What you've heard and seen are true -- New York is a big town. There's no denying its girth, its scope. It's bigger than you, and it always will be. Nonetheless, we wanted to take one Odyssey-sized bite out of it for ourselves, taste a little bit of what we've been missing. Since everybody else had to work, we set out on our lonesome with nothing but a fanny pack and a subway map to guide us. We'd be meeting everybody in Times Square at 6:00 for a cruise around Manhattan Island. The interim was up to us.
| After fortifying ourselves with bagels, lox, and the curiously satisfying coffee of Mark and Suzanne, we headed for the subway, ready to explore. Mark and Suzanne had filled us with tips for getting around NY, saddled us down with guide books, and now we were ready to leave the nest and forage for ourselves. It's a strange feeling to get on the NYC subway for the first time. Having read a few books, watched a few movies, seen "Welcome Back Kotter" a few times, I had some preconceived notions. Like, for example, I expected to get mugged about once per train ride. And Bernard Goetz to be riding shotgun with me, protecting the innocent from screwdriver-toting punks. I also expected dirt. Alas, dirt was the only one of these things I actually got. It wasn't a bad dirt, though -- it was the grime of character, of life's rich pageant played out daily on the D-train. I really liked the NY subway much better than the other mass transit rails systems I've ridden (BART in the Bay Area, the T in Boston, and the Metro in DC). It's certainly not the best (I'd have to give that to DC), but it is the most fun. | |
| Lamentably, it's also the most heavily scented. No getting around it -- it stinks down there. The air has this palpable thickness to it, like its heavy with scent. When the trains come, they slam that fetid stink right into your face, giving you a good whiff of NYC funk. Mmmmmm....smells like rot, disease, and diesel fuel. But, hey, that's just one guy's impression. It could smell like perfumed linen to you. | |
We started out with Times Square, right smack dab in the middle. I didn't know what to expect. The Times Square of legend is a seedy, seedy place, full of porno shops and peep shows. However, the rumors on the street were of renovation, renewal, Disneyfication, even. We stepped out of the 42nd Street station, ready for anything. Well, almost anything. A giant hot dog strapped to a Cadillac did kind of throw us for a loop, but we recovered nicely and managed to remain straight-faced. Didn't want to hep the locals to the fact that we were tourists, dontchyaknow? The Disney rumors, as it turned out, were pretty much on the money. Times Square seemed like a fairly innocent paean to money writ large. The advertising was impressive, but somewhat boring. I sort of fail to see the point of Times Square -- a couple giant TV screens and a lot of billboards...so what? To be fair, it was really neat to see all the Broadway theaters, see where they film the Today Show, see the Rockefeller Center, and feel the genuine bustle of so many folks crammed into so tiny a place. Nonetheless, I couldn't help but feel that this was where the tourists went. The best parts of NYC were probably somewhere just beyond my reach. |
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We went to look for it over in Central Park, catching the train up to 72nd to do so. As coincidence would have it, we ended up in the portion of the park called, "Strawberry Fields." It was renovated and created as a quiet part of the park in memory of John Lennon, who was killed just across the street in front of his apartment building, The Dakota. Central Park is just great -- an oasis of greenery in a solidly urbanized town. We went to one of the lakes and rented a rowboat so I could ferry Kristanne about while she gazed at the skyline. By the way, those two towers behind my head in the picture at the left are part of the Dakota. |
After a leisurely hour spent listening to Kristanne chant, "Stroke, stroke, stroke," we returned the rowboat and headed downtown to see Wall Street and go to the top of the World Trade Center. While being a very tourist thing to do, this was very much worth the effort. The view from atop the World Trade Center was simply incredible, affording 360 degree vistas of the entire area. We were lucky enough to get a relatively clear day, so we could see for a fair piece. By the way, the picture at the top of this page is of me on the World Trade Center. Pretty cool, eh? By this time, it was rapidly approaching our meeting back in Times Square. We hopped a rush hour train back up there, squeezing on with an amazing mass of expensive suits and silk ties. There, we found everyone but Chip, who actually needed to work late. Since we'd already missed our departure time for the Manhattan cruise, we opted for a movie, instead -- Harrison Ford as the President Who Can Kick Your Butt in "Air Force One." What's up with the sudden need to see a President who knows karate or can fly a fighter jet? First, "Independence Day," and now this. Isn't it enough to know that your President can probably beat Yeltsin in a footrace to the vodka bottle? And that he would probably look better in some foppish jogging shorts in the process? No? Ok...well, forget about it. "Air Force One" was incredibly silly, but fun in spite of itself. Now that it's no longer ok to hate the Russians, this movie reminded us that it's still ok to hate ultra-nationalist rebels from Kazakhstan. Oh, yeah -- and Saddam Hussein, too. He's still on the OK To Hate List. We'll keep you posted of other new arrivals as they become clear. Like, say, Michael Bolton. And Kenny G. But not in homicidal ways for those guys. Just good-natured hate for them. No guns, or anything. |
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After the movie, we met Chip and proceeded to visit a long string of places that were closed and could not serve us. This was actually something of a theme for Monday. It turns out that most museums in NYC are closed on Monday and most Broadway plays run only matinees. Earlier, this had been something of a blessing -- it forced us to concentrate on seeing the sights of New York instead of going to museums. Now, however, it was starting to turn into a nuisance, as we couldn't find a suitable place for seven folks with questionable grasp of the dynamics of group decision-making. Fortunately, however, we found McSorley's, the oldest bar in NYC. McSorley's offered you only two choices for beer -- light or dark. This made things easier. They also had the strange custom of serving a single beer in two separate 6 ounce glasses. This way, when you ordered a beer, you always got two. We liked this custom, and proceeded to take advantage of it, as you will see by the prodigious total in the tab below. Just one question -- what the heck was the "Large" listed there along with those 48 ales?
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We moved on, never alighting in one place overlong. Time was approaching 2:00 in the morning as we left CBGB, the world famous Birthplace of Punk. The Ramones, Patti Smith, Blondie, Talking Heads -- just a few of the storied bands that have made CBGB an essential part of rock and roll history. Tonight, however, it was just home to a rather uninspiring set of public auditions. The bouncer was nice enough to let me wander around for a couple of minutes and take in the sights without paying the cover charge. It looks exactly like it did back in those old Talking Heads videos. My historical curiosity sated, we headed off to a country and western bar near Chip's place that stayed open at least 'til 3:30, when we left. Bad dart-playing, worse square dancing, and absolutely awful singing ensued for many an hour. The bartender here was in rare form, clambering up on the bar to pour straight shots into disbelieving customers' open mouths. Quite the show. |
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The show, however, was over for us, as we clambered into a cab to head back to Mark and Suzanne's place and tend to the hangovers already knocking about our temples. Check back tomorrow as we fight through the haze to go to the Cloisters and a Broadway show during our last full day in NYC. See you then!
Total Miles for 7/28 = 0