Corona Park, Queens. Elsie debuted at the 1939 World's Fair
Ok. Here's the deal: if I learned a damn thing from writing my Europe 2001 travelogue, it's that it's really damn hard to write about places that have been written about to death (e.g. Paris...did you catch me getting hung up on historical weight vs. ineffable something? I totally need an editor), so this time I'm skipping the descriptions of New York and sticking to a bare-bones outline unless something really interesting happened. And there are a few pictures.
Thursday, October 10
Left home before dawn, but later than I wanted to. Sped to the airport, thematic listening to Doves at maximum tolerable volume. Got to LaGuardia at around 9:30, realized that I have made it through 26 years of my life without knowing that LaGuardia's runways are precariously built on piers over the water. Weird. Baggage claim was bizarrely deserted. Picked up a MetroCard (the daypass is a great deal) at Hudson News, go outside, and wait for the M60 bus into the city.
It looked like rain.
The bus arrived. We took a tour of LaGuardia's myriad terminals before finally getting out on the road and off to Manhattan. Got stuck in traffic here and there. Drove through Harlem; I spotted a diner to try for breakfast the next morning. Got off the bus at 110th and Broadway, walked from there to the youth hostel at 104th and Amsterdam. Probably could've gone a stop or two further on the bus, but whatever. It wasn't raining yet.
The staff at the youth hostel were affable if disorganized. I got my key and went up to my room. Slightly bigger than the hostel in Reykjavík, but with 10 beds instead of the 8 there. 2nd most cramped hostel room I've been in. 2 guys wers still in their bunks. I dropped my bags and headed on out, stopping for a cup of coffee in the cafe downstairs. Destination: Queens.
Misread my subway map and missed the stop where I needed to get off to change trains. I got off at the next one and went outside so I could get to the other side of the tracks and head back north. I faced the light of day amid throngs of people in front of Madison Square Garden. Compared to the near desertion of LaGuardia and upper Manhattan, this was a shock, even though it was what I'd been expecting all along. I was relieved to duck back into the subway.
Got to Queens, taking the 7 to Roosevelt Ave. Lonely Planet said that there was a great Indian place, the Jackson Diner, nearby. It was rhapsodic about their dosas. Found the place, but no dosas at lunch--just an all you can eat buffet for $6.95. Maybe $7.95, I can't remember. Pretty good for Indian buffet food. Except the mustard greens. Those were transcendently good. I mean these were mustard greens that were worth the $6.95 or $7.95 or however much it was all by themselves. I walked around the block before getting back on the train. There were three types of stores on this block, which is apparently in an Indian Muslim part of town: Indian buffets, gold jewelry shops, and halal butchers.
Back on the train, headed out to Corona Park. The station is situated between Mets Stadium and the Arthur Ashe Tennis facility. I headed for the latter: Corona Park was beyond that. Two things off the top of my head, other than the '39 and '64 World's Fairs, that cement this location in the popular imagination:
1) The Unisphere and the big towers have a prominent appearance at the climax of Men in Black.
2) On a Simpsons episode when the Simpsons end up in New York, Homer has to go to the bathroom, sees a bus labeled "Flushing Meadows" and has a fantasy about skipping through a rolling meadow full of toilets.
The reason I went was that there's a scene in The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay that takes place at Corona Park, and I really wanted to see the place for real. I'm a geek sometimes. Plus the Unisphere is cool.
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Skateboarder below the Unisphere.
The Unisphere was pretty impressive. I took care to make sure Iceland got a fair shake. There were skateboarders practicing tricks beneath it. The old New York City building from the World's Fair is next to the Unisphere. It's now the Queens Museum of Art but it used to be the United Nations, too. I went in there to check out the miniature New York City. It's a huge scale model of the entire city--all five boroughs. Every fifteen minutes or so, the room goes dark and there's a sunset. The lights in the miniature city come on. The whole thing is on the floor of a room about the size of a basketball court that you go through on a see-through ramp. There was a spotlight on the World Trade Center towers. I assume the towers will be removed eventually, since the model's supposed to be an accurate representation of the city, but I guess the wound's still too fresh.
Aside from the New York City Panorama, as the model is officially known, the Queens Museum of Art has a lot of stuff of variable quality. There was one guy who had a bunch of paintings there that were like old Chinese paintings of mountains and rivers and all that, but with Van Gogh's brush style. There were also some people in orange jumpsuits living in one of the galleries in some self-imposed Big Brother (as in the failed CBS TV series or popular German (and various other nationalities) TV series, depending on what side of the Atlantic you're from) type experiment. You could have tea with them every day at 2:00. Unfortunately I was late. They were watching TV. Except for one who was sitting on a bench outside smoking a cigarette.
Back outside I wandered over toward the observation towers to take a few pictures. I wasn't the only photographer present; a nebbish photographer was putting a beefy man into position. Both regarded me with hostility. I moved on. Looking back a minute later, the beefy guy was taking his shirt off.
On the train I sat across from a man wearing an Indianapolis Raceway Park jacket and a woman wearing sensible shoes. I got off to move to the Queens-Brooklyn Crosstown train, then switched again to another line to get me to the Brooklyn bridge, which I walked across to get me back into Manhattan.
Back in Manhattan, I ditched my original plan to head back to the hostel as soon as I saw the Woolworth building, one of the magnificent sort that no one builds any more. Once standing at its foot, I continued my wandering, inadvertantly ending up at Ground Zero. Thus ended the debate in my mind about whether I would go there at all. I wasn't sure how I'd react.
It was quiet there. At the church across the street, people milled around the gate where countless memorials hung. By the site itself, people stared into what is now no more than a hole in the ground. On the fringes, vendors sold Ground Zero NYC baseball caps and played Gregorian chant. As for me, I guess it made it feel real. From an inconspicuous spot, I took a picture. I wasn't sure if that was the right thing, but it seemed I'd want to have some personal evidence of what was there whenever what's next is built.
I went back to the hostel to drop off my bag, then headed back down to Chelsea in search of dinner. This I found in brilliant fashion by walking around block after block until finally I found myself torn between French and Japanese. My craving for sushi won out, and I went into Sumo, somewhere around 15th and 8th, and ordered the sashimi platter. I have two things to say about this meal: 1) the presentation was so pretty I almost didn't want to eat it and 2) the quality of the fish alone is reason enough for me to move to New York.
It was now about 9:30 on a rainy night, and I was tired but not ready to go back to the hostel yet. I wandered around for a bit before finally stopping in front of a bar called Tequila's. There was music and I could see a pretty healthy crowd of people inside. The place is a restaurant as well, and was decorated in Mexican fashion for Halloween. I found a seat at the bar and ordered a Heineken.
To my right stood the singer, a handsome 40-something man with a shaved head named Marcel, belting out songs in Spanish to the accompaniment of an assortment of cassettes.
It took me maybe two minutes to realize I was the only person in the bar who didn't speak Spanish.
I sipped my beer and considered my options. While I was doing this, Lee introduced herself to me: "Hi, it's my birthday!" she said. I must ooze gringo.
"Happy birthday," I said.
"So, you come here often?"
"First time. Actually, the first time to New York without my parents."
"Well, hope you're having a good time."
"I am. This bar's an adventure."
"Where are you from?"
"Indianapolis."
Lee's beer arrived. "Well, it was nice meeting you," she said.
"Nice meeting you, too. Happy birthday."
She went back to a table on the other side of the stage, and I went back to my beer. A woman of a certain age sat next to me, ordered a glass of red wine, and immediately spilled it on her white blouse. As she struggled to clean it, Marcel called out in English, "Is there a Brendan from Indianapolis here?" I waved. "Your friends over here want to see you," he said.
I went over and Lee introduced me to her brother Wilfredo, his wife Kelly, and their friend Jorge.
"So what brings you to New York?" Wilfredo asked.
"What else?" Kelly said. "He's here to meet hot chicks!"
"Ok," Wilfredo said, getting down to business, "If you want to meet girls, you ought to..."
I decided to put a stop to this before he put too much thought into it. "Actually, I'm gay."
"Well, you're in the right neighborhood," Lee said.
"Just the wrong night for this bar," Kelly added.
The evening continued in a similar vein, until someone decided it was time to teach the white boy to dance, which was the most fun I've had making a complete idiot of myself for some time (contrary to our reputation, some gay men have really...no, I mean really...lousy rhythm), probably because no one expected better of me. Several, several drinks later, we were out on the street in 1am rain, parting ways. Poor Lee, a kindergarten teacher, had to be up at 6.
Walking to the subway station, I felt a weird surge a patriotism, of all things. I dunno, I don't really get inspired by eagles and fighter jets and apple pie. But I do get inspired by being a clueless white boy in a Latino bar being taught, however unsuccessfully, to salsa. That's America.
Friday, October 11
Got up around 9 on Friday. The guy in the bunk below me was packing furiously, stuffing a huge backpack with a pile of rumpled clothes.
"Where are you headed?" I asked.
"Auckland." He was Irish.
"Hell of a flight."
"Yeah, 36 hours. I go here to Miami, then to Santiago, then from there to Auckland."
He was a doctor, taking a year off to travel around the world, and New Zealand was the next stop. I left him to finish his packing, and headed up to Harlem for breakfast at the M&G Soul Food diner, the one I'd spotted out the bus window the day before. It was a slightly dingy, fluorescent lit place. I took a seat at the bar and ordered ham and two eggs, over easy. Pretty good and cheap.
From there I headed back south, stopping at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, which rose through the mist of Morningside Park as I approached. When completed, it'll be the largest Gothic cathedral in the world. And it's certainly impressive, if a little hard to get a feel for because of the buildings surrounded it. I made the suggested $2 donation and wandered through. There was a display of "Cathedral Treasures" in the ambulatory, but having seen the treasury at Notre Dame, I felt no particular need to see the same thing here, and went back out to the street.
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Cathedral of St. John the Divine
I headed over to the Guggenheim. The Irish doctor said there was an interesting photography exhibit there; a bit of a photography junkie myself, it sounded like a good idea. One thing that would also be a good idea is gaining a working knowledge of New York's crosstown buses, which allow smart people to simply cross Central Park rather than take the subway down to Grand Central, then head back north the get to the Guggenheim. The Guggenheim exhibit (called "Moving Pictures", for those keeping score) was interesting, and even had a few multimedia pieces I didn't hate.
Walked across Central Park, decided to get lunch somewhere in lower Manhattan. After getting off the subway at Rockefeller Center and walking through Times Square, then getting back on the subway again (not a mistake, just thought it seemed appropriate to walk through), I ended up at a place called Ruben's Empanadas on Fulton Street. Got a potato and cheese empanada and grapefruit Jarritos. Walked over to the South Street Seaport. I don't know much about its history, but it looks like it's been fixed up in Harborplace fashion, complete with Gap and Pizzeria Uno. Still, it's pretty. Checked out the old sailing ships, then walked to the Staten Island Ferry terminal.
Sat outside on the ferry till we got moving. Took a couple worthless pictures of the Statue of Liberty. Got off at Staten Island and thought I'd explore. There wasn't a lot to see. I walked around a bit. I saw a kinda threadbare hair salon and thought maybe I'd get my haircut, but they didn't have room. They said I could come in tomorrow but I didn't think I'd be coming back to Staten Island tomorrow for a haircut. I got back on the ferry and went back to Manhattan.
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South Street Seaport
It was just past 6 by this point. I got on the subway and headed back north. Idiot that I am, I took a local all the way--it wasn't until I headed back south that night that I figured out how to use the express trains. Had dinner at Awash, an Ethiopian place just up the street from the hostel on Amsterdam. Eating alone here felt a bit awkward--Ethiopian seems so communal, and here I was at my own table, facing a packed house. But it was very worth it. Go there, unless you absolutely insist on quick service. That's a weak spot. I did not find any weak spots in the food. The food seemed a step up in ambition from other Ethiopian food I've had. Really, really good.
Headed downtown in hopes of amazing NYC nightlife. Had an epiphany re using the express trains, made me feel like a native. With regard to the amazing NYC nightlife, I should know by now that Lonely Planet is wildly variable in terms of its recommendations on gay nightlife, though one would assume that in New York, a large and rapidly changing gay club scene naturally makes keeping track of this things difficult. Ended up at an ok but not great place called Monster, $5 cover. Ordered a gin and tonic. It was still pretty early, and there weren't a lot of people. Picked up one of the free scene magazines and flipped through it. Madonna was on the cover--Swept Away was set to open next week, and no one knew exactly how toxic it would be yet.
Jorg, a German guy in his late 30s, came up and talked to me. He was friendly and amusing, but within 5 minutes I was fairly certain that less than half of what he said to me was true. He seemed irritated that I knew how to spell Jorg. Jorg took me downstairs to the dance floor. He danced manically; I sat on a couch and talked to a guy whose profession was difficult to ascertain, but based on his "I've got a big one; I do just fine" comment, I figured he was either a stripper or a prostitute.
Back upstairs, I sat by the piano bar for a while. Aspiring actors sang Coward and Sondheim, using their PalmPilots as songbooks. I talked to Steve from Texas. When he asked where I was from, I said Indianapolis.
"Who said Indianapolis?" a guy on the other side of the piano, who had just finished singing "Summertime" asked.
"I did."
"You're from there?"
"Yeah, you?"
"I moved out here a couple years ago." Turns out he used to date a friend of mine.
As the night wore on, I talked to David, an American formerly of the Bremen Opera who now worked for a company that does closed-captioning for music videos. We were both taking the same train uptown, so we rode back up together. We got off for a minute at Times Square. At 4am, the neon still shone bright as Vegas, but aside from a few stray taxis, the streets were silent and the lights' only soundtrack was the wheels of a hot dog vendor shutting his cart down for the night.
"I think I might be having a New York moment," I said.
"You're being cheesy," David said.
We got back on the train. At 103rd street I got off and walked back to the hostel.
Saturday, October 12
I slept later than I intended to in the morning, finally dragging myself out of bed around 12:30. Headed down to Grand Central, got a faux-Vietnamese cabbage salad for lunch. Then went back uptown for a whirlwind tour of the Museum of Natural History. The dinosaurs were impressive, but the human dioramas downstairs were just odd. I seem to remember reading a murder mystery/short story once when I was a kid about a killer who would pose as a figure in a diorama, then at night would prowl the museum and kill security guards. It had been so long since I'd even been to this museum that I guess I'd forgotten that there were museums where this sort of premise was vaguely plausible.
Back out to the street. Got a Pepsi and watched kids and birds play on the Teddy Roosevelt statue. Got on a train down to Ground Zero so that, naturally, I could go shopping.
I'd never even heard of Century 21 till it was more or less destroyed on September 11, but it's a great store if you're willing to put up with it. I stocked up on dress shirts, ties, and a bag for my laptop. Back at the hostel, I walked over to Broadway and had a dinner of hummus and baba ghannouj at a kebab shop called Jerusalem. Pretty good. They were stocking the cellar with crates of sodas; I sat at the counter while behind me men tossed cases down through the open floor.
For nightlife I decided to stick close to home, and walked up to a place called Saints, and 110th and Amsterdam. It's at the northwest corner of the intersection, and it doesn't have a sign. I didn't know this at the time; instead, I stood across the street from the establishment I figured was probably it and looked at it for a while.
"You going to Saints?" A guy had walked up next to where I stood at the crosswalk.
"Yeah, but I've never been there before. That it?" I nodded toward the nameless building.
"That's it; I've never been in either, though. Mind if we go in together?"
I shrugged. "Safety in numbers, right?"
Saints is a small, darker-than-average bar that serves a variety of microbrews. Tonight it was a sparse crowd, but it was pretty early.
Justin was the name of the guy from the crosswalk; he was a grad student at Columbia University, a second-generation Canadian. He and I hit it off pretty well for two guys who met on the street (too bad he had a boyfriend). After a couple beers, we decided to forsake the gay scene and walked down Amsterdam to a place called Jake's Dilemma, where Dexy's Midnight Runners spilled onto the streets, begging Eileen to come on. A couple more beers here, and then on to another spot called Dive 75. It should here be noted that it is an iron law of bar onomastics that any place actually calling itself a dive is not one. Dive 75 was predictably upscale, but at least they serve Anchor Liberty Ale. Life could be worse.
By this time we were some 30 blocks south of the hostel and only 7 or so away from Justin's place, which wasn't far from Lincoln Center. Justin invited me to crash on his couch, an offer I accepted. We sat up and talked for a while before I fell asleep where I sat and Justin went to bed.
Sunday, October 13
Dawn came foggy and I saw that Justin's apartment had a view all the way to the Hudson. I had to leave the city for Newark at about 11; it was 8 now. Justin suggested I go back to the hostel, pick up my things, and come back to his apartment; he'd make coffee.
Over coffee, Justin proceeded to give me excellent instructions on finding my way to Newark via Port Authority. Soon enough I was out of the city into the North Jersey brownfields. At the airport the Sunday Times was sold out; I bought the Post, which was in hysterics over the DC sniper and rapture over a new Target opening in Queens. It provided ample entertainment for the flight back to the heartland.