April 8-11, 2004

I’d been thinking for a while that I’ve never been to New York (or lots of other places on the east coast for that matter, but New York seemed the most egregious omission.) And then my friend Bubba mentioned that old college friends Kim and Ikon live on Manhattan now. I got in touch with Kim, who I was pretty close with in college, and got to talking. She said she’d love to have me visit, but I still didn’t really want to go by myself. Then a week or so later I was talking Matty H, another excellent friend from college (and the other half of the “I Don’t Watch Movies” inside joke) and he was really excited about the idea of a New York trip. A pair of cheap Jet Blue tickets later and we were all set for a very fun time.

Thursday

We left on the red eye Wednesday night, landing at JFK at about 8:30 am New York time. We were a bit confused just from lack of sleep. The flight was only four and a half hours long – and I think I only slept for two and a half of them. It’s probably not the best way to start off a whirlwind vacation. But that’s ok.

We took a cab to Kim’s place in Chelsea. What I noticed most on the way in were the gigantic graveyards. Those are the kinds of things that give a place a real historical feel for me. I was struck many times by the history of New York, but the graveyards were my first taste. As a West Coast kid I’m not used to having a lot of history around me, everything out here is pretty new in comparison. That tends to make me think of our country as a whole of being new, and the history we have is from the people who were here before Western culture – but the East Coast has more of a past in this space and can make some claims to having a real history (although they clearly fall short in the greater scheme of things.)


Folks, you wanna go up and down stairs all day, move into a fifth floor walk up on the lower east side.

Once we got to Kim’s we became introduced to a New York classic. Kim recently moved into a fifth floor walk up, and we got to make our first of many trips up those stairs. I hadn’t seem Kim in a few years and gave her a big hello hug when we made it to the top. Matt and Kim had met a few times, and they got reintroduced, then we all headed out for a quick breakfast. Kim had to go out job hunting which worked out well since Matt and I had figured Thursday for the day to do our touristy activities and Kim didn’t have a lot of interest in those. We’re not the kind of travelers that like to go to the tourist spots, but there were some figured are required and the crowds would be better mid week. We also had a theory that we needed to keep going all day to avoid falling asleep. We knew if that happened we’d lose a whole day to it, and we were short on time as it was.

So we headed downtown with a loose plan in mind. Our first stop was the World Trade Center site. This wasn’t all that powerful for me. I think if I’d actually seen the twin towers before 9/11 it would have meant more. Also, they’re done a lot of work to the site. All the subterranean parts are in place for a new building to start being built. Really the only thing that separates it from any other major building site is that some of the surrounding buildings are still scarred up.

Then we walked into the heart of the financial district. This involved walking past some more reminders of New York’s history. Buildings like St. Paul’s Chapel and Trinity Church sandwiched between skyscrapers is a really strange sight – and not one I’m used to seeing in the states. Once again, I think that’s my West Coast roots coming through.

We headed down Wall Street and saw a couple traders coming off the floor but didn’t find the bull and bear statues. Overall this part of town wasn’t that interesting so we took a turn North towards the Brooklyn Bridge.

On the way we found one of the discount ticket booths and stopped to stand in line. After consulting Lisa over the phone (cell phones are spectacular while traveling) we decided to get tickets to Rent. At this point we hadn’t learned yet that New York is a cash intensive city. Where we’re from (Seattle and the Bay Area) plastic is good just about everywhere these days. Matt and I both practically live our lives on our Alaska Airline mileage cards. But alas, in New York they don’t go for the plastic so much – you gotta have a lot of cash. So when we wandered up to the ticket booth and asked for our two rent tickets we weren’t prepared to need a lot of cash to buy them. This led to a great moment:

Matt (holding his credit card) – We’d like two tickets for Rent.
Ticket Guy (TG) -Those are only 25% off, and we only accept cash.
Me- Ok, let’s see if we can do that. Matt, give me your cash.
(I put my cash with Matt’s cash and start counting. I find my brain isn’t with it enough to remember the count and add together the ticket costs to get our final cost – but I know we’ll be close.)
Me – What do we need to get to?
TG (slightly annoyed) - $133.50
Me – Hmmm, $133 in bills.
(I count a second time and then dig into my pockets for silver – where I only have 30 cents.)
Matt (to TG) – I think we’re short
TG (annoyed) – How much?
Me – 20 cents
TG (now quite annoyed) – That’s fine, just give me the money.

With our spiffy tickets to rent for that night (not together, but fine seats) and no cash what so ever we continued north.

On Kim’s recommendation we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge. This was cool, and gave some good views of Manhattan, Brooklyn, The Statute of Liberty, and the Brooklyn Queens Expressway. Being the movie nerd I am I had a great time in New York recognizing places often used in movies. The Brooklyn Queens Expressway was really the first solid example of this.

Walking the Brooklyn Bridge also led to a fun moment. First take a look at this guy, he’s the British Guy in the following story:



Matt and I had been walking along, taking pictures like tourists. But then we saw this:



While we were getting this shot British Guy runs up to take the same picture:

British Guy: Does anyone in this country like him?
Us: Certainly not us.
British Guy: We should add “And Blair too” right under that.

After we got off the Bridge we got lost in Brooklyn for a bit looking for the subway stop. We eventually found it and headed back down to the financial district. This time around we found the Bull, which was an impressive statue up close, before getting some bad food for a late lunch and heading for Ellis Island.


- Are you getting off at Ellis Island?
- I don’t think so, there’s nothing there right?

We were disappointed to learn that to go to Ellis Island you have to get on a boat that also goes to Liberty Island. We had sort of a philosophical travel objection to going to Liberty Island, but were all over Ellis Island. That’s ok, the boat ride offered some good looks at the Statue of Liberty, but it was stormy by that point so the pictures I took aren’t all that great. The boat stopped at Liberty Island but we just didn’t get off – so I guess we didn’t technically go there. Soon enough we were on our way to Ellis Island. On the way some tourists behind us were talking about their plans, which was where the depressing quote above comes from.


Back in those days, going to America was like going to the moon.

Ellis Island was awesome. We didn’t have much time because it was almost closing time, but we saw as much as we could and didn’t leave until the park police ushered us out during their final sweep. There were lots of interesting things to think about. I started off pondering the kind of motivation and courage it must have taken to take the brutal trips from Europe to America in those days. Then moved on to how terrifying it would be to go through the process. Finally, from my history studies I know surviving in the new country as a fresh immigrant was no piece of cake. I mourned a bit for all the people who went through the sacrifice to make the journey, and then weren’t successful when they got here. That would be a bad end to a hard life.

It was a bit awful to read about the conditions at the Island, and the process used to screen people. More worrisome was the idea of people getting turned away. The process sounded terrible, but I was comforted when I read that over 98% of the people eventually got to enter the country. My skepticism about the process (and our government’s treatment of outsiders in general) by that point had me thinking it would much worse then that. All in all, 98% was a comforting number for me.

Feeling a little more somber we got back on the boat for Manhattan. When we got there we resisted buying obnoxious green foam statue of liberty crown hats, found a subway station, and headed for Times Square.

Times Square was so big and overwhelming that I didn’t even bother trying to take pictures. It’s like the big sky country in Montana, once you try to frame it and capture it in a picture it loses the essence of what makes it amazing (unless you’re a much more talented photographer then I am.) We toyed with finding some decent food, but it was 6:45 and there was no way we would get food and be done in time for our play at 8:00 so we just got some bad pizza from one of those hole in the wall places. Then we killed some time walking through the giant, over the top Toys R Us and ESPN Sports Zone.


Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes
Five hundred twenty five thousand moments so dear
Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure? measure a year

Finally it was time for our Broadway show. Up to this point our theory of “keep moving so we wouldn’t fall asleep” had been working great, but I think the idea of sitting down in a dark theater was a serious tactical flaw in the plan. It didn’t help that I didn’t like the first act of Rent much. It was almost entirely exposition, which is kind of ok in a musical. The real problem is there were lots and lots of characters and a lot of dialog exchange. For me, that kind of stuff needs to be in spoken dialog. Musicals are better for longer monolog type exchanges between characters with lots of emotion in them. My tiredness along with my lack of engagement in the first act led to me doing a lot of head bobbing in my seat as I drifted in and out of sleep. I found out from Matt during intermission (remember: we’re not sitting together) that he had many of the same issues, including the sleeping.

That was ok though, because after our quick power naps we were ready to soak in Act 2, which was much, much better. After all the exposition in Act 1 they unloaded the emotional developments in Act 2. (If you’re wondering, we knew most of what was going on by reading the plot summary in the playbill and comparing notes during intermission – between the two of us we got all the important parts.) Act 2 didn’t have all the crazy dialog of Act 1, and instead had lots of solo, powerful, emotional moments. It completely gripped me, and power nap or no, I wouldn’t have fallen asleep during that part of the show.


Would you like some more kiddie drinks?

After Rent we finished off the day by meeting up with my friend Colleen, who was in town for work. We walked over to her hotel, the Westin Times Square, which I’m sure you can imagine was a real shabby place and grabbed some drinks in the bar. Instead of real drinks we got things without alcohol, which inspired that snobby comment from our waiter. It was great to see her again (she lives in North Carolina) and her and Matt got along well.

We hailed a cab back to Kim’s and finished out the longest day of our trip after Midnight. We’d certainly delivered on our go, go, go philosophy.


Friday

Matt and I slept in a bit on Friday to catch up, then headed down to the area around NYU to explore. We wandered around a bit looking for a good place to eat lunch and wasn’t really excited by most of what we saw. We realized later that afternoon the problem was we were on semi-major street and just one or two streets over in either direction were lots of good places. It worked out ok though. we ended up at a classic New York coffee shop where we got food that would have been just ok, but tasted great since it seemed like they’d bathed it in grease in the kitchen (side note: from the way I saw New Yorkers eating, how are they not all dead?) While there we overheard this from the family one table over:

Brother – The 3rd one (Lord of the Rings movie) is the best movie ever!
Other Brother – Even better then the Princess Diaries?

Matt and I both suppressed a laugh, it was a classic people watching moment. But we also noticed little things there outside of the people. Like the machine for fountain drinks was crammed sideways into a little cubby hole that it clearly wasn’t designed to be in. This was one of many observations we had that followed two related themes in New York. Space was in very short supply so things were just crammed in all sorts of places. This cramming let to an overall feel that there was no central planning involved. It was like the city was organically evolving based on necessity. Once again with all the space we have out here in the west, this was something I wasn’t used to.

After lunch it was time to go to the subway and head to the Yankee Game. But on the way I passed this display on the street and had to stop and take a picture because it made me think of my Mom (and I knew she’d appreciate seeing it.) Unfortunately, the lighting and the size of the sidewalk made it hard to get a good picture without too much reflection on the glass, but I did what I could.


(During a between inning trivia game)
Announcer: Which one is it, A, B, C, or D?
Most of the Crowd: C
Kid Contestant: D
Random Guy in Crowd: You suck!
Announcer: The correct answer is D

Yankee Stadium was a trip. The whole area is just a shrine to the Yankees. The street that runs along the Stadium has nothing but sports bars, souvenir shops, and other Yankee oriented places. At Matt’s request we sat in the bleachers, which was an experience all in itself. They prohibit alcohol in the bleachers these days, which seems like a good choice. The crowd was rowdy enough as it was, and the cops at the end of every other aisle looked to be a good precaution. To keep alcohol out, that part of the stadium is separate from the rest of the stadium, the concessions there serve no alcohol, and we got patted down coming in.

Watching the game was great. Out of self preservation we didn’t outwardly root against the Yankees, but were quietly cheering them and their $85,000 and inning infield getting slapped around by the White Sox. It was 9-1 when we left after the 8th.

The strangest thing about Yankee Stadium: there are five Bank of America billboards inside the Stadium, but Bank of America has no presence in New York. All those adds are for out of town TV only…


In all the five burrows I’m known. Ask anyone, anyone, about Lefty from Mulberry Street.

After the game we headed back to Kim’s to change for the night. IKon and Jarrett (another college friend in town for the weekend) were going to see Chicago, so Kim, Matt and I went down to Little Italy for Dinner. It was a trip being on Mulberry Street. It was obviously a tourist trap, but also a fun place to be. We had some pretty decent Italian food for dinner, and then Kim had to run off to her first night at a new bartending job (she’d been very successful looking for a job the day before.) Matt and I hung out in Little Italy for a bit since we had some time to kill before meeting up with Ikon and Jarrett.

While we were walking down the street we saw a woman selling DVD’s. We’re both movie nerds and each have a, shall we say, problem with buying too many movies so we’re intrigued. We had a little laugh when we saw the titles though – they’re all first run movies. Matt picked up Spartan, the new David Mamet film. And I bought The Girl Next Door, which had opened in theaters that day. The whole thing felt a lot like a drug deal. The movies were $5 each, and when we handed her the money it disappeared into a little bag with the sleight of hand of a magician. Then she wrapped the movies in small black plastic bags, porn style, and we were off. Later when I opened the DVD case I got a chuckle at the DVD-R disk inside that was clearly freshly burned. We both knew we were getting crap, but bought them mostly for the experience and since they were cheap. Although I was pleasantly surprised when I watched it after I got home, the quality isn’t too terribly bad (on par with an EP VHS copy.)

Then we finished off the night with Kim and Ikon in an Irish bar around the corner from Kim’s place. It was pretty empty, and we were just there to have a beer and talk. But I remember it being kind of strange that I was sitting in a regular old bar at 3:30 am. I’m not used to that, in my world they start kicking you out at 1:45 (2:00 on the bar’s wacked out clock.)


Saturday

Saturday was definitely our best food day of the trip. Ikon had to work a day shift (also a bartender) so Kim, Matt, Jarrett and I set out for a new brunch place Kim had heard of in Greenwich Village. She’d gotten a great tip. We had to wait outside for a half an hour or so, but it was quality time since it led to the best quote of the trip:

(Talking about a concert both Matt and Kim went to as part of a big group)
Matt: Jimmy Buffett, that was a good trip.
Kim: Yeah, it was.
Matt: The drive back was tough though.
Kim: Wait, were we making out?

Turns out it wasn’t Matt, but another guy on the trip. Either way, the non-sequitur was a good laugh for everyone.

We were rewarded for our wait with excellent food, but Matt more then the rest of us since he clearly picked the best menu item. But he was nice enough to share bits of his French toast so we could all enjoy it.

After brunch we got some cupcakes at the famous Magnolia Bakery and ate them on the sidewalk in the sun. By this point we were stuffed and not interested in food for a long time.

That was ok though, since it was time for lots and lots of walking. We wandered through the village a bit, and then through a street fair. The street fair was cool and all the locals shopping there indicated it wasn’t a complete tourist trap (although there were tourist trap booths.) There was also great food there, but just thinking about eating more caused my stomach to turn over a bit, so I didn’t linger to soak up the good smells.


(High school girl on a college visit with her family, looking at a hat in the bookstore)
But it says Columbia, is that too obnoxious?

From there we caught a train up to Columbia. We wandered into the Columbia campus a bit and I decided I could handle going to school there (I know, that’s not really going out on much of a limb.) It was a great campus and seemed to insulate itself from the city a bit with a large internal courtyard.

From Columbia we headed south and walked by Tom’s Restaurant, which is the one they’re always eating in on Seinfeld. Matt and I are huge Seinfeld fans (there were many quotes a flying the whole trip) but were disappointed to see that the inside looked nothing like the inside of the Tom’s in the show. Still, the familiar wide shot was fun to see.

From there we headed over to Central Park where I got to walk the length of the park, something I really wanted to do while I was in New York. I love these giant city parks (I had similar feelings about Hyde Park when I lived in London.) I believe you can’t really appreciate their size without walking them. It was a gorgeous day and we saw little league games, joggers, bikers, hardcore adult softball games (fast pitch!), picnickers, boaters, and lots of neat sites. My favorite thing about the park is the way it isn’t level. There are lots of elevation changes depending on what trails you’re on, this helps to break it up a bit. Plus the terrain changed from fields to lakes to forests quite a bit. I get the feeling that if I lived in New York I’d be in the park a lot to avoid going crazy in the city.

When we got to the bottom of the park Matt, Kim and Jarrett went to take the train back to Kim’s, but I wasn’t done walking yet. I cut over to Sixth Avenue and started walking south from the park. I walked by a lot of big sites: CBS, CNN, and Fox News buildings, Radio City Music Hall, the Rockefeller Center, Madison Square Garden and others. This was the time in the trip I really got the feeling of being in a concrete canyon. Huge buildings stretching up from a four lane street that was almost all taxi’s. It was a quintessential New York moment.

We continued our good food day with an excellent dinner at a Cuban restaurant (can’t really find Cuban food on the West Coast so much.) Then we went down to pick up Ikon as she came off her shift. We bar hopped a bit in Soho, but didn’t go anywhere too exciting. My favorite place was the Fat Black Pussycat where their title drink (Stoli Rasberry, Blue Curacao, Chambord Raspberry Liqueur, Apple Pucker, cranberry juice and a splash of Blackbush for tang) was excellent and very strong.

A couple drinks plus my long day of walking made me crash out early (midnight.) Kim was also tired so we headed back while Ikon, Matt and Jarrett went to a comedy club which they reviewed well.


Sunday

We started Sunday chatting over some bagels, and then Matt and I set out to explore the East Village. It had a whole different feel from the other neighborhoods we’d been in and it was nice to see some of the hippy side of New York. We also ended up walking by the New York Hell’s Angels, which was a crazy sight. They had four security cameras trained on the sidewalk and front door area.

From there we went back over to Soho to say goodbye to Ikon as she worked another day shift. Then we grabbed lunch at an excellent crepe place and stopped in at the Peanut Butter Co. (after a strong recommendation from Colleen.) They had a wonderful menu including:

The Elvis: Peanut Butter, Bananas, and Honey – grilled. Add bacon for $1

The bacon sounds like it would be a terrible choice, but the base sandwich sounds good. And on the bottom of the menu it reads:

Crusts cut off by request

I got the Fluffernutter shake, which Colleen called “the best thing ever.” While that statement is pretty strong, I will admit it was really, really good. Matt called it diabetes in a cup.

We headed to the Upper East side to explore and stop in at the Met. Walking along Park Ave and 5th Ave was a trip. The amount of money along those streets is just astounding. Matt noticed as we walked by the residential buildings that the nameplates outside all included the titles of the residents (Doctor seemed to be popular.) It was another reminder of the status and society lifestyle that must run rampant in that part of town.

The Met was fantastic. We were only able to stay for a few hours, but I easily could have burned a day there. I saw many famous works of art, many works by famous people I’d never seen before, and many just plain excellent works. Matt and I are both fans of Asian cultures so we spent a little extra time in the Asian exhibits. But we spent most of our time in the modern and impressionist galleries.

My favorite part of the met was seeing the canvases up close. Actually seeing the paint on the canvas makes the work real for me in a way that a print can’t. I do a lot of digital imagery work, so it’s kind of foreign to think about those famous pictures existing in three dimensions. This was especially true of the Jackson Pollock piece.

Other then that we mostly cruised through the galleries in between the ones we wanted to see. Although as we were going through the European paintings exhibit we stopped for a moment to ponder why with all the talent and beauty in the paintings, they were really quite boring. I guess lots and lots of family portraits will have that effect.



After the Met we had to head back to Kim’s to say a quick goodbye and hop on the train out to JFK. Before I knew it I was on a plane back home after a long, but very, very fun weekend. As you can see, my spirits were up, even if I was starting to get a bit tired. We had done a bunch of walking.

The flight went well and I walked through my door at about 1:00 am Seattle time. I had no trouble getting to sleep, even if I was a bit worried about my ability to get up for work the next morning.