New York City is one of my favourite places in the world – I’m not sure
what it is about it that I love. I could happily just ride around on the subway
all day long and find myself entertained by purely being involved in New York
City life. It wouldn’t be a trip to the United States without spending a chunk
of time in New York City, so it was where I began my USA trip for 2012, and
where I am returning in just a few hours, at time of publishing, for another stint in the Big Apple.
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| Iconic retail, iconic architecture, iconic venue. |
I landed in New York in the afternoon, local time. It took forever to
get through security – there were only two desks open for the non-USA passport
holders and many more people in line who were non-Americans. I made it through
unscathed, and to the airtrain to get to the train station – I’d arrived at
Newark, so had to get the train across to Manhattan. I’ve been to New York
before and so it was nice being able to navigate the subway stations without
too much trouble. Amtrak to Penn, A/C/E train down to 14th, L train
across to Brooklyn where my hostel was in Williamsburg. That might sound like a
bit of jibber jabber to someone who isn’t familiar with New York, but it’s a
lingo that I get.
Accommodation in New York City
If you’re contemplating a trip to New York, using it as layover on your way somewhere else – be
prepared, that accommodation in New York City is not cheap. For me, booking my
NYC accommodation came while I was in Europe paying 5 – 15 Euro a night for a
hostel. In general, hostels are more expensive in the United States but New
York City is ridiculously more expensive. This is something to prepare yourself
for, so you don’t faint when you start to research and see the prices.
When you’re looking at location – honestly, the most important thing is
that you are within a few blocks from the subway. If you’re literally stopping
by for a day, I can see validity in wanting to stay right in the madness of
midtown Manhattan. However in general, you can get some better bargains if you
look outside of the Manhattan area and consider locating yourself in Brooklyn,
Queens or The Bronx. Plan your day so that you aren’t heading to Manhattan in
the morning rush hour or back to your accommodation in afternoon rush hour –
you’ll thank me later.
In my past times in New York City I’d stayed on the upper west side,
where a few of the hostels are. This trip, I decided to try something different
and stay in Williamsburg, which is in the Brooklyn borough. I booked my New
York accommodation about a month before arriving, and choices were already
limited because that’s New York City in summer – the good/cheaper places book
out way in advance. I had gone back on maybe a week before leaving Europe to
book a few days in NYC for a few weeks later, having started looking at my
itinerary and realising I’d need to come back to NYC. In the process of going
back to book this second stay, I came across the most recent review left for my
accommodation when I was to arrive in the US – there evidently had been some
sort of issue at the hostel with the department of health or the fire
department or someone coming in and effectively shutting down the dorm rooms.
When I arrived, I straight away saw a ‘warning’ sign on the front door, and
tentatively went inside.
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| These were on the doors of almost every dorm in the hostel. |
Upon conversation with reception, evidently, my reservation had
actually been cancelled and Hostelworld was supposed to contact me to advise.
They did not. Luckily for me, they put me up in a private room for the same
price as my original 12 bed dormitory. But I was lucky – a few days later they
were completely booked out, so that they had a private room available for 5
nights was somewhat miraculous. Evidently what happened was an inspection to do
with fire safety and exits and the number of people in each room... it’s all
still a little hazy, but around the whole hostel, all the dorm rooms had
warning signs on them and signs from the hostel indicating that they could only
house 3 people per room – instead of the 12 they used to have in there. It’s
all rather confusing to me, but I know that for me everything worked out,
though it was an awkward time to be around because the hostel felt empty for
its four storey size.
Manhattan – a hundred worlds in
one
I feel like in the past, I’ve gotten a good sense of a lot of the
typical NYC touristy area in midtown. Not to say that I didn’t return to this
area for this trip, but I was more focused on trying to see the rest of
Manhattan and NYC as a whole. I think what I love so much about New York is
that there are so many different vibes, cultures, districts – all in this
compact area. On the one subway line, you could get off at each stop and every
time step out and feel like you’re in a different world. I loved that this trip
I was able to embrace some of the different areas, more than I had in the past.
This is largely due to a few friends who I had around who I was able to catch
up with.
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| One of the memorial pools |
I took some time one day to wander around the lower Manhattan area
around the World Trade Center Memorial, and to visit the memorial. At the
moment it is still under construction, and the process to gain access is long
winded – you need a reservation which you can make online or at the WTC Preview
site which is a ten minute walk away. You have your ticket, you go through a
long line, there’s a bag check akin to airport security, and you’re walking
being sheparded along for goodness knows how many blocks. And then you emerge
in the actual memorial. Even though there’s still construction going on around,
it has this vibe like being in the middle of Central Park and being completely
in another world away from the madness of Manhattan. It is honestly a beautiful
memorial, absolutely fitting to all that it needed to represent. Huge kudos to
everyone involved in the project. In the long term it will be an open memorial,
which you can enter and exit as you please, and I think it will work
beautifully to allow those who are eternally scarred by 9/11 to be able to
enter and quietly reflect and maybe it will help the people of New York City to
be able to emerge from their grieving stronger.
Upper East Side
On Saturday morning, I met my friend Jess for brunch at The Barking Dog,
which is an almost diner style cafe/restaurant featured in Sex and the City. It
was so random that Jess was in NYC – I’d stayed with her in Orlando in 2010,
she now lives in LA and it just so turned out that she was going to be in NYC
while I was there so of course, we had to meet up. The Upper East Side is like
a whole other world of prettiness. It is known for being the richer, nicer part
of town – I think you need to go further upper than where we were to find the
rich apartments but you nonetheless feel that there’s a different vibe. If you
look around you, people are dressed better and speak more properly than if you
were just across Central Park on the Upper West Side. I was early for brunch so
I found a park just a few blocks away from where Jess and I were meeting and
read. Parents were out playing with their kids. It felt very... well, normal. You
couldn’t live on 42nd street between sixth and eighth avenue and
bring up kids and expect them to be relatively normal. The upper east side
feels like the kind of area where you could segregate your family from the rest
of New York – if they go to school in that area, Central Park is right nearby,
you can pop down Fifth Avenue to do shopping and pop back uptown without really
traipsing near the bright lights of the unreal world that exists just a few
avenues over. Brunch was delicious and of course the meal was huge – typical
USA style.
If I lived in the United States, this is where I’d want to focus my
whole world. I wouldn’t need to go anywhere else. Greenwich Village is my
ultimate favourite but by encompassing the wider area of these districts
combined, you really get so many flavours, but that are more similar to one
another than the midtown above and lower Manhattan below. I had dinner on my
first night in Chelsea, meeting my friend Kerry. We had an amazing dinner at
this funky restaurant, including an entree of these bacon wrapped dates (?!)
which were surprisingly delicious.
After Jess and I had our brunch on the Upper East Side, we got the
subway downtown with Jess’s friend she was staying with in NYC, to do a spot of
shopping in SoHo. If you’re wanting reasonably mainstream stores/decent prices
without going to a mall outside of Manhattan, then this area is your best bet
for shopping in a concentrated area.
I seem to find my way back to Greenwich Village regulalrly, almost
every day popping by at some point – on my way to meet Kerry, on my way back
from the WTC Memorial, on my way to Central Park one day. It’s partly that it’s
where Friends is set, and partly that the novel I’m too scared to write is set
there, and partly that I just love it. There’s a culture, an offbeat vibe where
you can see art and music and literature. There are random cool restaurants and
bars, and interesting people out everywhere. There is no defined demographic because
you see kids and families and students and people in suits. All in all, I
rather adore!
Midtown Manhattan
Midtown is where all the madness is at – where you cannot walk down the street without fighting through the crowds. Times Square, kitschy tourist attractions, people selling tickets to comedy shows, bright lights, overpriced food. On Saturday night I met up for dinner with my friend Nel who came over from Jersey City. Nel is like a little sister to me and we’d lost touch a little in recent years but it was really quite beautiful how we were able to simply interact like no time had passed and things were just as they always had been. We met at Penn Station which in itself involved a series of madness where I was waiting in one place “between the police desk and the Dunkin Donuts” and she’s like, okay, I’m there, but she couldn’t find me – turns out that there’s another police desk and Dunkin’ Donuts right near one another on the other side of Penn Station!
We exited Penn and just walked – from Madison Square Garden, heading
uptown, and went for a wander in the Times Square district. We had dinner at
Applebees, which is like a quintessential American chain restaurant, looked in
Forever XX1, continued our wanderings uptown and then headed back downtown,
just walking along the next Avenue over. We walked over forty blocks, talking
the whole time, by the end both in sore feet agony so collapsed at a Starbucks.
It felt very... well, normal. It was nice that among the crazy tourists and
people trying to profit from tourists in that area, that she and I could do our
own thing and enjoy the sights without being sucked into the mob mentality.
Brooklyn & Coney Island
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| Don't let the fluffy white clouds fool you - it was a million degrees that day! |
Even with all the time I’ve spent in New York, I feel like I’m just
ever so barely scraping the surface, which for me is one of the most alluring
and exciting things about the city. You could spend your whole life there and
still stumble across things that you hadn’t seen, restaurants or coffee shops,
meet different people in your every day life. I don’t think it is a city which
you could ever feel bored in, and if you did, then you probably have centred
your life all in a five block radius and don’t take the time to smell the smog
and look beyond your immediate world. Every minute I spend in New York is one I
love, even if I’m just on a subway or sitting in Starbucks, doing something
ordinary – the most ordinary of things seems to have a sparkle which is
ubiquitous in New York City.
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