New York Minutes
A reading break tale
by Trevor Barry, OK-110.
Few cities in the world have been romanticised to the extent
of New York City. Over the course of a week during reading
break, I had the great fortune of visiting this remarkable metropolis and
taking in as much as I could of what Manhattan
had to offer. The following story
describes many of those memorable occasions, but only brushes the surface of
what the Big Apple has to offer. I
seriously advise anybody who has not travelled there before to make the
Pilgrimage at the next available opportunity.
Here is a taste of what you could see. Enjoy.
It helps if you know somebody in the city. We stayed with a friend who is attending
school there, and lived out of his room at the New Yorker Hotel, located one
block from Madison Square
Gardens, and 10 minutes on foot from
Times Square, on the corner of 34th
street and 8th
avenue.
From this location in Midtown -- right
in the heart of Manhattan -- all the
sites of the city were never more than 20 minutes away via subway.
A New York Must is a little old famous Jazz Club on
44th street: Birdland. Established on 52nd
street in 1949 and named after guru jazz legend
Charlie Parker, this top-notch restaurant serves as venue for some of the
greatest jazz artists in the world.
Reservations are necessary, as is a hearty appetite for delicious spicy
Cajun cuisine. Menu items are costly,
but the quality is unparalleled. We were
there on St. Valentine’s Day night, and were charmed over dinner by the wonderful
vocal talents of Hilary Kole and allstar accompaniment including tenor
saxophonist Bob Kindred. My only
critique is that nobody behind their exquisite bar knew how to mix a Caesar.
Try the Gumbo. http://www.birdlandjazz.com/
Another recommendation is to make your first trip to Time
Square at night. Ours happened to be a
Saturday Night, and Valentine’s Day, so the effect was indeed inflated: Lights and cars and taxicabs, and people,
people, people; open shops, street vendors and performers – then you look
up. A massive forest of buildings, with
the intersections of 42nd street,
Broadway, and Fashion avenue
creating a luminescent meadow. First you
see the Broadway Theatre Marquees, then the News Headlines scrolling across the
bottom of billboards. And above all that
are the magnificent video display screens with ads running continuously. For the amateur Vancouver
streetwalker, this experience proves overwhelming at first, but enchanting with
practice.
We took in two Broadway shows: Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, which was a visual masterpiece and quite
entertaining; and the one and only Fiddler
on the Roof at the Minskoff Theatre.
Never has the tale of the small Jewish village
of Anatevka in Tsarist Russia at
the onset of the Revolution been so miraculously exhibited. Alfred Molina exemplified the character of
Tevye, and the supporting cast and musicians were truly stellar. Mazeltov, Mazeltov!
We also took in a Knicks game at the Gardens, but it wasn’t
that great… should have seen The Lion
King on 42nd Street.
Take a walk through the districts or boroughs. From Midtown we made it on foot through SoHo, Greenwich
Village, Little Italy, Chinatown, the Lower East Side, and of
course: Downtown and Wall street.
Greenwich village is the site of
another well know NYC Jazz Club The Blue
Note, but when Mos Def tickets were sold out one night, we wandered through
the dark and stumbled upon some small basement jazz hole, and took in an hour
of great local bebop talent. Let the
wind take you sometimes, it’s amazing what random luck will show you in that
city.
A daytime stop in Little Italy was the famous Kat’s Delicatessen, where Harry met
Sally. Great food. I had a cheesesteak sandwich and a “cherry
soda.”
Chinatown is much different than in Vancouver. Like other areas of the city, it seems to
function much like an independent community which just happens to be adjacent
to the rest.
Then there is Downtown and Wall street. Unfortunately, the New
York Stock exchange is just a building with high
security, so you can’t really observe the frantic traders. But downtown itself is beautiful and very
high modern – it reminded me a lot of the Vancouver Financial District in style
and appearance. Here comes the sombre part…
So we are walking along with our chins held high, stretching our necks to see
the tops of buildings, when all of a sudden there is a clearing. It’s four
o’clock in the afternoon, and up until this point in the journey
around downtown the sun and water have been hiding behind a wall of towers;
then you see light and sky and water in your peripheral. It actually took us about a block walking
past it looking for it to realise that we were standing right beside it. Ground
Zero. The World Trade Centre Memorial
site. The feeling it instilled in me
resonates within me now as I type these lines.
It was surreal and creepy and made me shiver. You can remember sitting in front of your TVs
on 11 Sept 2001 and seeing
airplanes, you can analyse and intellectualise, and you can reason, criticise
and hypothesis all you want. But I’m
here to tell you that nothing can
prepare you for the feeling you get when you see the site, and any pretences
you held about it become absolutely irrelevant.
It doesn’t fit: right there in the middle of a fast-paced, highly
constructed and concentrated city, there is nothing. Nothing but a reminder that at one point not
too long ago there stood two gigantic office towers. It makes you think, again.
But people still keep walking, and so did we. Down to Battery
Park, and on board the Staten
Island Ferry. This is a free boat trip for pedestrians and
sails right past Lady Liberty herself.
It was really neat to see the statue live and from a boat!
Of course, the other staple to the New York Experience is a
walk through Central Park
towards Harlem.
They say not to frequent the park after dark. And for two unseasoned travellers, dark comes
sooner than expected when the sun only has to hide behind the shortest building
that encloses the park, which isn’t very short indeed. So we made it two-thirds the way through in
about 3 hours, and then hightailed it back to the hotel by “taking the A-Train”
and getting ready for another night on the town.
By far the most romantic destination in the City of New
York remains the observatory deck on the Empire State Building. From atop this towering structure one can
observe civilisation as far as the eye can see (and smog allow) into up to 5
different states of the union. Sights include
Jersey, Brooklyn, Queens,
and the Bronx.
Looking down on our 40 story
hotel and Times Square was an empowering feeling. And this false sense of security manifests a
great deal of confidence into an otherwise humble soul. May I seriously suggest that when you do make
the 88 story ascent, that you bring somebody special along for the ride. It will elevate your life more than any
building ever can, no matter how tall it is.
And of course there is the shopping. Girls, I don’t know the first thing about
shopping. Guys, be careful. Macy’s
must be 8 stories high, and each level an Ikea in floor space. The Manhattan Mall proved to be a relatively
humble collection of shops, but where the real consumerism resides is on the
streets of Midtown, much like Robson Square.
Hint:
if she’s wearing heels, you won’t have to walk to as many different
places.
Finally, I would like to conclude by giving an account of my
religious experience in the city that never sleeps. We attended 4 different churches while in
town. And if I could do it again, I’d be
sure to visit a couple Synagogues and a Mosque.
The Journey was our first stop
on Sunday morning, being held in a modest little theatre called the Promenade
on the corner of 46th street
and Broadway. This casual contemporary
Christian church isn’t afraid neither to tackle some real issues nor to serve
their congregation a splendid little pre-service breakfast and juice. Come for the food, stay for the
enlightenment.
http://www.nyjourney.com/
Our second stop Sunday was at the Times Square Gospel.
What an amazing experience, can I
hear an AMEN!? Full-out choir with
heavenly soloists singing the praises of God.
The service takes place in a full house theatre of over 3000, and
constantly brings in guest ministers.
You have to experience it to understand the power, and the Passion. Hallelujah!
And the last two places we visited on our spiritual quest
were two amazing gothic cathedrals near the Park and Rockefeller Centre, namely
St. Thomas’s and St. Patrick’s Catholic Cathedrals. Baptised or not, when you walk through the
front doors of either of these city-block sized buildings and look up to the 5
story ceiling, you can feel the faith. St.
Thomas’s, named after the martyred Archbishop of
Canterbury, contains relics that Chaucer’s Pilgrims themselves were in pursuit
to find; and the sculptures of the patron saints on the back wall make a
breath-taking ascent towards the stain glassed windows. More for display than for practice, we walked
a block down the street to St. Pat’s for liturgy. Never before have I felt the presence of the
Lord so strongly in my heart as when I experienced mass in that incredible
house of the diocese.
Light a candle, make a prayer, sing a psalm, and recite the antiphon. Take it all in, and then reflect on it. Open your mind and your heart, and just enjoy
the love and experience.
Gloria Patri, et
Filio, et Spiritui Sancto.
Try the Pretzels and Hot Dogs and
Knish, but don’t make them your meals.
Take a taxi once through Times Square. Start walking when the other light goes red,
but not before looking both ways before crossing. I(L)NY T-shirts are $2 on the street, $20 in
stores. Drink the micro-brewery beer,
not the name-brand domestic American stuff, and not the Canadian export stuff
that isn’t good enough for our shelves so we send it down there. If you order a Caesar, the bartender will
only look at you like you’re from another planet and ask “A Who??!”
Bloody Marys are a poor substitute.
Bottled water is best. Keep an
eye at all times on your bags, purses, cases, and wallets; because anything can
happen in a New York Minute. $10 Metro
passes are your best bet on the Subway.
Uptown is north and the streets get larger in number. Downtown is towards Wall Street and vice
versa. Subways go in the same direction
as cars on the street. Avenues get
smaller as you walk further east. TKTS
in Times Square has discount Broadway show tickets. Be friendly, but assertive. Don’t get caught up in the accents, speak
normally and listen.
And finally, fly in and out of Newark
international. It’s less busy than JFK
and the others, and only 45 minute transit to Pennsylvania Station.