Emm in London: New York

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Moments in New York City

Recently my friend Jay told me she was going to New York City for a week. After the usual exclamations of happiness and well wishes, there was a slight pause before she asked, "do you know what I can do while I'm there?"

I was momentarily speechless. I mean, it's New York City, right? There is so much to see and do. But then I remembered my own trepidation four years ago when I prepared for my own visit. I remember not having a clear idea of how the city was laid out and I also remember my confusion on that first metro train from JFK into downtown Manhattan.

Like I did in 2009, Jay is travelling alone and booked last minute plane tickets to New York on a whim. And like me, she is not worried about being lonely but simply wants to make the most of her time. The thing is, there is something incredible about experiencing a city solo and it is often the beginning of an enduring love affair. It wouldn’t be proper for me to draw up a detailed itinerary so my advice was simple: savour the moments.

And if, like Jay, you find that advice supremely unhelpful, here are the most enduring moments from my trip to New York:

Sitting on a Lawn Chair in Times Square

It had been the longest day and I had walked until my legs could no longer carry me. I emerged into Times Square and was stunned to see a pedestrian sitting area there, laid out with lawn chairs. I asked somebody if the area had always been closed off but was told that no, it was new. It was absolutely surreal sitting still while the city of New York rushed past me. It began to rain and I turned my head to the sky, amazed to see the big drops of rain visible against the dark blue sky. It was a moment I will never forget.

Walking in the Footsteps of Immigrants at Ellis Island

From the moment I stepped off the boat at Ellis Island, I was absolutely awed by the red brick and limestone Main House. The Great Hall took my breath away and I stood there for the longest time, imagining what it must have felt like to have been an immigrant, with this vast registration room standing between you and a new life. I spent ages walking through the exhibits of the Immigration Museum, taking time to read each and every inscription as I learned about Eugenics and the battery of mental and physical tests that immigrants had to undergo before approval. I learned about detention, incarceration and deportation, about Christmas spent on Ellis Island and about the millions of people whose fate was decided in those rooms. I was deeply moved and it was a moment that will stay with me forever.

A Tear Shaped Garden in Central Park

I can remember the day that John Lennon was shot as if it were yesterday. My mother was devastated and wrote a lot of angry poetry in the following days. It was no surprise that seeing the Dakota moved me but as I walked into Central Park, I was met by a herd of people chattering and jostling to take a photo of the iconic black and white Imagine mosaic. What most people don’t realise is that the mosaic is not the actual memorial to the slain Beatle.

I turned away and looked out over the pristine living memorial of the tear-shaped Strawberry Fields. In a heartbeat, it was as if the chaos around me disappeared as I stood looking into this quiet and tranquil garden. I wondered if John would have liked it, whether he would have appreciated being memorialised here. Ultimately, I realised that if he could choose, he would have chosen to live and it made me very happy to be alive. It was a life affirming and deeply moving moment.

Never Alone in New York

Of course, once I get started, it is difficult to stop. The people of New York are incredible. There was the friendly neighbour down the hall who gave me a massive bowl of dim sum to enjoy, just in case I got hungry during my stay (it lasted for days). The numerous people who rushed to my assistance every time I opened up a map or looked lost. The kind man in Brooklyn who let me take shelter in his garage for the longest time while it belted down with rain. The lovely family at Citi Field who spotted the bewildered look on my face and patiently explained the rules of baseball to me as the New York Mets beat the St Louis Cardinals. The very patient man at the hot dog stand who indulgently listened to me gush on about how this was my first New York hot dog. And the born and bred New Yorker who also spotted the raindrops against the sky in Times square and seemed almost as awed as I was.

Each person, each connection, each shared moment meant that I was barely alone for any of the time I was in New York and it is an experience I will never forget. Now I dream of returning to New York but I won’t go alone again. Next time I definitely want to share it all with Stephen.

Have you ever travelled alone or been to New York? What were your enduring travel moments?

Art Deco Perfection: The Chrysler Building

The Art Deco Chrysler Building New York City

Today’s choice of photo for my "Blue Skies and Sunshine" series is quite deliberate. It is the stunning Art Deco Chrysler Building in New York City. It was once the tallest building in the world before being surpassed by the Empire State Building in 1931 and is currently on a level with The New York Times Building as the third highest in New York City.

It doesn’t really matter how high The Chrysler Building is or what accolades it receives because the fact remains that it is graceful and beautiful, a masterpiece of the Art Deco architectural style that is so prevalent in the city. To me, this building symbolises grace, elegance and understated success.

I took this photo during my visit to New York City in 2009 on one of the few relatively clear and sunny days I had there. That trip was in itself an achievement for me as I was meant to visit a friend there and that all fell through at the last minute. I very nearly did not go but ultimately decided to embark on the solo travelling adventure of a lifetime.

And today this building inspires me to reach for my dreams. I am writing one final exam for the year this week and am one year into the five-year plan that I set last year. My plan? To become an accountant and work for an international development agency. It is a rough convergence between where I wanted to be and what I could already do. Onwards and upwards, as they say!

New York day 7: Saying Goodbye

It is New Year’s Eve now and I thought it only fitting that I write my last New York post today as I wave goodbye to an interesting year and an awesome trip. On my final afternoon, I spent the time absorbing the signs, sounds, buildings and feel of New York as I looked for what makes it so alive and unique. I have to admit that I tried my best not to absorb the smells though.

Ship Mosaic at Fulton Street subway

Platform at Fulton Street subway

It was a bit of a shock at first to see how grimy and dark the subways were! It made me appreciate the London Underground more! The one thing that impressed me about the New York City subway stations is how unmistakably ancient they are. The London Underground is actually a lot older than the New York City subway but our stations are so much more modern! (Did you notice that? I said “our”; I think my assimilation into the United Kingdom is compete).

Before I went to New York, terms like “downtown”, “uptown” and “Upper East Side” were familiar to me but I had no idea what they actually meant. Now it is as clear to me as could be; about as clear, in fact, as my desire to to move one husband, two dogs and one-and-three-quarter cats right over there right now.

I had to get up insanely early the next morning to catch a taxi to Newark airport and so my holiday pretty much ended on the Saturday night. The sun was just rising as we drove to the airport.

New Jersey across the Hudson River

And that was it. The most amazing week was over and it was time to return to sunny England.

This is a recap of all of my New York and Washington posts:

Happy New Year!!!!!

New York day 7: Ground Zero

Ground Zero is the site where the once majestic World Trade Centre complex once stood before September 11, 2001. I believe that this was not solely an American tragedy and that the whole world changed that day. The site at Ground Zero is quite chaotic though and so visiting it, I was surprisingly devoid of emotion.

If you ever visit the site, I’d definitely recommend that you visit the Tribute WTC Visitor Center too. It only costs $10 to get in and it is definitely worth it.

Tribute WTC Visitor Center

The Tribute WTC Visitor Center is an interactive, multimedia exhibition and it has a huge impact on visitors. There are two floors and on the first floor you walk through a timeline of the morning’s events. Most of the people walked through in absolute silence and I am sure many people were on the verge of tears, as was I. I had previously read 102 Minutes and so I knew quite a bit about what happened and the chronology of events that morning so I found that the exhibition had a huge impact on me.

“When we got out onto Church Street, it was sheer pandemonium. I stepped over large pieces of metal. As someone who works in aviation insurance, I realized one piece was a row of windows from an airplane” – Neil Getter, Aon Risk Services

There were audio recordings of those telephone calls and message left by people that were on United Airlines Flight 175 and other 911 calls and emergency dispatches. It was not easy to listen to.

Jim Geiger walked down from the 51st floor of the North Tower with only his Blackberry in his pocket. Months later, the NYPD returned his computer briefcase which was found in the debris

The basement of the Tribute WTC Visitor Center was all dedicated to memoriam and reconciliation.

There was a whole set of incredibly inspirational audio excerpts about how people had helped each other after the tragedy and how communities had pulled together in the aftermath.

Do you know the story of the Sadako Sasaki and the 1,000 paper cranes? It is an incredibly inspirational story. A little girl was dying of leukemia 10 years after having survived the Hiroshima bomb. Japanese legend has it that anyone who folds a thousand origami cranes would be granted on wish by a crane and so Sadako began to fold paper cranes out of any piece of paper she came across.

"Please treasure the life that is given to you," Sadako said before her death on October 25, 1955. "It is my belief that my small paper crane will enable you to understand other people's feelings, as if they are your own." - CNN

Her brother donated one of her original cranes to the Tribute WTC Visitor Center saying that it is a Japanese symbol of peace but to the family, it is an embodiment of the little girl’s life and is filled with her wish and her hope.

You can read more about it at CNN: From Hiroshima to 9/11, a girl's origami lives on.

New York day 7: The Guggenheim Museum

I can barely believe it is six months today since I left New York and returned home. I feel a little bit silly that I am still blogging about it but the good (and sad) news is that I am very nearly finished. I think that after 26 blog entries, it is safe to say that my week spent in the US left an enormous impression on me and it was an incredible voyage of personal discovery. I’m sorry to say though that we have in fact made a decision not to go back to New York in December 2010 as planned. I’m afraid the third Northern Hemisphere winter in a row has made me change my mind and we’ve decided to go to South Africa rather for a sun and sand filled Christmas! On to the Guggenheim…

I had reserved the most exciting museum for my last full day in New York. Not only was I fascinated by the work of architectural wonder that is the Guggenheim Museum, but there was also a Frank Lloyd Wright exhibition to named Frank Lloyd Wright: From Within Outward.

If I had more time in new York, it is entirely possible that I would have sat in the lobby of the Guggenheim all day taking pictures of the interior. It was fascinating! Frank Lloyd Wright designed the Guggenheim and he was one of the most visionary, talented designers of all time. I love how his houses seemed to emerge naturally from the landscape as if they had grown organically.

Unfortunately, we weren’t allowed to take photographs in the exhibition but I had forgotten about that and taken these (luckily while no one was looking!) before I remembered my manners! Here is an example of one of his houses:

Falling Water House - Frank Lloyd Wright [Image Source]

DC: The Capitol and going home

It was getting on in time and soon I would be catching a coach back to New York. I took one last look behind me to remind myself just how far I had travelled that day.

There was a big event happening at the Capitol that day so I was disappointed at first to not be able to get a photo of the buildings without a big, white marquee in the way! But I was son lucky enough to get a clear shot.

I began to walk up Pennsylvania Avenue North West just as the sun began to set. Washington, DC really is a beautiful city and I would love to visit again one day.

I walked past the Newseum which is quite a new attraction and somewhere I will definitely visit on my next visit to DC.

The Newseum is a news museum and I was there at a very historic time as it was the day after Michael Jackson died.

I walked past the US National Archives and the United States Navy Memorial.

I was quite excited to stumble upon the The J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building too and you’ll be pleased to know that your intrepid South African / English expat wasn’t arrested for spying as she happily snapped away at the building.

The Old Post Office Pavilion was as picturesque as I’d always imagined.

I took five minutes to look at Petersen House where Abraham Lincoln was taken after he was shot. He died there after being shot at the Ford’s Theatre which was located across the street.

My last stop before boarding the coach was the souvenir store where I bought a nice, thick FBI jersey for the ride home. The air conditioning was so high on the coach that I had frozen on the way in that morning!!

The ride home seemed to go a lot quicker than the one in but my iPod ran out of battery about 90 minutes from New York. Tragedy!! I then got speaking to two lovely people from Ohio and that passed the time. The man amused me as he had once dated an Afrikaans girl in Ohio and he repeated some things that really, really made me blush. The Afrikaans culture is generally more conservative than English culture in South Africa but what he repeated to me was absolutely outrageous! Seriously, I could repeat it here in the knowledge that none of you would know what I mean but it is that bad that I won’t!

We passed Baltimore on the way back which was exciting for me because my favourite TV show ever was based there: Homicide: Life on the Street.

Later on once the sun had set, we passed over a massive water way. It was either the Memorial Bridge at Delaware or maybe even the Susquehanna Bridge. Probably the former? I don’t know. All I remember is that the bridge seemed to go on forever over the water and I had never seen a river that wide in my life before. It was dark and eerie too and just fascinating. Reason #264 to go back to DC next time I visit New York!!! Actually, judging from this video, I think it was the Susquehanna River that I was crossing. It was amazing.

I got home that night at about midnight I think. Having left at some ungodly predawn time that morning, I have to say that I have never been that tired before and I don’t think I’ll ever be that tired again. After dutifully putting my beloved iPod on to charge, I collapsed into bed and slept through my second last night in America.

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