To paraphrase Taylor Swift, home is where the heart is, but god I love New York. After I visited in March this year, I told all of my friends that I was up for another trip if they wanted, and to my delight I got another opportunity much more quickly than I expected. After my second visit in a year I still don’t feel I am done with this place, and don’t know if I ever will be. Below are some jottings about this trip just so I don’t forget.
Day 1 - Tuesday: Flights and Times Square
An uneventful flight where I just binged films - Go here if you want my notes on what I watched
At the airport I picked up a cab and had the one of the suite of classic NYC cab experiences. In this case the driver smelt of weed and was looking at his phone as often as the road. There was one interesting moment when the only reason he avoided backending the car in front was because I shouted at him. After hitting the brakes he just held his hand up towards me and grunted before carrying on.... It reminded me of a cab ride in Rome where the driver went the wrong way up a one way street and I survived that one too …
After checking in, I headed out to Times Square and dinner. The thing about Times Square is that it is crowded, tacky as hell and full of tourists but absolutely owns it.
Day 2 - Wednesday: Rivers and art
I was awake at 4am annoyingly but finished the unpacking I failed to do the day before. I took an early walk through Hells Kitchen which is a fascinating mixed area of gentrified tenement style housing plus warehousing and small industrial units alongside bars, laundrettes and airbnbs. The walk took me to Hudson River Park where we were meeting up for a boat trip. As I was early I did a fair bit of hanging around chatting to various New Yorkers and other tourists.
The boat trip is long, taking a full circle down the Hudson, up the East River to the quiet backwaters which give a tiny sense of what Manhattan was like before all the Europeans arrived, then down the Hudson again back to where we started.
It started with the obvious landmarks as we travelled past the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, under Brooklyn Bridge, the Manhattan Bridge, and Williamsberg bridges, past Brooklyn and Queens on the right. Then as the various rivers meet and the water becomes fresh rather than salty, we passed Randalls Island then up the Harlem River, to Marble Hill, passing the South Bronx and the Yankee Stadium on the right. On the left hand side the shiny glass, brick and concrete of Harlem, Upper Manhattan and Washington Heights gradually gave way to the fiords, gentle inlets, marble cliffs and low woodland at top of Manhattan before heading back down the Hudson again with the Jersey Palisades on the right, taking us back into the heart of the city.
We had a walk down the Hudson River Park, and the High Line, then on to Hudson Yards for emergency shopping for t-shirts as the weather had turned so ridiculously hot that light jumpers I brought were just not working. We had a wander through Chelsea Market to grab a bagel for lunch and then on to the Whitney gallery. My favourite room of American modern art had a Jasper Johns flag painting on one wall, facing it an amazing work by Juanita McNeely about an illegal abortion she had in 1967. Everything in that room really powerfully showing the contested nature of what it means to be American - now as ever probably. But I spent nearly an hour in the multimedia exhibit taking up the whole of the 5th floor, focusing on the work and life of choreographer Alvin Ailey who died of Aids related illness in 1989, but taking in so many aspects of the Black experience in the US. I might write about it later - if I do I will put the link in here.
After a busy day we just had a quiet evening with dinner at Juniors for salad and cheesecake then on to a piano bar in the Hells Kitchen area, with cocktails and everything from Elvis to the Beatles to Oasis and Ed Sheeran tunes to round off the evening.
Day 3 - Thursday: Politics, Dinosaurs and Romeo + Juliet
Another unseasonably hot day but despite that I started with an early walk across town to the UN building on First Avenue for a tour. Clearly each tour guide has their own spiel, and I found myself rather more taken by the guy talking about UN missions to prevent child soldiers and remove land mines, than mine who chose to spend more time on nuclear disarmanent, but whatever story the mission remains a noble one, however badly it is being delivered. One depressing statistic is that the UN goal for sustainabilty and climate has reached only 17% of its target due in 2030. And lets not even get started on the Palestine situation ... while we were there we were not allowed to visit one of the chambers as there was a closed session going on regarding the rights of the Palestinian people.
After a short detour to Grand Central station for lunch and a play in the whispering gallery, we had a wander through Central Park to the American Museum of Natural History. I didn't have long enough for the whole museum but the dinosaurs, giant squid and turtles grabbed my attention more than the stuffed animal exhibits. Somehow bones seem less creepy to me than stuffed dead creatures, although probably both were appropriate as it was Halloween after all. I would have like to have had more time for the biodiversity exhibits though - yet another reason to visit again.
We had a quick dinner then on to the reason we decided to do the trip in the first place, to see the new version of Romeo + Juliet at the tiny Circle in the Square Theatre.
I've written about it here, but suffice to say I thoroughly enjoyed it. We also decided to go and take a look at the stage door as we had heard it was manic, and it certainly was. I took a few photos and mainly what I got was reaching hands and cameras... Afterwards we headed back to the same theatre bar for a quick drink then on to a taster of Halloween on Times Square which is best described as over-full and full-on!
Day 4 - Friday: Brooklyn and more
We decided to start the day with breakfast at Ellen’s Stardust Diner as my friend hadn't ever been, then headed downtown in a leisurely fashion on the subway to pick up a tour at Chambers Street. Unfortunately we weren't paying attention, found ourselves at the end of the line at South Ferry so had to do a mad rush back to get to the start of the tour in time. A walk across Brooklyn Bridge to Dumbo took most of the morning and left me wanting more. We had intended to go onto Williamsberg for the afternoon, but instead that's earmarked to justify another trip sometime. Rather than rush, we had a pizza lunch in a place overshadowed by the Brooklyn Bridge before a stroll though the leafy streets of Brooklyn Heights, looking at the remnants of Halloween decorations from the night before, which as we turned back, merged back into the post industrial landscape of bridges and warehouses. We stopped for an ice-cream before getting a ferry back across to Manhattan. The ferry queues were full of confused tourists who couldn't see where to buy tickets or decide which line to catch. The staff in typical NY style were both chilled and brusque in dealing with us all.
We spent the evening at the theatre again, this time to see The Roommate with Mia Farrow and Patti Lupone, an odd couple comedy drama. If I get the time to write about it I will put the link here
Day 5 Friday: Enterprise, a street market and homewards
After checking out, I had a slow walk through the Hells Kitchen area down to the Hudson River Park then to the Intrepid Museum, which is an aircraft carrier converted to a museum and which also holds the Enterprise space shuttle which although it never flew in space is the one I remember from the televised testing off the back of a jumbo jet. I loved that it was originally to be called the Constitution but a campaign by Star Trek fans led to the change of name.
I had an amble back up through the 8th Avenue market which closes off the road to North/South traffic every Saturday morning. Despite the tourists and rebuilding and messiness, this Hells Kitchen area feels like a proper neighbourhood with barbers, laundrettes and supermarkets mixed in with the bars, restaurants and warehouses. After lunch I got a cab back to the airport for NY cab experience number two. My driver was a Puerto Rican who spent 10 years in the UK before moving to the US 30 years ago. He was an entertaining host, telling me about his five (yes FIVE) marriages and many affairs, and his reasons for voting early for Harris not Trump ‘Who wants a criminal in charge?’ and all was going well until he started telling me about the financial cabals in charge of everything. I changed the subject and we talked more about his various wives and jobs until we got back to the airport and homeward.
I love this city so much. London has always felt like home and is still probably my favourite city, but it is now tied with this brash upstart of a city which is full of confidence and mess, outrageously rich and outrageously run-down side by side, but buzzing with art and culture and life too. The people I met are often loud and don't suffer fools (not heard so many people shouting spectacularly bad language to each other in the street for years) but they are also warm and engaging and funny as soon as you scratch the surface. I will be back.
Notes from my earlier trip can be found here
More photos below.....
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