Unconfirmed Reports

I arrived late on Thursday night, walked up Bowery through a quiet Chinatown. I found my hostel, haggled over prices (which they had changed since I booked the bed), ate a delicious slice of pizza, then went to bed by about 1am. I slept briefly, then got up early, excited to see what I could make of 24 hours in New York City.

6am Friday - fresh and wholesome, on the stoop in front of the hostel, 14th Street.

I walked up town, through Union Square where some hobos and coffee vendors were beginning to wake up. Some latinos were setting up a fruit stall, and I bought a couple of apples for breakfast - I tested the water using Spanish instead of English, and the lady with the apples didn’t seem to notice or care. Good. I continued, up Park Avenue, still mostly empty; but gradually people appeared on the streets as I reached midtown, with the Empire State Building rearing up on my left, and Grand Central Station popping up down the block each time a street opened up on my right.

I entered the fantastic art-deco foyer of the Empire State, and asked about going up to the viewing platform on top - but it was still 7am, and the attendant told me it didn’t open until 8. So I kept walking uptown, thinking I might be able to get to the top of the Rockefeller Center instead. I took a left of Park Avenue and passed through Rockefeller Plaza, with its hideous gilded statue of an angel or some rubbish. There were plenty of tourists around now, but still it was not 8am, and nothing actually open. So I kept walking, up the Avenue of the Americas, to Central Park.

Central Park was calm and warm, plenty of people walking and jogging, but the place so vast and varied that it was easy to find a place of one’s own. I found a big rock that was catching the morning sun, and sat there to rest for a while. I noticed that I was still wearing, essentially, my pyjamas. When I had envisioned myself walking around Manhattan some day, I had never thought that I would be in my pyjamas.

I sat for a while on that rock. There was some quite interesting play equipment in front of me, but a family were playing on it together, so I stayed on the rock. I tried to gather strength from the warm rock and the slightly fresher air; I knew there was a long day ahead, and already my feet were a little tired from the walk uptown - though that was probably because I was wearing slippers, rather than walking shoes.

I watched the people around me: many had dogs, and they were chatting, while their dogs smelt each others’ arseholes. I wondered what it would be like to live in New York. Probably too overwhelming for me: even here, in this massive, forested park, people were never far away. Time to move on again: the Rockefeller Center would be open by now.

I walked back down, along Broadway this time. There were lots of electronics and camera shops - coffee and donut vendors everywhere. I saw the famous big screens of Time Square further down the street, but didn’t feel intrigued. Instead I turned off to go up the Rockefeller.

The view from on top was breathtaking. In fact, two amazing views.

To the south, midtown and lower Manhattan, the greatest bullk of brick and concrete that I have ever seen.

To the north, Central Park stretching far away, with its far edge blurred by the gathering heat-haze of Friday.

I stayed up there for about 12 minutes, just looking at the hugeness of everything; then I felt that I had got my 20 bucks’ worth. Besides, it was getting on for 10am, and I still had a lot of walking to do before meeting my friend Orion down in Chinatown at 11.

Now the day was in full-swing, and feeling more like what I thought New York would feel like. I took a few randomised photos from the hip, trying to catch the Manhattan street atmosphere. Most of them turned out crap. I saw a rich-looking middle aged jogger oddly petting a dog that was leashed to a young, streetwise-looking guy, who was trying to ignore the whole incident: but I didn’t try to photograph that; it would have ruined it.

There were no photos for the next few hours: I was too busy talking and eating dim sum with Orion. We walked across the bridge to Brooklyn, then got bikes and went for a ride. Brooklyn was very hip and progressive, as expected. Fashionable food co-op, urban vegetable-growing project. I got the first great coffee I’d had in a while, from a place called Gorilla. But I wasn’t blown away by Brooklyn - too overpopulated for me.

But the kids working down at the Red Hook farm were friendly. They took time out to talk to us, and proudly show us their meagre strawberries. I wished I could have shown them my plots on the other side of the Atlantic, in return.