New York 2001
Day 2: July 30, 2001
2001, Christian Sauvé
This was to be the day! After three different alarm bells (the wake-up call, the hotel's alarm clock and our own alarm clock, for good measure), we were on the bus and ready to go by 7:30. The weather prospect wasn't very attractive: High humidity, high heat, and to top off everything, we could only see heavy fog everywhere we looked.
We picked up our tour guide, Adrian, not far from port authority, a local history teacher who seemingly picks up extra cash touring visitors. Hey, good way to spend your Saturdays, right? He proved to be quite knowledgeable, if sometimes needlessly patronizing and at least once guilty of atrocious bad judgment. Keep reading for details.
The tour, in general, was most useful as sort of a general introduction to the city, a quick way to hit the highlights and an occasion to see what we didn't want to bother seeing later on foot. (North and West of Central Park, mostly)
Central Park/59th&8th, ~8:10: The urban edge
We went around the city in a roughly clockwise fashion, first seeing the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space museum (a decommissioned aircraft carrier with a bunch of airplanes on deck, plus a destroyer and a submarine on the side), the enormous tourist cruise ship docks, the television studios of the West Side ("so you'll be able to say to your friends that those glamorous TV shows are filmed in dumpy warehouses" said the guide) and -boy, oh boy- the apartment building that served as the main exterior in ROSEMARY'S BABY.)
We stepped off the bus to take a walk in Central Park, down in the shore of "The Lake". An interesting place, mostly due to the contrast of the high-rises (shrouded in mist) and the pastoral lake.
Central Park Lake, 8:30: It's a jungle out there.
Going back from the lake to the bus, we had to face a slight problem: Suddenly, there was a steady stream or runners jogging down the lane we had to cross to get back to the edge of the park. "We'll have to make it through" said Adrian. Wait! I thought, why not give them five minutes and wait for the larger gaps at the back of the pack?
Well, things didn't work that way. Our tour director and guide neatly disrupted a few joggers going through and then stood on the other side imploring us to cross. It was a steady flow of joggers; no gap in sight for... wait... there was one coming up! By then, I was at the forefront of the huddle and quickly realized that if I wouldn't cross, someone else would. Hey, peer pressure is a terrible thing.
So we jumped in the gap, made it through the runners on the eastern half of the road-
-only to hear "HEY!"-
-see two roller-skaters zooming down on our group-
-straighten up as quickly as possible-
-and feel the roller-skaters WHOOSH past us in front and back.
That's when I decided that the tour guide wasn't getting a tip. (Well, okay, I did later put a "Thanks for your effort, you marathon-breaking moron" 1$ bill in the envelope.)
And that, ladies and gentleman, was our most dangerous moment in New York. No muggers, no rapists, no crazy taxis or glassy-eyed hobos. Just a stupid tour guide, a pair of roller-bladers and a marathon of a few thousands.
The rest of the tour was less exciting in a primal oh-my-god-I'm-going-to-die sense. We made our way to the upper West side (staying long enough to realize that if it was a pretty good place to live, there wasn't much to see there), marvelled at the ten-story-high Saint-John-the-Divine Anglican cathedral and awww-ed a bit at Columbia University.
Saint-John-the-Divine cathedral, ~8:50: So big it can't fit in the photo.
Riverside Church, ~8:55:
[There used to be a joke here about the phallic symbol of knowledge of Columbia University, until a New York resident gently corrected us about the nature of the building. Oh, the embarrassment!]
Then we crossed the tracks to Harlem.
Ooh, pure danger. Like curious humans staring down at a natural preserve, we looked down on Harlem. Truth be told, yes it does look more run-down and grittier than the rest of New York, but not unsafely so, and with moments of pure American big commerce. The Apollo Theater, for instance, now sits safely in front of a couple of big-box shops like the Disney Store, Old Navy and a Virgin superstore. Progress marches on, often using dollar bills. Still, as white French-Canadians we didn't see all that many interesting sights in Harlem ("Oooh, Malcolm X's mosque") and that simply confirmed our lack of interest to tour the area on foot.
We went down Fifth Avenue, indulging in pure celebrity-hunting as our tour guide pointed out where various Famous People have apartments. The contrast between the East side of Fifth and the west side, Central Park, was typical of the sights you can only find in new York. We saw an appetite-whetting glimpse of FAO Shwartz, Tiffany's, Bulgari and then drove on down to the south of the city.
As we also visited the financial district the following day on foot, I won't discuss it too much, but our vantage perspective on the bus allowed to have a better view of the streets of New York, with their narrowness and griminess we can scarcely relate to the image of New York, capital of the world. Even in its most celebrated and rich areas, New York can't be bothered to be as nice as a good little Canadian capital.
Financial district, 10:54: A view of the Twin Towers.
We stopped once more at the World Financial Center, a newer, modern waterfront development that featured washrooms (a precious public commodity in New York, as we'd been warned and would soon find out by ourselves) and an ATM machine. I had a mild moment of concern when said ATM rejected my card. This was going to be a long hungry trip if I couldn't manage to add to my initial forty-five dollar fund!
World Financial Center, Winter Atrium, ~11:10: Outside and Inside.
From Battery Park City, we crossed the financial district a second time and slowly made our way north, getting a good glimpse of Chinatown in the process.
Chinatown, 11:50: Not-Confucius watching over the neighbourhood.
The next leg of our trip was to take us to the United Nations complex. Friends had warned us that the UN wasn't worth the trip, which made our mandatory visit all the more precious. While it's not as frightfully boring as forewarned, once you've taken pictures of the administrative monolith and the interesting sculptures in the park, it's time to go away, because it doesn't get more interesting. Be certain, however, to take a look at the Brooklyn skyline from the vantage point overlooking the East Driveway.
The United Nations Secretariat Building, 12:11: Ominous, isn't it?
Cue "2001 Monolith" music.
United Nations, 12:17:
Overlooking FDR drive, looking at the Queensboro Bridge.
Great view of Queens at the right, except there's nothing to see in Queens.
The rest of our bus ride was essentially a return to Port Authority, during which we could just look outside the windows and let midtown Manhattan, in all its glory and madness, wash over us. (I know people who could be driven bonkers by Diamond Street.)
Park Avenue/49th street, 12:36: A view north Park Avenue.
The Waldorf-Astoria hotel is at the right.
Rockefeller Center, 12:38: Looks like STARSHIP TROOPERS, doesn't it?
And then we were out on the streets, ready to do whatever we wanted for roughly six hours. To adequately prepare us country yokels, Adrian thoughtfully led us, Pied Piper-like, to the Times Square visitor's center, which allowed all to get precious information and some to buy transit passes. Karine and I withdrew a cool 100$US from the ATM machine which, fortunately, accepted our cards without any problem. Great stuff when it work, this global financial network...
This being taken care of, first things first; we craved sustenance! At the tour director's suggestion, we tried out Applebee's, a restaurant on 42nd street that was supposed to offer prices comparable to Ottawa's. Of course, this being New York, this didn't turn out so.
(a small parenthesis about prices in New York: It's a given that the Canadian exchange rate at the time of our trip was roughly 65 Canadian cents to the American dollar, or more meaningfully to the traveler, 1.52 Canadian dollar to the American dollar. From the onset, any Canadian traveling in the states must keep this number in mind. A meal costing 10$USD really costs 15.20$ Canadian. But! There is no such thing as a frictionless exchange rate, and so transferring money from one currency to another will in fact cost you a variable rate set by your currency exchange if done at a bank, or an additional fixed rate if done at the ATM (There are usually two fixed rates in the case of an ATM transaction: The one from the bank that put the ATM there, and another one from your bank for communicating with the other bank. To these basic travel considerations, New York adds two complications. First, there is a 8.75% sales tax in New York state, which while not as bad as the Ontario/Federal 15%, must still be taken in account. Secondly -and most importantly-, you have to consider that New York (Manhattan) is an unimaginably expensive city. The whole island is a tourist trap, and the locals are either ultra-rich or homeless, which drives the prices of everyfreakingthing to levels comparable to Canadian prices. We saw this most clearly in bookstores and record stores, where quick calculations quickly revealed that comparable prices weren't cheaper, and in most cases were even higher than Ottawa. As a rule of thumb, we usually doubled the price of everything we saw before deciding if it was a bargain or not.)
Appleby's was a good restaurant, worth recommending for anyone who just wants a safe franchise experience. I ordered an "Applebee Burger", which set me back $11 USD but tasted exceptionally good. Karine ordered a "Quesa Grande with Chicken", sort of a gigantic tortilla stuffed with chicken, tomato sauce and all. Service was quick and courteous, at one exception; at the end of the meal, I went to see the waitress who had seated us and asked about washrooms, only to be told that there were public washrooms two door down. I sat back at the table and was just mentioning to Karine that she's just mistaken me for a non-client when said waitress came to our table, apologized profusely and pointed us upstairs for the washrooms. The travel guides had effectively mentioned something about washrooms being a scarcity in NYC, and this incident was emblematic of the mindset.
Our plan for Day Two was to visit everything north of 42nd street, leaving the rest of the island for the following day. Hey, it was a plan.
We finally hit the streets at 14:00, fully refreshed and ready to bite in the Big Apple. Our admirable determination was quickly dashed by the pounding sun and the unbearable humidity. While our visit to the Intrepid air carrier went well, our energies were sapped by the time we reached the Lincoln Center. Karine used their public washrooms while I stood in the cool air-refreshed air and refilled my water bottle for the first time of the day.
(Surprisingly enough, you can quite easily get cold water everywhere in New York, if only by sticking to the parks, each of which having at least one good public fountain. Fortunately so, otherwise our bones would be sun-bleached by now.)
Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum, 14:21:
Suddenly, I feel like a foreign spy.
After that, we took over Central Park. Our first destination was Strawberry Fields, the John Lennon memorial. Our reaction was pretty much "that's it?": It is a small round mosaic in the asphalt (barely a meter wide), surrounded by benches. Our reaction may have been tempered by the difficulty we had finding the site and the fact that by that time we were already running ragged. No photos were taken, partly because it didn't deserve one and partly because it seemed a bit crass to do so with all the Lennon-freaks surrounding the area. The mosaic itself was covered by a few flowers, and a lit candle, despite a sign which stated that the mosaic is cleaned morning and evenings, so that any object found there would be discarded.
(It was midway through Central Park that the sight of a street vendor -of massages services, no less!- triggered a thought; New York is a city that, left to itself, would implode, collapse and burn. New York -and you may reduce this to Manhattan alone if you wish- is home to the very obscenely rich and the very struggling poor, but it has evacuated its middle class elsewhere, creating an enormous void where most of the economic activity should take place. This place has been taken over by the tourist class, all thirty million of them per year who come by for a few days, spending almost as much each as a normal citizen would. This keeps New York going. On a less coldly materialistic level, it also forces the most extreme city of the world to be acutely self-conscious about itself. If you think New York was vain and arrogant, imagine if it didn't have to worry about the visitors!)
Central Park Bethesda Fountain, 15:28: Ah, water...
Central Park Turtle Pond, 15:59: Oh, more water...
We crossed Central Park more or less diagonally, stopping at the fountain and the reservoir to snap pictures (notice the water theme running through?), all the time heading toward the Guggenheim museum. We pretty much hit our lowest point during that walk, heat-exhausted and still unsure if we'd have the time to do everything we'd set out for. We ended up refreshing ourselves on a bench in an isolated wild area of Central Park, simply sitting down in the shade and drinking our park-temperature water. It was a curiously quiet moment; for a while we were finally alone in the middle of New York. A squirrel jumped on our bench and we reacted like typical New Yorkers: "Hey, back off, little fella".
(A note about taking pictures, since I just mentioned it: I used a Kodak DC-215 digital camera during our travels, and I must say that I was pleased by its performance throughout the trip. Small enough to be unobtrusive and easily slipped in a pocket, the camera also sported 16MB of memory, which allowed for roughly 55 high-quality pictures on a single "magazine". All pictures were downloaded when we came back to the hotel at night, so we could cheaply take almost as many pictures as we wanted. The digital viewfinder was also a marvel, instantly allowing us to preview the framing of each pictures and discard them if needed. Over the weekend, I ended up taking roughly 235 pictures, the "best" of them gracing this report. The biggest annoyance about the DC-215 were a default "automatic flash" setting -which often isn't practical- and a slow 10-second dead pause after each picture during which you can't snap another. I had other problems transferring the pictures to the laptop and being unable to preview them on a 16-color system, but that should be blamed on the older laptop, not the camera.)
This being said, Central Park ranks as a must-see area of NYC, an oasis of green in a desert of grey. It's not hard to see why it has survived so long in an area where any city block reclaimed from it could bring zillions in the city's treasury. To see, at the same time, thousands of New Yorkers playing in the park and wooden areas where it's possible to doze of five minute without seeing anyone, well, that qualifies as a bona-fide marvel. And, to a semi-rural kind of guy like myself, it almost looked like home. Why don't they work on expanding the park some more? Reclaim more city blocks!
All this trek finally resulted in a picture of the Guggenheim museum, at the same time marking the northern-most extremity of our footpath through the city. I don't think it was really worth it for the museum; I think it was worth it for crossing the Park itself.
Solomon & Guggenheim Museum, 16:22:
A two-hour trek, just to get this picture.
In any case, we headed back south on Fifth Avenue for some shopping. Well, window shopping: Due to the financial considerations exposed above, and the fact that shops near Fifth and Fifty-Second can require an extra mortgage just to browse, we were definitely not heading out to buy anything.
On our way south, we saw oodles of expensive apartments, the magnificent Metropolitan Museum of Art and plenty of trees, which by that time provided a welcome shade. Karine swears that she saw actor Vin Diesel sitting on a bench, accompanied by a bodyguard. I turned my head and saw a bald guy in a yellow top looking away from us, though I couldn't really disprove her conviction. (After all, Diesel is from New York. If he wasn't in LA doing films or promotion for THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS, it's quite possible that he was around.) In any case, that will do as our only celebrity story of the weekend.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, 16:30
FAO Schwarz is another sight to behold in a city that already has so many. You enter the store to be greeted by scores of stuffed animals, some quite cute, some very cute and hideously expensive (A life-sized deer, for instance, will set you back $7,000 USD. We didn't check for the rhino.) The rest of the store is set up in zones, from an amazing collection of special Barbies (Cher, I Dream of Jeannie, Scheherazade, Hippie, Wedding Gown, Elizabeth Taylor, etc...) to a full STAR WARS toy room, to a computer game room, etc... Maybe not as many toys as your closest Toys'R'Us, but exceptionally well-arranged. The only problem with toys stores, as we were quickly reminded, is the number of kids running around, and often straight into you.
FAO Schwarz, 17:02:
Some of the teddy bears inside are almost as big as this one.
We then stopped by Bulgrari, the New York outlet of one of Europe's most celebrated jeweller. It resulted in the following conversation between me and a clerk:
(Clerk:)--Hi, may I help you?
--Ah, I'm here to look around. One of my colleagues threatened me with bodily harm if ever I didn't come here during my trip. Would you mind if I took a photo?
--Unfortunately sir, we can't allow you to take photos here. For security reasons.
--Glad to hear it before rather than after I took the photo. Erm... do you have a business card I could bring back to her?
--Would you like having our catalog, sir?
--Oh, sure, if you don't mind...
--Not at all. (Wrapping catalog in official Bulgari bag) So, do you work in jewellery?
Just after Bulgari, we hopped over to Tiffany's on the other side of the street. While the merchandise sold there is expensive enough to make you feel guilty for even looking, there was scarcely any shame to be there along with another hundred people dressed in T-shirts and shorts. The salesperson and elevator attendants looked used to it.
Our next objective was the MetLife/Grand Central Station block. We went south on Madison avenue, seeing yet another side of New York, the non-nonsense executive area, probably bustling with life during the week, but empty of workers, tourists or vendors during the weekend. The confusing pedestrian circulation (only one light at each intersection) probably has something to do with it.
Madison Avenue, 17:44: Looking south at the Metlife Building.
Notice the empty sidewalk and lack of Walk/Don't Walk signs..
(This would be as good time as any to mention that to us, the two single most valuable travel guides to carry around in New York City were Frommer's New York, as well as an ultra-handy pop-up map booklet called Knopf's City Guide: New York, which allows you quick and easy reference without making too much of a fool of yourself on the street. Though for people slightly more used to the city, a standard subway map is probably enough.)
The Metlife (ex-Pan-Am) building is impressive enough in a pure skyscraper sense, but Grand Central Station brings big to a very human scale. The main area of the Station is a massive open space dominated by the mass of people and a blue ceiling with a painted starscape. Awe-inspiring. (Alas, I later found out that I couldn't get a decent photo of the place.)
One curious thing about skyscrapers is that the worst place to see them is directly at their feet. That's why, coming out of Central Station, we got our best view of the Chrysler building and didn't need to go any closer. Which was fine by us; our original plans included the United Nations, but we felt there wasn't anything fresh for us to see after the morning visit. So we proceeded to our next objective, the New York Public Library.
Chrysler Building, 18:02: Ah, art deco...
Alas, we reached the Library a few minutes after six o'clock, the closing time for the whole weekend (These opening hours also being shared by the neighbouring Mid-Manhattan branch of the Library) While we generally managed to do everything we wanted during our weekend in NYC, browsing the New York Public Library is one thing we'll have to pencil in for our second visit.
New York Public Library, 18:10.
Christian at the gates of knowledge. They are, of course, closed.
We still managed to stop by Bryant Park, catching our breath (No way! There's a "Nikola Tesla corner" at Sixth and 40th!) as we pondered the rest of our day. We stopped by Entertainment Outlet, an used-CD store, both to discover that it had nothing on Ottawa-area stores, and that their DVD selection had interesting oddities such as bilingual Chinese/English Region 1 disks. (I still bought three CDs; a new Apollo 440 CD that was slightly cheaper than its Canadian import equivalent, a rare MC Hammer first album for kicks, and Will Smith's Willennium, again slightly cheaper than anything seen in Canada.)
Given that there was quite some time left before we had to head back to Port Authority terminal for the bus back to the hotel, Karine and I made a dash for Macy's, the legendary ten-story department store. It's far from being as impressive as you might think. There is a rather good fine china display on the eighth floor, but otherwise it's a bland, boring store of little interest unless you're a label-clothing freak.
There remained another essential American delicacy to sample, a product from the Ben and Jerry's ice cream parlour chain. Karine took a (rather small) triple caramel crunch that set her back $3.15 USD while I splurged on a banana\pineapple smoothie that was much bigger, but more expensive at $4.50 USD. As with many other foodstuff we bought in NYC, it struck me as decent food, but a less-than-optimal value. Of course, in the heat and the humidity we couldn't scarcely care less. Mmmm, coolness...
Estimated mileage for the day: 13 KM on foot.
By eight, we were more than ready to go back to the hotel. Once there, we unwound, tore though some cheesies, drank Pepsi and watched CNN. Karine washed her long-suffering hair while I downloaded our photos (a full 59 photos, no place left on the memory cartridge) and started writing this report. We were surprised by an unexpected -and somewhat impressive- fireworks show in New York, fortuitously visible from our hotel room; weekend fourth-of-July celebrations, no doubt. In any case, it doubled as our Canada Day fireworks. Karine went to sleep at ten. I stopped typing at about fifteen past midnight.
Day 1, June 29, 2001
Day 3, July 1, 2001