Last Bite of the Big Apple

The last weekend in NY was spent in a flurry of last-minute sightseeing, plus some quintessentially NY/US experiences. On Saturday Steve took me for breakfast at a neighbourhood cafe then on a walking tour of the West Village and the trendy shopping streets of Greenwich Village. We wandered the fashionable streets of hugely expensive apartments, drooled over the foodie heaven of Dean and DeLuca and watched all the hip shoppers browsing the windows of latest fashions.

Sunday morning I took off for Harlem to the Abysssinian Baptist Church, Adam Clayton Powell’s base in the 60s and 70s, for a touch of gospel singing and Hallelujah-brother!!!!!! It felt quite brave to be venturing by subway into Harlem, but it all turned out very proper middle class. The church may have been a hotbed of political action 30 years ago, but being mentioned on the tourist websites plus the gentrification of sections of Harlem and the upward mobility of the black congregation has meant that its demographic has obviously changed. I was waiting for the 11am service, and the exiting 9am (yes – two-hour services!!!!) congregation had more fur coats, gold jewellery and designer handbags than I had seen on Fifth Avenue!!! During the 11am service, every person recognised for some reason seemed to be a professor of this, or a doctor of that, so it was hardly a walk on the wild side!!!! The choir did sing well, the minister had a wonderfully sonorous voice that made his reading of the anatomy of the heart (I kid you not!!!) sound like a Churchillian call to arms, and there were a few muted “Yeah, brother!!”s during the sermon, but the upmarket middle class congregation was certainly not about to do any waving of arms or rolling of eyes to accompany the singing!!!!!

My last bit of sightseeing was to walk out onto the Brooklyn Bridge for a final view of the NY skyline. When you have seen it so many times in movies and TV shows and everlasting Seinfelds, somehow New York seems familiar even when you first arrive – it is one of those cities that belong to the world.

The late afternoon was Superbowl Sunday, which required some buying of beer and potato chips to consume in front of the TV. There should also have been pizza to complete the correct cultural diet, but I bent the rules a bit and cooked chicken instead. Steve and I watched the game, and consumed the aforementioned beer etc., so I did my bit to fit in with the natives. Poor Anna was buried in her room as she had been for days, studying for the New York Bar exam, so she only surfaced occasionally for food and water.

Last night in town – out to JFK tomorrow, and heading home – will try to think of something hugely insightful about my travels to sign off with may last blog entry.

Cruising Fifth Avenue

No trip to NY would be complete without hitting the shops, so after a zoom through Macy’s, dodging the predatory cosmetics saleswomen, I started down Fifth Avenue with a mix of window-shopping and a few sorties into Bloomingdales and Saks and more dodging of extremely predatory cosmetics saleswomen. What is it – do I really look like I need their help that badly that they just about tackle me as I dodge past??? I suppose they must all be on commission, so you cannot walk down an aisle “Just looking, thanks” without being accosted and cajoled in a most off-putting fashion. I might actually have bought something if they had left me alone. However, more looking, then fainting at the prices on the tags achieved no purchases, so I wandered off the Avenue into St Patrick’s Cathedral during the crowded lunch-time Mass. (Rather a valuable bit of real estate, I imagine...). It is a beautiful cathedral, and seems quite a “lived-in” church with workers popping in, not like just a tourist attraction as some cathedrals can seem.

Further on down the Avenue is the wonderful New York Public Library whose Reading Room I had been told was a must-see, so that was my next stop. The Reading Room was indeed beautiful, with amazing ceilings, but the star of my visit was the amazing exhibition of mediaeval illuminated manuscripts. There were dozens of these, some religious books, some history books, map books and atlases, and all hand-decorated in exquisite colour and detail – and this is just a part of the library’s treasure trove, only on display for a few months. I snuck some photos despite the camera ban, as I just could not resist. Another of those surprising treats........

That night was dinner at Lo Scalco in Tribeca with an old friend from Auckland, Ross Collard. Two star Michelin restaurants are indeed a special treat for the country-cousin-come-to-town!!!!!

MOMA and Pooh

Setting off for the Guggenheim, Steve and I ended up at MOMA – due to the slight practicality that the Guggenheim is closed on Thursdays, but I think this serendipitous change was actually for the best, as MOMA’s collection is probably more comprehensive than the Guggenheim’s. So we set out to wander through the amazing displays of rooms full of Matisse (much prefer his sculpture to his paintings), or three different styles of Picasso all painted in the same year, or the concept of the chair executed in an incredible range of possibilities. The space of MOMA itself is also a work of art, with the enormous open atrium, and stairwells and galleries offering interesting angles and views of artworks. “Modern art” was probably not my favourite style, but MOMA presents it in interesting ways, plus the obscure squares of brown/black paint (why is THAT art?) are well compensated for by pieces of great beauty, even if I don’t understand them all. And strangely, there was almost the identical beige-brown splatter Pollock that I thought I had seen at the Met – oh well, I suppose he had to pay for the groceries too..... The design section of light fixtures and chairs etc was also surprisingly beautiful, and the outdoor sculpture courtyard had wonderful pieces of Rodin and Picasso and others that little philistine me did not recognise.

Exiting MOMA, across the street was a branch of the NY Public Library, outide which was the irresistible invitation to “Come upstairs and meet the real Winnie the Pooh.” Who could not follow this summons? So up we went, and there in a cabinet were the real original toys of Christopher Robin that inspired the books – Pooh is a Harrod’s bear given as a present to Christopher Robin when he was two years old, and all the other toys look much loved as well. So for the benefit of Julia (and, I confess, myself), we signed the publicity waiver and were allowed to photograph them through the glass!!! Quite an unexpected little highlight.

That evening we went to a stunning Broadway show called The Producers - now turned into a movie - which was extremely funny, and had something in it to offend everyone - as the show's centrepiece "Springtime with Hitler" might suggest. Imagine singing, dancing Hitler and Nazi chorus lines, with showgirls adorned with pretzels and sausages, old ladies demanding bizarre sexual favours, and you start to get the idea.

Lower Manhattan

Everyone has to do it, so the (free!!!) Staten Island Ferry trip past the Statue of Liberty was next on the list, plus sailing past our eponymous Ellis Island. The view from the ferry again brings the stark 9/11 reminder with the gap in the skyline so close to the ferry’s route, that travellers that morning must have been horrifyingly close to the unfolding scenes.

Sections of the Financial District and the adjacent City Hall buildings are now a barricaded enclave, with (rather artistic...) solid brass street barriers protecting the entrance to Wall Street, black-clad, assault rifle-toting guards on the municipal buildings, and the whole section around City Hall check-pointed and blocked off to traffic apart from buses and official vehicles. But business carries on and the nearby Century 21 outlet store, directly across from Ground Zero, is thronged with office workers looking for bargains of designer leather jackets reduced from $2000 to only $1200 alongside $5 T-shirts. (Note: I©NY T-shirts are 8 for $10 in Chinatown, and $25 each in some tourist shops!!!!!). The skyscrapers are amazing, and even more so when one I was craning at is apparently only 1/3 the height of the now-vanished Twin Towers. Strange how something that is now absent still has such an amazingly strong presence.........

Meandering Through the Met

The Metropolitan Museum was my first bite of NY’s cultural banquet – OK – no more florid metaphors!!!!! The meandering bit refers to the vast number of inter-connecting rooms at the Met which mean that despite its vast size, there is more of a feeling of wandering through a rather eccentric house made up of rooms from all sections of the globe and times in history. There are the art galleries with the usual stunning array of paintings, the Egyptian and Grecian collections, the entire reconstructed rooms from European castles and so much more that a one-day visit can only be a very tiny bite.

I also experienced a common phenomenon – that the special thing I had gone to see what not what impressed me the most, but rather some unexpected gem. The large splattery beige, black and brown Pollock was my “must see” painting, but what grabbed me was the Georgia O’Keeffe collection. I returned at the end of my wanderings to sit in front of the Black Iris painting to marvel at its wondrously sensuous effects. The other enchanting item was a “no photos” room entirely made of exquisite wood inlay. It was the study of an Italian nobleman, and every inch of the walls and floors is covered in intricate wood inlay work, often creating a trompe l’oeil effect such as a view through an open window, or cupboards and doors. The impression of such a museum is – how many years would it take me to see it properly?? I limited myself to one floor, and still only touched a fraction. Oh well, you are always supposed to leave something to go back for........

First Bite of the Apple

Being a goofy tourist isn’t actually that dumb after all. After recovering on Sunday from my travel travails, and going out to dinner with Steve and Anna at a rather lovely NY restaurant (with an NZ connection through Peter Gordon) I set out on Monday on the double-decker red tourist bus that circles Manhattan, and I most heartily recommend it. Despite looking the aforementioned goofy sitting up on top and gawping at the sights, it is actually a brilliant way to get one’s bearings and gain a brief overview of where what is and which places one wants to return to. The “uptown loop” is particularly good as it covers a route that you could never manage by yourself, weaving through the Upper West Side, circling the wonderful vistas of Central Park, into Harlem, and down the Upper East Side, with all the snippets of history and goss trivia thrown in. The Harlem history was particularly fascinating and some of its upmarket housing areas quite surprising, although we did briefly skirt the slum areas, and of course our bus did not venture into the badlands. The “downtown loop” connected with this and led us through the West and East Village, Chinatown, the Financial district and of course the still-haunting gap in the skyline of Ground Zero. Despite the vibrations of reconstruction, the crowds gathered around the perimeter still gaze in a respectful quiet at the minute-by-minute time-line attached along the wire barricade, illustrated with the still-shocking photos of that morning’s destruction of 9/11.

So thus oriented, and with my weekly subway pass and NY map, I was ready to set forth exploring.

Milano, the Heavenly Duomo, and the Airport from Hell

Defintely a mixture of heaven and hell!! Out of the mountains, and through to Milano by train, in the middle of the snowstorm that we had been desperately wanting in the mountains for the last two weeks!!&^%$#@!!*&!! Mountains in the snow may be fabulous, but big cities turn into dodgem tracks with cars and pedestrians slithering in all directions. However, the Duomo dusted by snow is actually rather magical, and the inside is as breath-taking as I had been told - also the Milanese in snow boots and cold red noses are rather less daunting. The Galleries shopping area opposite the Duomo was full of fabulous shops and clothes which no doubt at other times would have been adorning the beautiful people.

The next day getting to the airport turned into a traveller’s nightmare. The snow by now was half a metre deep on the (uncleared) sidewalks, and the taxis had all either slithered into the snowbanks or my hotel had not bribed the right taxi companies, but for whatever reason, not a taxi was to be had to get me from my hotel the six blocks to the airport bus stop. So when the going gets tough, the tough get going – down the middle of the street ( the only clear route) lugging my wheelie suitcase and lurching sideways out of the path of any oncoming traffic as the lights changed!!! 20 minutes later I staggered onto the bus, and the 40 minute trip to the airport became nearly a two hour crawl past all sorts of motorway mayhem.

Needless to say the airport was closed when I got there, and a reality TV script ensued of desperate queues at check-in counters, lines snaking in all directions, and would you believe it NO E-MAIL CONNECTION!!!!! I threw a minor hissy fit at the “Internet connection” office people who told me that they used to have one, but it broke!!!!! A kind man in a nearby queue took pity on the crazy lady, and came to my rescue with his Blackberry to e-mail Steve in NY to say I would be delayed. He even thoughtfully asked me for a secret code that Steve would know could only be me, hence a special little note added that “Oscar would love the snow”....

A delightful night followed when I discovered the useful piece of information that it is more marginally more comfortable to sleep on the carpet in front of the check-in counter than on an airport chair – in case you ever need to know to stake your claim. The next day the planes did get moving and after yet another McDonald’s airport meal in Frankfurt – my third in 24 hours- I made it to NY to meet up with Steve and Anna. We do take international travel of zooming around the globe at the flick of our credit card hugely for granted, so perhaps a little stint on the floor of Milan airport is a not-so-bad reality check.