USA - New York, New York
“For a transitory, enchanted moment, man must have held his breath at the sight of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.” F. Scott Fitzgerald
If Boston came across positively European, with its winding streets and inclines, New York is the ultimate American city. Living up to its name as the city that never sleeps, the Big Apple was our home for three nights, and over the course of a heady weekend in one of the world’s great metropolises, Dean and I came to realise that most of what you hear colloquially about New York is true. Everybody has a story in New York City. Everybody comes here for a reason, a goal, a purpose. This aspirational element, combining with a cityscape that takes your breath away, is what preserves this city’s place in so many people’s hearts, from London to Los Angeles, Radlett to Rio.
We arrived on the Friday before Halloween, taking the Amtrak from Boston, and enjoying the many bays, harbours and canals of New England’s waterways along the route, stopping off at some Ivy League destinations like New Haven, Connecticut (Yale), and Providence, Rhode Island (Brown). As we approached New York, and the Manhattan skyline slowly meandered its way towards us, the pangs of excitement were clear and constant. Arriving in New York is amongst the most pleasurable and exhilarating experiences for a young adult. A world of possibility lies in wait, just beyond the Hudson, stretching up almost indefinitely to the sky, as if trying to grasp it before anybody else can. It is why multitudes of writers have come to New York and tried, if it is even possible, to put into words just what this city can bring out in a person. From Walt Whitman to Robert Frost, Emma Lazarus to F. Scott Fitzgerald himself, the giants of modern American literature, New York has compelled them into the same ‘aesthetic wonder’ that grabbed characters like Gatsby, and socialites Evelyn Waugh.
Dean and I, upon arriving at Penn Station, navigated our way to East 14th Street, on the corner of 3rd Avenue, to the apartment of Robert Gilbert. Surreally, Rob was back in London (though he will join up with us in Chicago this weekend), so the keys to his place were ours for the duration of our stay. It was a quick turnaround in the flat, before heading back out again to meet Dylan Viner in the West Village, close to Tribeca. Dylan pulled out all the stops for us throughout our time in Manhattan, and kicked off our Friday evening with a trip to Shiller’s Liquor Store, bar-cum-restaurant that served up a dab hand in burgers and beers, and where wealthy Upper West Side patrons rubbed shoulders with blue-collar Tribecans under a warehouse roof with loud music and laughter.
After dinner we popped into an old-fashioned ‘Speak Easy’. For those who do not know, ‘Speak Easies’ grew up in the time of Prohibition during the late 1920’s, where the sale and consumption of liquor was prohibited. These clandestine alcohol venues sprung up all over New York (and beyond) and acquired their name because of the need for secrecy, and thus a requirement that those frequenting the venue spoke ‘easy’ about is existence. Beer served inside brown paper bags, and vodka appearing in English tea cups were the norm, and the modern version that the three of us sampled after dinner maintained those traditions. It seems astonishing to think that Prohibition even existed. New Yorkers can certainly drink, so even the slightest attempt to moderate their liquor consumption was bound to have caused some entrepreneurial enterprise on the part of those looking to bend the rules. This, of course, worked well for Dean, Dylan and I, because Speak Easies now exist as throw-backs to a bygone Jazz Age era and can thus be enjoyed by wide-eyed tourists looking to try something a little different.
If Friday seemed a little circumspect, a tad slow or lacking excitement to you, I feel confident you’ll enjoy Saturday’s offering in the Big Apple. I had an early start at 8am, taking a cab into the Village to Dylan’s apartment to watch Arsenal v Spurs in the North London Derby. Together we sat in Dylan’s comfortable lodgings, watching Arsenal defeat my beloved Tottenham, as I questioned my mental sanity, desperately trying to find a reason why I had voluntarily decided to wake up early and watch my team lose against our most hated rivals, in the company of a boy who supports the very team I despise. Still, being in America, it was easy enough psychologically to distance myself from the haphazard nature of Tottenham’s defence and concentrate on getting to know New York a little more.
Dean met us for brunch (French toast, poached eggs, proper coffee, chocolate chip cookies – basically the full works) and then the three of us enjoyed a stroll westwards towards the Hudson, eventually walking along its banks and taking in the views across to New Jersey, and the Statue of Liberty further out into the bay. Then came the great Halloween costume race across town, as Dean sought to find numerous garments with which to turn himself into a ghost/ghoul/monster (delete where appropriate) and I attempted to find knee-high soccer socks to go with my England kit, and paints to draw a massive Union Jack flag on to my face. In between, we managed to have a coffee in Dylan’s rather plush Soho House club, wander around Wholefoods, and find graffiti to take stylish photographs of. Most tourists would have spent their first New York hours around 5th Avenue or Times Square, so it was interesting to look at the city through a resident’s eyes, taking in the sights and sounds in Dylan’s New York life, noting the independent-run cafes and bookstores, the small side-turnings and open thoroughfares, the tenement apartments and early twentieth-century townhouses. This was a different New York to what I had previously experienced, but it only enhanced my opinion of Manhattan. In New York, everybody talks, everybody is out and about: the streets are alive with human chatter, teeming with people of seemingly every class and creed.
Halloween in America is a big deal. Much more so than in England, where our natural cynicism makes it impossible to find the treat in a trick, the amusement in fancy dress, or the interest in what other people in our communities are doing. Sure, there are other major holidays in the UK that get people talking, but Halloween in America is beyond anything I have experienced. This was a pageant of people, cramming the streets in costumes and face paints and props of every variety under the sun. Bumble-bees (Dean’s particular favourite) mixed with Cowgirls (my particular favourite), numerous versions of Alice in Wonderland rubbed shoulders with Russian Generals and, well, you name it and it was walking around somewhere in New York on Saturday night, ever so slightly inebriated and more than ever so slightly having a lot of fun. The Subway, already a little confusing for me to work out, became a cacophony of colour and noise and revelry as partygoers made their way across Manhattan in search of their own quintessential Halloween moments.
Ours began on Lexington Avenue, at a rather lovely midtown apartment belonging to friends of Dylan and his good mate Dan. With our English accents working nicely, the alcohol flowing gently (and when I say gently, I mean rigorously), and the music playing loudly, Dean and I found our form. What followed was a merry march through Manhattan, from Subway stations to bars, sidewalks to clubs. Needless to say, we were really drunk. I mean ‘absolutely, completely, totally and utterly off our faces, not sure where we were going and how we were going there but more than happy for some Americans to show us’ drunk. Dean woke up with a bumblebee’s antennae on his face (and he was rather pleased, to be honest). I woke up with half my face-paint mysteriously missing (also pleased). Dylan woke up and realised his Russian General’s uniform was several sizes too big (not pleased).
Bleary eyed, with pounding heads and aching limbs, we awoke into the cold light of a Sunday morning, safe in the knowledge that while the hangover would only be transitory, the memories of what all of us now consider to be one of best nights out of our lives will remain steadfast in their permanence. The hangover was worth it.
That might make Sunday sound like a right-off, but we still managed another long walk around town, a little spot of shopping, and another rendezvous with Bumblebee and Cowgirl in Brother Jimmy’s Sports Bar in Midtown, near to the Empire State Building. This was World Series night, where the Yankees were (and still are, as it is a best of seven contest) taking on the Phillies. It took a little while for me to understand the finer points of Baseball (thanks to Cowgirl, however, for setting me straight), but I am happy to tell you all that I am now a New York Yankees fan, and just to prove that I am fully on board Team Yankees, they promptly went and got hammered tonight (Sunday), in a manner similar to how Spurs can often take a goal lead against teams like Manchester United, but still inevitably lose. I am told the Yankees are actually pretty good, and they play in white and blue, so I am stuck with them now. “Let’s go Yankees!”
REM once said that leaving New York is ‘never easy’. I agree. While excited to head on to Michigan, and another close friend of ours in Adam Jacobs in the town of Ann Arbor, Dean and I were both a little down to be departing such a wonderful town having had such a busy and exciting few days. Thanks go to Dylan for that, and to the myriad of fantastic people we met along the way, from our Halloween buddies, to Robert’s other East 14th Street flatmates, all the way to ordinary New Yorkers who help contribute to the magic of this place. It was fitting, then, that we ended our stay with a walk through all the New York hotspots, from the Rockefeller Centre to a beautiful, autumnal Central Park, before finishing up at Ground Zero, where the World Trade Centre regeneration project has recently worked its way up above street level, rising out of the ashes of an unspeakable tragedy and once more preparing to soar above New York and the fields of the Republic beyond. What an inspirational way to leave the city.
Another skyline is on its way: Chicago, Illinois. Before that, however, we are off to Michigan to see Adam. Put your hands up for Detroit. The English are coming!
If Boston came across positively European, with its winding streets and inclines, New York is the ultimate American city. Living up to its name as the city that never sleeps, the Big Apple was our home for three nights, and over the course of a heady weekend in one of the world’s great metropolises, Dean and I came to realise that most of what you hear colloquially about New York is true. Everybody has a story in New York City. Everybody comes here for a reason, a goal, a purpose. This aspirational element, combining with a cityscape that takes your breath away, is what preserves this city’s place in so many people’s hearts, from London to Los Angeles, Radlett to Rio.
We arrived on the Friday before Halloween, taking the Amtrak from Boston, and enjoying the many bays, harbours and canals of New England’s waterways along the route, stopping off at some Ivy League destinations like New Haven, Connecticut (Yale), and Providence, Rhode Island (Brown). As we approached New York, and the Manhattan skyline slowly meandered its way towards us, the pangs of excitement were clear and constant. Arriving in New York is amongst the most pleasurable and exhilarating experiences for a young adult. A world of possibility lies in wait, just beyond the Hudson, stretching up almost indefinitely to the sky, as if trying to grasp it before anybody else can. It is why multitudes of writers have come to New York and tried, if it is even possible, to put into words just what this city can bring out in a person. From Walt Whitman to Robert Frost, Emma Lazarus to F. Scott Fitzgerald himself, the giants of modern American literature, New York has compelled them into the same ‘aesthetic wonder’ that grabbed characters like Gatsby, and socialites Evelyn Waugh.
Dean and I, upon arriving at Penn Station, navigated our way to East 14th Street, on the corner of 3rd Avenue, to the apartment of Robert Gilbert. Surreally, Rob was back in London (though he will join up with us in Chicago this weekend), so the keys to his place were ours for the duration of our stay. It was a quick turnaround in the flat, before heading back out again to meet Dylan Viner in the West Village, close to Tribeca. Dylan pulled out all the stops for us throughout our time in Manhattan, and kicked off our Friday evening with a trip to Shiller’s Liquor Store, bar-cum-restaurant that served up a dab hand in burgers and beers, and where wealthy Upper West Side patrons rubbed shoulders with blue-collar Tribecans under a warehouse roof with loud music and laughter.
After dinner we popped into an old-fashioned ‘Speak Easy’. For those who do not know, ‘Speak Easies’ grew up in the time of Prohibition during the late 1920’s, where the sale and consumption of liquor was prohibited. These clandestine alcohol venues sprung up all over New York (and beyond) and acquired their name because of the need for secrecy, and thus a requirement that those frequenting the venue spoke ‘easy’ about is existence. Beer served inside brown paper bags, and vodka appearing in English tea cups were the norm, and the modern version that the three of us sampled after dinner maintained those traditions. It seems astonishing to think that Prohibition even existed. New Yorkers can certainly drink, so even the slightest attempt to moderate their liquor consumption was bound to have caused some entrepreneurial enterprise on the part of those looking to bend the rules. This, of course, worked well for Dean, Dylan and I, because Speak Easies now exist as throw-backs to a bygone Jazz Age era and can thus be enjoyed by wide-eyed tourists looking to try something a little different.
If Friday seemed a little circumspect, a tad slow or lacking excitement to you, I feel confident you’ll enjoy Saturday’s offering in the Big Apple. I had an early start at 8am, taking a cab into the Village to Dylan’s apartment to watch Arsenal v Spurs in the North London Derby. Together we sat in Dylan’s comfortable lodgings, watching Arsenal defeat my beloved Tottenham, as I questioned my mental sanity, desperately trying to find a reason why I had voluntarily decided to wake up early and watch my team lose against our most hated rivals, in the company of a boy who supports the very team I despise. Still, being in America, it was easy enough psychologically to distance myself from the haphazard nature of Tottenham’s defence and concentrate on getting to know New York a little more.
Dean met us for brunch (French toast, poached eggs, proper coffee, chocolate chip cookies – basically the full works) and then the three of us enjoyed a stroll westwards towards the Hudson, eventually walking along its banks and taking in the views across to New Jersey, and the Statue of Liberty further out into the bay. Then came the great Halloween costume race across town, as Dean sought to find numerous garments with which to turn himself into a ghost/ghoul/monster (delete where appropriate) and I attempted to find knee-high soccer socks to go with my England kit, and paints to draw a massive Union Jack flag on to my face. In between, we managed to have a coffee in Dylan’s rather plush Soho House club, wander around Wholefoods, and find graffiti to take stylish photographs of. Most tourists would have spent their first New York hours around 5th Avenue or Times Square, so it was interesting to look at the city through a resident’s eyes, taking in the sights and sounds in Dylan’s New York life, noting the independent-run cafes and bookstores, the small side-turnings and open thoroughfares, the tenement apartments and early twentieth-century townhouses. This was a different New York to what I had previously experienced, but it only enhanced my opinion of Manhattan. In New York, everybody talks, everybody is out and about: the streets are alive with human chatter, teeming with people of seemingly every class and creed.
Halloween in America is a big deal. Much more so than in England, where our natural cynicism makes it impossible to find the treat in a trick, the amusement in fancy dress, or the interest in what other people in our communities are doing. Sure, there are other major holidays in the UK that get people talking, but Halloween in America is beyond anything I have experienced. This was a pageant of people, cramming the streets in costumes and face paints and props of every variety under the sun. Bumble-bees (Dean’s particular favourite) mixed with Cowgirls (my particular favourite), numerous versions of Alice in Wonderland rubbed shoulders with Russian Generals and, well, you name it and it was walking around somewhere in New York on Saturday night, ever so slightly inebriated and more than ever so slightly having a lot of fun. The Subway, already a little confusing for me to work out, became a cacophony of colour and noise and revelry as partygoers made their way across Manhattan in search of their own quintessential Halloween moments.
Ours began on Lexington Avenue, at a rather lovely midtown apartment belonging to friends of Dylan and his good mate Dan. With our English accents working nicely, the alcohol flowing gently (and when I say gently, I mean rigorously), and the music playing loudly, Dean and I found our form. What followed was a merry march through Manhattan, from Subway stations to bars, sidewalks to clubs. Needless to say, we were really drunk. I mean ‘absolutely, completely, totally and utterly off our faces, not sure where we were going and how we were going there but more than happy for some Americans to show us’ drunk. Dean woke up with a bumblebee’s antennae on his face (and he was rather pleased, to be honest). I woke up with half my face-paint mysteriously missing (also pleased). Dylan woke up and realised his Russian General’s uniform was several sizes too big (not pleased).
Bleary eyed, with pounding heads and aching limbs, we awoke into the cold light of a Sunday morning, safe in the knowledge that while the hangover would only be transitory, the memories of what all of us now consider to be one of best nights out of our lives will remain steadfast in their permanence. The hangover was worth it.
That might make Sunday sound like a right-off, but we still managed another long walk around town, a little spot of shopping, and another rendezvous with Bumblebee and Cowgirl in Brother Jimmy’s Sports Bar in Midtown, near to the Empire State Building. This was World Series night, where the Yankees were (and still are, as it is a best of seven contest) taking on the Phillies. It took a little while for me to understand the finer points of Baseball (thanks to Cowgirl, however, for setting me straight), but I am happy to tell you all that I am now a New York Yankees fan, and just to prove that I am fully on board Team Yankees, they promptly went and got hammered tonight (Sunday), in a manner similar to how Spurs can often take a goal lead against teams like Manchester United, but still inevitably lose. I am told the Yankees are actually pretty good, and they play in white and blue, so I am stuck with them now. “Let’s go Yankees!”
REM once said that leaving New York is ‘never easy’. I agree. While excited to head on to Michigan, and another close friend of ours in Adam Jacobs in the town of Ann Arbor, Dean and I were both a little down to be departing such a wonderful town having had such a busy and exciting few days. Thanks go to Dylan for that, and to the myriad of fantastic people we met along the way, from our Halloween buddies, to Robert’s other East 14th Street flatmates, all the way to ordinary New Yorkers who help contribute to the magic of this place. It was fitting, then, that we ended our stay with a walk through all the New York hotspots, from the Rockefeller Centre to a beautiful, autumnal Central Park, before finishing up at Ground Zero, where the World Trade Centre regeneration project has recently worked its way up above street level, rising out of the ashes of an unspeakable tragedy and once more preparing to soar above New York and the fields of the Republic beyond. What an inspirational way to leave the city.
Another skyline is on its way: Chicago, Illinois. Before that, however, we are off to Michigan to see Adam. Put your hands up for Detroit. The English are coming!
ahhhhhhhhh it sounds amazing! i want to be in america too. miss you lots
ReplyDeleteYou write brilliantly. Sounds like you are having lots of fun....
ReplyDeleteLots of love, Lucy