Reader’. It was ok but a little depressing in the end.




Monday 16th March

Well I was looking forward to this day. After spending almost an hour looking for something healthy to eat instead of cooked breakfasts (it’s no easy feat in this city) I settled in a great wee café called Lenny’s and compromised on a yogurt muffin, yummy coffee and a heap of fruit salad. I was then off to The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in the Upper West Side for 10am opening. From Wiki “…is one of the largest and most celebrated museums in the world. Located in park-like grounds, the museum comprises 25 interconnected buildings that house 46 permanent exhibition halls, research laboratories, and its renowned library. The collections contain over 32 million specimens, of which only a small fraction can be displayed at any given time. The museum has a scientific staff of more than 200, and sponsors over 100 special field expeditions each year.”

This was my sorta place. Ha, none of this artsy fartsy stuff. None of these great religions buildings to gaze at. It’s a place dedicated to science. Let’s just say they had to kick me out 8hrs later at 6pm closing time. Hehe – I needed another day at least to do it justice though I got round lots of the spots that really interested me. Which was most of it? By far the best museum I have ever been in and a must for any visitor. Kate I thought of you a bit. You would have loved this place being a geologist. The mineral section was incredible and the volcanism and Planet Earth display also kicked arse.

• Wicked Exhibits of real Asian North American and African Mammals in awesome lifelike dioramas created in the 30s and 40s. Man they still look so good now. The dioramas themselves are famous and are rare these days.
• Great Marine Exhibits with a full size Blue Whale model.
• 34 tonne Cape York Meteorite
• Star of India. The largest Sapphire in the World.
• Asian, African, Pacific and many more peoples exhibits
• Dinosaurs. Oh Yeah  Including Rex, Triceratops and a Stegosaurus.
• Evolution of Man Exhibition. This was super well done.
• Hayden Planetarium. Awesome huge ball thing that you sit inside and watch the amazing projection of the universe above you. You feel like you are there and its super informative looking at all things big and small in the Universe.
• IMAX Theatre. I went to ‘Walking with Dinosaurs’ and the awesome ‘Wild Ocean’ film set off the coast of South Africa.
• Another highlight was the Climate Change Exhibition which was super informative and well presented. I had a good chat with a researcher who helped create it. I think he was happy to have someone with some knowledge in the subject to talk too. Beats trying to control the millions of kids crawling over the museum on field trips. I mean heaps and heaps of kinds. Dam.

That evening I walked around Time Square to people watch (including the infamous naked cowboy) at night after heading up to the Top of the Rock. A lookout on top of the Rockefeller Centre 70 stories up. No lines like the Empire State Building and you get views of the Empire State Building instead. The views were obscured somewhat by hazy/smog but still good. It’s in the evenings that you really miss not travelling with people and being such a small hostel there was no one to hang out with there so I went to another movie. So many good places to eat but I was not going to waste money doing that by myself. Called ‘Race to Witch Mountain it was on at one of AMC’s 25 screens. It was actually pretty good fun.




Tuesday 17th March

Well this was my final day in NY. Started off with Lenny’s then checked out the USS Intrepid Museum. It was a good exhibit with a bunch or warplanes and the aircraft carrier to wonder round on. Similar to the one in San Diego. They also had a Concorde on display and a Growler Sub, the real motivation for me to pay the admission. Of course once in there I found out they had closed it down just recently to do some renovations on it. Typical!

Next up was a big walk south along the Hudson River to the West Village and Soho shopping and residential districts. Also Chinatown. Well there were some pretty neighborhoods round here. Stupid expensive though but nice with tree lined streets. Also some funky bars/cafes and shops. Soho was very much tourist mecca again full of shopping and ‘recession sales’ – yep the American’s will sell anything. Even a recession. Come waste all the money you don’t have in my shop so you can go broke and not me ;-)

Chinatown was cool but like much of NY was dirty. It was overrun and crowded and after being in Asia the overcrowding was the only authentic characterization of Asia. Oh and the cheap rip-offs and Asians on the street trying to sell you all sorts if useless s*#t.

After sneaking into BK to find one of the rarest things in NY, yep public toilets I headed down into the subway system only to get on the wrong train to make my way to JFK for my 6pm flight. After figuring out what the hell I was doing and getting lost in the labyrinth of the underground city I managed to get out to the Airtrain connection through to JFK. It was then onto a 5.5hr flight back to CA before my 1hr drive home from Burbank. At least the traffic was flowing well apart from around two accidents on the 210 that had strewn carparts across the freeway.




Thoughts:

Was great to see NY. A place that has always fascinated me. I had a great time overall however here are a few thoughts.
• Dirty has hell overall. There were some good spots. West Village, Wall Street Area, Battery Park but overall the place was much more dirty than I imagined. Rubbish, beat up paths Etc
• Cold and bleak at this time of year. Would be depressing when snow is there too cause it just gets filthy dirty
• After living in LA, well I was blown away by the smog here too. A haze that was always about.
• Subways run super well overall and are well made use of. Especially when one is packed in there like sardines at rush hour.
• Security is nuts. Major Paranoia. It’s everywhere. From Shops to banks to and landmark to museums. I guess who can blame them though aye. I think I will get cancer form all the x-ray machines prematurely now.
• Didn’t heap that the trees had no leaves but it’s a major concrete jungle. You don’t appreciate just how much this means to you until you are there. I like open spaces too much.
• Parking is insane as is the driving. It’s not uncommon to pay $40+ for a days of parking.
• Everywhere things were being constructed/repairs from office space to subways to museum facades.
• Very difficult to eat healthy and cheap. Cheap is possible but its all crap food.
• Overall people were like you hear kind of grumpy. Everyone is storming around on their own personal missions.
• You j-walk everywhere
• I could not live here. Maybe and I mean maybe for a while but that’s it. Not enough greenery, no good MTBiking with in biking distance. Still it’s a great place to visit. 5 days is a perfect length of time.