New York City: Sunday
Taking the New York subway on weekends can be maddening. There are invariably track changes and certain trains that aren’t running, or are running on different tracks, or are bypassing certain stations. It’s not uncommon to have to make 2-3 transfers between lines. The announcements over the PA on the trains and in the stations are usually incomprehensible, and I’ve found that the best way to get where you’re going is to set aside plenty of time, ask people as you board whether the train is going uptown or downtown, and be prepared to walk a few blocks to your destination. It gives me a whole new appreciation for the relative efficiency and cleanliness (you can eat and drink on the N.Y. subway) of the D.C. Metro, although it’s worth remembering that D.C. is a small fraction of New York’s size and population.
After catching up on sleep, I made it down to the Empire State Building around 10:30am, only to find a 60-minute wait for a trip to the top. I realized I’d have to force myself to show up earlier the next day.
I wandered around midtown for awhile, taking in the sights such as the Chrysler Building, Penn Station, and Madison Square Garden before boarding the F train for what I was told would be a looooooong ride to Coney Island, on the ocean at the very southern tip of Brooklyn.
Coney Island is a place I’d heard about from my grandparents, who took my father and his brothers there when they were kids. It’s apparently being closed down at the end of this summer and renovated, and it’s supposed to reopen in a few years as a more modern theme park a la Six Flags. I decided that this really was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, so I didn’t go to the Mets game for which I had a ticket. I tried to sell it in the hostel, but the barbaric foreigners either hadn’t heard of it or didn’t like it (the foremost proof that America really is #1).
The trip from Midtown Manhattan to Coney Island took about 50 minutes. I was supposed to meet my high school friend May-Mei at 2:00, but I got there about 25 minutes early, so I eagerly got in line to ride the Cyclone, the historic roller coaster built in 1927. After waiting extra long to be in the first car, I rode the exhilarating 2-minute ride. It’s incredibly fun, with 60 degree drops and loops galore, but it definitely feels 80 years old. The ricketty wood made it seem like the structure could collapse at any second, and the lack of a head pad made it feel like you got whiplash on every drop. I splurged on a souvenir picture of me grinning like an idiot on the ride while the woman behind me struggled not to lose her lunch.
I met up with May-Mei, and we wandered around the park. We took a ride on the Wonder Wheel, the ferris wheel built in 1920, and we went through the cheesiest haunted house ever. Then we wandered down the boardwalk and back up to the original location of Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs. We were highly amused by the presence of an attraction called "Shoot the Freak," where a person runs through this obstacle course, and you have to shoot them with a paintball gun. May-Mei was disappointed that she couldn't send me in there to shoot at, since apparently the freaks are professionals.
May-Mei took me on a little tour of Brooklyn in the late afternoon. We walked through the rapidly gentrifying borough from Park Slope, Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn Heights, and finally across the Brooklyn Bridge back to Manhattan. The parts of Brooklyn we saw reminded a lot of 8th St. SE in D.C. On one level, the gentrification is making the area safer and more attractive, but on another level, it’s pushing out all demographics except the yuppie transplants, and I worry that something will be lost when there are no people left who have roots there. I suppose there’s nothing really one can do to change that.
Incidentally, a few days later, I came across a TV documentary about the history of the Brooklyn Dodgers, the legendary baseball team which moved to Los Angeles in 1957. The Dodgers owner, Walter O’Malley, is usually credited as the Anti-Christ who broke the hearts of millions of Brooklyners purely for greed and the promise of a shiny new stadium in L.A. to replace the decaying but beloved Ebbets Field. However, this documentary argues that O’Malley pushed hard to build a new stadium in Brooklyn but was thwarted by New York’s powerful parks commissioner Robert Moses, who survived in office through 40 years and several mayors. Moses wanted a stadium built in Flushing Queens (where Shea Stadium is today), and he flatly refused O’Malley’s repeated requests for permission to build it in Brooklyn. Finally, with Los Angeles offering to build him a new stadium for free and New York officials stonewalling him, O’Malley made the logical business choice. A few years later, Moses got his stadium in Queens when the Mets were founded. Frankly, I’m mystified by what Moses saw in the Queens location. Shea Stadium is hard to access and has absolutely nothing around it (plus the annoyance of planes constantly flying overhead), while a Brooklyn stadium would’ve been in the heart of a thriving downtown scene. New York’s ability to lose TWO baseball teams (the New York Giants also left in 1957 for San Francisco) seems to me to be its all-time most idiotic screwup.
The view of Manhattan from the Brooklyn Bridge was dazzling, although the skyline still looks somewhat empty with the absence of the World Trade Center. We crossed the bridge and then took the subway up to the East Village, where we wandered awhile before finding some hole-in-the-wall bar. All in all, it was a thoroughly enjoyable day. I believe I’m falling in love with this city, warts and all.
After catching up on sleep, I made it down to the Empire State Building around 10:30am, only to find a 60-minute wait for a trip to the top. I realized I’d have to force myself to show up earlier the next day.
I wandered around midtown for awhile, taking in the sights such as the Chrysler Building, Penn Station, and Madison Square Garden before boarding the F train for what I was told would be a looooooong ride to Coney Island, on the ocean at the very southern tip of Brooklyn.
Coney Island is a place I’d heard about from my grandparents, who took my father and his brothers there when they were kids. It’s apparently being closed down at the end of this summer and renovated, and it’s supposed to reopen in a few years as a more modern theme park a la Six Flags. I decided that this really was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, so I didn’t go to the Mets game for which I had a ticket. I tried to sell it in the hostel, but the barbaric foreigners either hadn’t heard of it or didn’t like it (the foremost proof that America really is #1).
The trip from Midtown Manhattan to Coney Island took about 50 minutes. I was supposed to meet my high school friend May-Mei at 2:00, but I got there about 25 minutes early, so I eagerly got in line to ride the Cyclone, the historic roller coaster built in 1927. After waiting extra long to be in the first car, I rode the exhilarating 2-minute ride. It’s incredibly fun, with 60 degree drops and loops galore, but it definitely feels 80 years old. The ricketty wood made it seem like the structure could collapse at any second, and the lack of a head pad made it feel like you got whiplash on every drop. I splurged on a souvenir picture of me grinning like an idiot on the ride while the woman behind me struggled not to lose her lunch.
I met up with May-Mei, and we wandered around the park. We took a ride on the Wonder Wheel, the ferris wheel built in 1920, and we went through the cheesiest haunted house ever. Then we wandered down the boardwalk and back up to the original location of Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs. We were highly amused by the presence of an attraction called "Shoot the Freak," where a person runs through this obstacle course, and you have to shoot them with a paintball gun. May-Mei was disappointed that she couldn't send me in there to shoot at, since apparently the freaks are professionals.
May-Mei took me on a little tour of Brooklyn in the late afternoon. We walked through the rapidly gentrifying borough from Park Slope, Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn Heights, and finally across the Brooklyn Bridge back to Manhattan. The parts of Brooklyn we saw reminded a lot of 8th St. SE in D.C. On one level, the gentrification is making the area safer and more attractive, but on another level, it’s pushing out all demographics except the yuppie transplants, and I worry that something will be lost when there are no people left who have roots there. I suppose there’s nothing really one can do to change that.
Incidentally, a few days later, I came across a TV documentary about the history of the Brooklyn Dodgers, the legendary baseball team which moved to Los Angeles in 1957. The Dodgers owner, Walter O’Malley, is usually credited as the Anti-Christ who broke the hearts of millions of Brooklyners purely for greed and the promise of a shiny new stadium in L.A. to replace the decaying but beloved Ebbets Field. However, this documentary argues that O’Malley pushed hard to build a new stadium in Brooklyn but was thwarted by New York’s powerful parks commissioner Robert Moses, who survived in office through 40 years and several mayors. Moses wanted a stadium built in Flushing Queens (where Shea Stadium is today), and he flatly refused O’Malley’s repeated requests for permission to build it in Brooklyn. Finally, with Los Angeles offering to build him a new stadium for free and New York officials stonewalling him, O’Malley made the logical business choice. A few years later, Moses got his stadium in Queens when the Mets were founded. Frankly, I’m mystified by what Moses saw in the Queens location. Shea Stadium is hard to access and has absolutely nothing around it (plus the annoyance of planes constantly flying overhead), while a Brooklyn stadium would’ve been in the heart of a thriving downtown scene. New York’s ability to lose TWO baseball teams (the New York Giants also left in 1957 for San Francisco) seems to me to be its all-time most idiotic screwup.
The view of Manhattan from the Brooklyn Bridge was dazzling, although the skyline still looks somewhat empty with the absence of the World Trade Center. We crossed the bridge and then took the subway up to the East Village, where we wandered awhile before finding some hole-in-the-wall bar. All in all, it was a thoroughly enjoyable day. I believe I’m falling in love with this city, warts and all.