New York City: Saturday
I believe I can be more concise (and thus hold the reader’s attention for longer) if I write in bullet points and avoid getting carried away in flowery prose.
The flight from Milwaukee to LaGuardia featured the charter plane usually reserved for the Milwaukee Bucks basketball team. Since it’s designed for seven-footers, there was plenty of leg room, and everything was generally more comfortable than normal. However, they had to kick off one ticketed passenger because there were fewer seats than normal. I have to say, I’m glad it wasn’t me.
Instead of paying an arm and a leg for a cab, I took a city bus from LaGuardia into Manhattan. The bus provided a nice little tour of Astoria Queens (now a predominantly Greek and Eastern European neighborhood) and then over the East River to Harlem. I didn’t get back to either of these places, but they both looked like interesting neighborhoods that I’d like to explore more next time.
My hostel, the Central Park Hostel, was located on 103rd St. and Central Park West. It was cheap ($26 a night) and had clean bathrooms and showers, but the beds were uncomfortable, and the place did not offer towels. This Korean guy who was on the top bunk of my bed kept complaining about how there was no safety rail and how he could fall in the night. I pointed out to him that I had slept on a top bunk for years and had never once fallen off. Finally, to shut him up, I switched with him, and tried to tune out his incessant fidgeting.
I had some time to kill before meeting Lynn in the evening, so I decided to walk from the hostel to Times Square, a whopping 61 blocks. The streets aren’t lengthy (unlike the avenues, which are very lengthy), but it was still a good walk.
Times Square is an extraordinary sensory overload, which flashing neon lights and huge advertisements everywhere. It’s unceasingly packed to the gills with tourists. However, only a few blocks west is Bryant Park, a lovely green space with refreshment stands, bocceball courts, and free wireless internet.
I met up with Lynn, and we grabbed a bite at an excellent pub near Grand Central (whose name escapes me) before heading up to Shea Stadium for the Mets game.
Located in remote Flushing Queens, Shea Stadium is not one of the better places to see a ballgame. It’s so near LaGuardia Airport that planes fly noisily overhead every few minutes, and the stadium has very little style. The PA system, in particular, is tinny and deafeningly loud. That said, the weather was perfect, the 51,000 fans (the Nats usually get around 20,000) were enthusiastic, and the baseball on the field was first-rate. The pregame celebration honored Ralph Kiner, a prolific slugger in the 1940s who has been the Mets broadcaster since their founding in 1962. Dozens of old stars showed up to honor Kiner, from Yogi Berra to Tom Seaver to Bob Feller to Keith Hernandez. If you’re not a baseball fan, let me tell you, this was a big deal. The highlight of Kiner's speech was his opening comment: "Thank you very much, it's an honor to be here. Actually, at my age, it's an honor to be anywhere." As for the game, 41-year old future Hall of Famer Tom Glavine pitched a 1-run, 2-hit masterpiece, at one point retiring 16 consecutive batters. He got his 298th career win (only about 20 pitchers in MLB history have won 300 games, and it’s considered an automatic ticket to the Hall of Fame), and the Mets beat the Cincinnati Reds 2-1.
The long subway ride home from Flushing to Manhattan was enlivened by the presence of two loud-mouthed New Yorkers who spent the entire time slinging joke after hilarious joke. One guy tried to convince me that the Museum of Sex was the best thing to see in New York and that it was his only outlet since his wife wasn’t giving him any. The two of them were yukking it up the entire time, and then one of them gave me a commemorative Mets blanket, saying, “I got two kids and one blanket, and I know they’ll just fight over it, so instead I’ll give it to you. Just consider it an ‘Only in New York’ experience!” Then the other guy says, “and here’s another one: ‘Ladies and gentlemen on the train, it’s this guy’s birthday. Let’s singing Happy Birthday to him!” and they did. Doffing my cap to the singers on the train, I felt absolutely ridiculous, but it was definitely an unsurpassed Only in New York experience.
The flight from Milwaukee to LaGuardia featured the charter plane usually reserved for the Milwaukee Bucks basketball team. Since it’s designed for seven-footers, there was plenty of leg room, and everything was generally more comfortable than normal. However, they had to kick off one ticketed passenger because there were fewer seats than normal. I have to say, I’m glad it wasn’t me.
Instead of paying an arm and a leg for a cab, I took a city bus from LaGuardia into Manhattan. The bus provided a nice little tour of Astoria Queens (now a predominantly Greek and Eastern European neighborhood) and then over the East River to Harlem. I didn’t get back to either of these places, but they both looked like interesting neighborhoods that I’d like to explore more next time.
My hostel, the Central Park Hostel, was located on 103rd St. and Central Park West. It was cheap ($26 a night) and had clean bathrooms and showers, but the beds were uncomfortable, and the place did not offer towels. This Korean guy who was on the top bunk of my bed kept complaining about how there was no safety rail and how he could fall in the night. I pointed out to him that I had slept on a top bunk for years and had never once fallen off. Finally, to shut him up, I switched with him, and tried to tune out his incessant fidgeting.
I had some time to kill before meeting Lynn in the evening, so I decided to walk from the hostel to Times Square, a whopping 61 blocks. The streets aren’t lengthy (unlike the avenues, which are very lengthy), but it was still a good walk.
Times Square is an extraordinary sensory overload, which flashing neon lights and huge advertisements everywhere. It’s unceasingly packed to the gills with tourists. However, only a few blocks west is Bryant Park, a lovely green space with refreshment stands, bocceball courts, and free wireless internet.
I met up with Lynn, and we grabbed a bite at an excellent pub near Grand Central (whose name escapes me) before heading up to Shea Stadium for the Mets game.
Located in remote Flushing Queens, Shea Stadium is not one of the better places to see a ballgame. It’s so near LaGuardia Airport that planes fly noisily overhead every few minutes, and the stadium has very little style. The PA system, in particular, is tinny and deafeningly loud. That said, the weather was perfect, the 51,000 fans (the Nats usually get around 20,000) were enthusiastic, and the baseball on the field was first-rate. The pregame celebration honored Ralph Kiner, a prolific slugger in the 1940s who has been the Mets broadcaster since their founding in 1962. Dozens of old stars showed up to honor Kiner, from Yogi Berra to Tom Seaver to Bob Feller to Keith Hernandez. If you’re not a baseball fan, let me tell you, this was a big deal. The highlight of Kiner's speech was his opening comment: "Thank you very much, it's an honor to be here. Actually, at my age, it's an honor to be anywhere." As for the game, 41-year old future Hall of Famer Tom Glavine pitched a 1-run, 2-hit masterpiece, at one point retiring 16 consecutive batters. He got his 298th career win (only about 20 pitchers in MLB history have won 300 games, and it’s considered an automatic ticket to the Hall of Fame), and the Mets beat the Cincinnati Reds 2-1.
The long subway ride home from Flushing to Manhattan was enlivened by the presence of two loud-mouthed New Yorkers who spent the entire time slinging joke after hilarious joke. One guy tried to convince me that the Museum of Sex was the best thing to see in New York and that it was his only outlet since his wife wasn’t giving him any. The two of them were yukking it up the entire time, and then one of them gave me a commemorative Mets blanket, saying, “I got two kids and one blanket, and I know they’ll just fight over it, so instead I’ll give it to you. Just consider it an ‘Only in New York’ experience!” Then the other guy says, “and here’s another one: ‘Ladies and gentlemen on the train, it’s this guy’s birthday. Let’s singing Happy Birthday to him!” and they did. Doffing my cap to the singers on the train, I felt absolutely ridiculous, but it was definitely an unsurpassed Only in New York experience.