In Transit From Maryland

(See lots of pictures here.)

I arrived in New York on Friday local time, in the afternoon, at Penn Station. The train from Maryland - Baltimore/Washington International Airport Amtrak station to be precise - was a mighty relaxed affair. I also discovered that my years of weight lifting have been of use, when I managed to throw my entire 20 kilo suitcase into the overhead rack!

The train passed through Baltimore, parts of which looked really beat - ruined and burnt houses, neighbourhoods with trash all over the streets. It also passed through Philadelphia, and several towns in New Jersey. I tried to take some pictures of the passing country side, but inevitably the view I was trying to capture had slipped out of sight before I could get my camera ready. Or was behind trees etc. So I took lots of blurry shots of passing foliage!

Like everything else in New York, Penn Station is Huge. There must be three or more different train lines that meet there. I managed to drag myself out of it on to some street, which was as busy as I had been lead to expect in New York. I queued to get a cab over to the UNICEF building to pick up the key from my host Amanda. Whilst I waited in the lobby, a chap with a sniffer dog checked out my luggage!

Then I caught a cab all the way across town to West 74th Street. The cab driver I had was very apologetic about how hard it was to get across town, suggesting that we try 66th street, which passes under Central Park. I said whatever, you have a better idea than me! It was actually not a bad cab ride, about what I expected for New York.

After I dumped my stuff, I decided to go for a wander around the area to orient myself. Which took about two seconds - New York, at least at this end, is easy. It's a long thin island oriented north-south, with the Hudson on one side and Central Park in the middle. I wandered down to Broadway, which runs the length of the island, and then over to the Hudson where I came across some interesting piers and old machinery.

Finally, I dragged myself back to the apartment where I'm staying, and met more of my hosts - Vincent and Yasmeen!

Saturday in New York

Saturday was my first full day in New York.

I went for a walk down to Central Park with Vincent and Yasmeen, down past the Dakota Building. We played tag in a play ground, then hide and seek!

Central park is a lot bigger than I expected, complete with several lakes. It has a huge path around it, which was full of cyclists and horses towing carriages. It is also full of children and parents taking advantage of the space - apartments here are tiny.

After a quick bagel, I left Vicent and Yasmeen at the corner of Central Park and 69th Street (I think) and hopped on the subway. I quickly aquired a Metrocard, and after fighting with the turnstyle for a bit - the swipe for the card doesn't work in the direction one might expect - I found myself having to find a platform. I had at least five to chose from! Eventually I found the line I was looking for, and I was on my first subway journey!

I hopped off the train at Times Square, which was about as hideously infested with tourists as I had expected. But I did acquire a map of Manhattan, and located a half price broadway show tickets booth. Which I will return to later to get tickets to see at least one musical - even though I don't like them much :-)

So I hopped on the subway again - I got the hang of it pretty quickly - and headed down to the World Trade Center Site. I still can't get over how big this city is. I went about six stations and I was still in middle of a busy city indeed!

The World Trade Center Site is... Well, now it just looks like a construction site. There's no evidence there of the events of that day, no scars on the surviving buildings. Mind you, it was seven or more years ago now. The only thing I could find was a cross apparently found in the rubble. It was mounted next to a church, just north of the site. It was literally part of the debris, unchanged from how it was found.

Some things of note at the WTC site: at least three different conspiracy theorists ranting away with different conspiracy theories next to the site. Folks selling weird books of photos about September 11th, complete with US flags on the front. And postcard recording before, during and after the collapse of the towers!

After that I wandered down to Wall Street, once I worked out how to get there. The Stock Exchange was closed, it being Saturday. Wall Street is actually quite narrow and mostly closed off from traffic. And indeed the stock exchange is actually around the corner... That end of town is the original city, and hence is a lot less well laid out than the rest of he island - the street layout is positively chaotic in fact. Which makes a nice change from the regular grid over the rest of the island, but also makes finding one's way around difficult.

From Wall Street, it's a short walk down to the waterfront. I found the terminal for the Staton Island Ferry, so I hopped on it! Along with half of France it seemed. About twelve tour buses disgorged a lot of French folks right into the terminal building.

I was very amused to see, wrapped around part of the terminal in big letters, a quote I recognised. A quote I though was very obscure, but apparently not. The line was "We were very tired, we were very merry. We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry" from a poem by Edna St Vicent Millay. Also the creator of the phrase "Burning the candle at both ends." I have a sudden urge to acquire some of her work.

The Staton Island Ferry is most famous for going past the Statue of Liberty. I thought I was being terribly clever by grabbed a seat at the front of the boat... Only to discover it was in fact the back of the boat. These ferries are the type that have two ends, like a tram, so they don't have to turn around, they just reverse direction for the return trip! D'oh!

I took some pictures of the statue, and various other mildly interesting landmarks.

At Staton island, fully 90% of the passengers got straight back on the ferry. Poor Staton island. I see why they call it the Forgotten Borough.

Back on Manhattan, I started walking through Battery Park, when I got a call from my host Amanda. She was in the East Village, and asked me to join them for dinner. So I used a neat Iphone app I downloaded, which told me to get on the subway at a station called Bowling Green, then to hop on to another line heading towards Queens. Which worked a treat - damn, the public transport here is serious and effective. And frequent...

The East Village is a bit like Fitzroy, only about fifty times larger! There was some kind of dance festival going on in a park. We wandered from there to a not bad Italian restaurant, where the presence of three children under four made for a typically chaotic dinner.

Later we started walking north, to catch a subway, past the oldest bar/pub in New York, and through a random Ukrainian festival that was on. This city is a busy one... This was a typical spring weekend apparently...

On the way home, we stopped off at a sculpture called "Alamo", which is cube balanced on one corner... Which is moveable! If you push it hard enough, it actually turns around and a round. So we spun it for a bit...

As we were wandering west, I realised we'd crossed a street called Lafayette. Later that evening I was planning to see a band at a bar there called "Joe's Pub" (a less pub-like place I can't imagine...) So I abandoned my new friends, said good night to Yasmeen, and doubled back to find this gig... Which requires a whole separate entry.....!