NYC: a travelogue (or, The Longest Post Of All Time, Part II)
Day two.
Despite the contrivance of the W, the bed worked. And thus we awoke suspended thirty-odd stories above Times Square, ready for day two.
Chapter seven: Breakfast (or, That And $14.75 Will Get You A Cup Of Coffee)
The first order of business was getting some grub. Our hands-down fave breakfast joint in Seattle is Roxy's Deli, and since it's right around the corner we spend inordinate amounts of time money there. Somehow dim little greasy-spoon joints that serve breakfast 24 hours have become small centers of our happiness (diannadinoble will recall Nookies in Chicago, which grew to be our favorite place in the whole city). Roxy's closes at 6:30 or something equally stupid, but still.
We've overheard several people in Roxy's ask, "Is this the same Roxy's Deli as in New York?" And the delightfully scruffy staff usually says, "Er, no." So this had our curiosity up. Roxy's, in New York? Huh. Then eagle-eye Kristan spotted the Roxy's Deli sign in the closing scene of her new favoritest movie about human fallibility, Closer. So that pretty much sealed the deal that we would have to go to the far ends of New York City to find this place.
The far ends of the New York City turned out to be directly next door to our hotel. Cool! Directly next door to our hotel turned out to be a tourist trap. Duh, not cool.
At first blush it seemed authentic enough. We looked at the menu and thought, Mmmm, good breakfasty stuff. And then we looked at the menu a little longer and thought, Great Belching Bollocks! These prices are stupider than a bag of George W's.
Figure 14: That had better be the best fucking American cheese of all time, melted or no
But hey, we were here and so was the food and obviously we weren't going to find better sustenance for less anywhere nearby, so we re-engaged with the good breakfasty stuff. Mmm, eggs. Mmmm, french toast. Mmmmmmm, bacon. Huh. Bacon. In a New York deli. Bacon? That's odd. I mean, Roxy's in Seattle is a Jewish deli with all sorts of kosherish goodies and whatnot, but things like cheeseburgers and bacon didn't really strike me as that weird, given the setting. But in NYC? Very odd. But bacon they offered and when it came, it came in a great heaping mound.
And the obviously Israeli people who got seated next to us apparently didn't expect to find bacon there either, judging by the enormous stink they raised about the bacon we ordered. They muttered and tutted and scoffed and then asked the waitress what bacon was doing on a table in arm's reach of them, and she responded, "You don't want bacon? You don't order bacon." So they didn't order bacon, very specifically and several times, and they also did not shut up about the presence of bacon on our table. We got long looks of disdain, us Heathen, happily chowing down bacon.
So yeah. Roxy's in Seattle is killer breakfast. Roxy's in New York City is simulated New York deli for the Unkenner. (As a footnote, I ran into some woman in Seattle's Roxy's the next weekend who turned out to be from New York, and she said that Zabar's is definitely the deli of choice for the city.)
Figure 15: K pondering bacon
Chapter 8: the park (or, The Park)
We decamped from the W, checked our bags with them, and headed out for our next goal: Central Park. Neither one of us had ever been to the park, and we figured it's gotta be a pretty nifty place. The weather was stupidly beautiful: a hint of chill in the air overpowered by a surge of Spring, nary a cloud to be seen, brilliant sunshine bathing the city. We set out on foot, cutting across to Fifth Avenue.
Fifth Avenue on a Sunday morning is swarming with people who think they are tremendously important. To be fair that's probably true at pretty much any other time too, but it seems particularly vivid on a bright Sunday morning. We strolled past Tiffany's (as in, Breakfast At) where several tourists had their cameras out and taking pictures. "Look! Just like in the movies!"
Arriving at the park we were a bit underwhelmed. It was early Spring so the grass was struggling to get some momentum going from brown to green, and the leaves were only just emerging on trees. A lot of the open areas were roped off to let the new grass grow in. Layers of twigs and leaves left over from Autumn were still visible in the shadows. The park was emerging from the deep sleep of Winter, stumbling around in an open bathrobe and slippers, unshaven, grasping a mug of coffee, tousling its hair and wondering what the hell time it was. None of us are in our best shape first thing in the morning, and so too it is with parks.
What it lacked in sprawling grassy areas and leafy trees rustling in the wind it made up for with sheer quantity of loos.
Figure 16: Judging by the forensic evidence you'd think it would be easier to find coffee shops here
As we wandered deeper into the park it began to change in character. It's bigger than you expect. Even now that you have read this, it's bigger than you expect. We remarked on how uncrowded it was, and this on the second stunningly gorgeous day of Spring and on a weekend at that. The place is big enough that even on that day you can explore the park and not feel consumed by throngs. Amazing, amazing place and probably one of the reasons that New York can manage to exist.
We passed some ponds with people rowing about and came upon The Ramble, an area that very much resembles a real forest with winding paths. The trees absorb the sound of the city and you'd think you were off in a woods someplace, not smack dab in the middle of Gotham. And this quickly became one of my favorite spots on Earth, sitting on massive granite rocks in the dappled shade, gazing out over a pond with the skyline of Manhattan rising above the trees.
Figure 17: New all-time favorite picture of K
Figure 18: Even in the throes of Spring, New York just wants to be in black + white
Beautiful place. We missed Zoe, who would have been happy exploring the city and thrilled to be bounding through the trees. We missed Bergen and Dayde, the latter of which likely would have been similarly thrilled to be bounding through the trees after the dog, the former thrilled by sight of the latter. As much as it seemed like the kind of place we'd like to keep secret and to ourselves, it's in freaking Central Park, so really we could miss everyone. All of our friends should have been there. Picnic, food, frisbees, Austin and Usama bickering over how to light the grills, Zoe chasing after Austin and causing him to yelp like a little girl, Melissa laughing with us over the oddness of a chorus across the water singing the entire Canadian national anthem in French, Matt hunkered down on a rock and people watching or disappearing into the woods in search of trouble (and later returning in triumph, having inevitably found it), the DiBlooms spread out on a blanket and wondering if Izzy would remember any of this. You all should have been there.
Eventually we tore ourselves away and wandered towards the edge of the park. We could have easily spent hours more there, but the departure time was looming before us and there was much more to do. We wanted to get down to the southern tip of the island to see Battery Park with a view to the Statue of Liberty, the World Trade site, lunch in the Village, and whatever else we could pack in before the Fung Wah departure at four-thirty.
We wandered past another small pond for people with remote controlled boats. Someone had mounted up an egregiously large telephoto lense onto a 35mm camera (and a large flat panel monitor) and pointed it at the buildings overlooking the park. For one, it's stunning to think how much the condos with rooftop gardens overlooking the park must go for; and then it was very New York to see this guy sitting there obviously trying to get pictures of the residents through their windows with nobody really taking notice.
We caught a cab to take us down to the south tip of the island, amazed at the density of interest in the city. We passed the United Nations and the Brooklyn Bridge and the driver asked if we were going to Battery Park or Battery Park City. Crap. I couldn't recall which was which and after a couple of false starts went with Battery Park City. They're right near each other so it's not really that big of a deal, except that one of them looks out across the water to the Statue of Liberty and the other sets you on the edge of Ground Zero.
Chapter 9: World Trade (or, The Place Of Falling Ghosts)
Battery Park City is the complex directly West of the World Trade site that sits atop the PATH station, and looks across the water to Jersey. We weren't really prepared to be there yet, but in a way that's an appropriate way to experience it. I realized a few seconds before we got there what we were about to see, but still it was stunning. In the dense pack of lower Manhattan there is a scar of openness. Empty space that should not be. A vivid lack, an inescapable volume of air that felt wrong. It was silent and made you want to stoop your shoulders and stare at the ground. Nietzsche said, When you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you; this abyss was inverted and stood above ground, and I had the distinct feeling that if I turned my eyes upward it would be staring at me, into me, silent and sad and weaping tears of falling bodies.
We could not help but to examine the neighboring buildings for indications of damage. Most of them had no visible markings, but surprisingly the buildings directly north (where the top of the North Tower hit) were still under construction. We walked around to the North to the main viewing area to the East. The site itself is now largely a cauterized wound. Clean, even, closed. A portion of one of the World Trade outbuildings was still standing -- the remnants of a stairwell with rubble still lying on it, a vivid reminder of the chaos and likely deliberately left the for the time being.
The mood was somber, and things that did not mesh really stuck out. There is a sporting goods store right across the street that had a big sign facing the site: "SALE! BIG SAVINGS!" and yet I could not look at it without thinking, I remember -- they used that as a morgue. The tourists there snapping pictures were also an odd distraction -- "Look! Just like in the movies!" It felt weird and rubbernecky. Some girls pulled up in a car blaring hispano-hip-hop and got some snapshots but didn't bother turning down the music.
The spectacle of all this really grated on K. She was bothered by the idea of the falling bodies. Actually, it wasn't the idea of the falling bodies that got me. It was the inescapable idea of impact, the immediate fact that somebody landed there. And there. I am standing in a pool of blood, among the organs and airplane parts and the reek of burning jet fuel and the sound of firefighters running into the building where they will be crushed and ground to paste. That awful void above me screamed downward and would not be ignored.
Kristan was obviously as moved by this as I was, and couldn't deal with the rubbernecking contingent. She wanted to be away from there. We walked away, and discussed what the point of going there was. It was mercifully without raging jingoistic patriotism, but it still felt a little sickening to go and gawk. Unlike me, Kristan has actually been to a concentration camp in Germany. We talked about that a bit. I think it's similar in many ways, paying homage to a disaster.
I knew a lot of people that were there that day. Only one died (on one of the planes), and that was a fairly indirection connection. Still, being there and knowing that that's where the piece of building landed and that's where the people emerged from the subway and that's where the plane impacted helped me resolve things a bit.
We walked, leaving the place of falling ghosts behind us.
Chapter 9: Battery Park (or, At Least It's Not World Trade)
Battery Park is the southernmost tip of Manhattan. Across the water toward Jersey stands the Statue of Liberty, and the squat Ellis Island complex lies on the far shore. This was the first time I've seen the statue without being a little awestruck by it. As a kid it was a thing of somewhat mythical proportions for some reason, like Santa Claus or Antarctica. Something that was more concept than anything, and seeing it embodied -- even at the age of 25 -- was really stunning for me. Maybe it was because we were still in the emotional shadow of planes versus buildings, but it seemed like just another thing this time.
It was good to be out in the open area with people talking and laughing and the blazing sunshine washing over us. We wandered a bit along the edge of the water and K felt obliged to get a tourist snapshot with the Statue of Liberty in the background.
Figure 19: Kristan's forehead is roughly as tall as the Statue of Liberty
It was pushing noon, so it was getting time to find some lunch and retrieve our bags from the W. Walking back up from the park a traffic cop stopped cars to allow K to cross. I'm satisfied living on the fringe benefits of being married to a hot young thing. We cabbed our way back up to Washington Square Park and wandered back into the Village in search of eats.
Chapter 10: The Village (or, Nice Joint They Got Here, This New York)
Finding a charming sidewalk cafe in Greenwich Village is like finding a traffic jam in Boston. I was really taken by the Village, I have to say. We snagged a table outside, the shade making for perfect balmy temperatures and the sunshine making for yet more people watching and the people watching making for yet more conversation. New York street life is definitely the ultimate in American reality TV. I still think that New Yorkers are generally arrogant and ignorant to the rest of the world, but I have a better understanding of why now. There's so much going on, why would you bother with anything else?
Throughout the trip K kept remarking, "How did I manage to not live here?" This was the major theme over lunch, as we both decided that New York is on the list of possibles (along with Vancouver and San Francisco). And if in some bizarre twist that did happen, I'd definitely be pulling for Village residency. It's as close to Fremont as I could really find: quirky and buzzing with curious goings-on. But then, we both noted how New York just isn't Fremont. There are no mountains in every direction. The ocean is there but it's entirely different. The city is everything and if the city isn't everything for you, well, the only thing left is Jersey. Or Long Island. Or -- yeesh -- Connecticut. Blegh. The closest that New York has to the great outdoors is the faux wilderness of the Berkshires in Massachusetts. If we traveled the same distance from Seattle we'd be on the summit of a mountain in the Canadian Rockies, gazing out onto the Pacific and reachable only by helicopter.
On the other hand, upon returning to Seattle I was surprised at how small it seems. It's like small town America in comparison. The bottom line is that New York does not have many of the other things that so many other cities have. On the other hand, no other city has New York.
Epilogue (or, Hey, It's One Of Those Sign Things)
Another cab to the hotel, then another cab back to China Town. Well, kind of. We got caught in the narrows of SoHo and traffic ground to a halt. The car was being outstripped by the pedestrians, and K was a bit antsy to get to the bus on time. So we paid off the driver and got out. For about four blocks we actually kept pace with the cab, but then it suddenly opened up and we were left there with lots of blocks to go and not so many minutes until four-thirty. So it was a hard march down to the Fung Wah, but we made it in time to be near the front of the line. Again, a nice bus but a little jarring to hear this diminuitive Chinese woman yelling, "FOH TEHTY BUS! FOH TEHTY BUS! FOH TEHTY BUS!" at the shell-shocked white folks getting on board. More jarring yet when she saw people she assumed to be Mexican and yelled, "ANDOLE!"
And just like that, off we went. On the trip back we actually got a dinner stop somewhere in the wasteland of Connecticut. This poor Roy Rogers burger joint was actually beset by three Fun Wah busses simultaneously. I amused myself with thoughts of the utterly overwhelmed staff of this otherwise sleepy burger shack in back in the managers office saying, "We all quit now."
And then, weird thing. We're sitting on the bus waiting for some moron who wandered off for fourty-five minutes, and I look over at the windows of the building. There are vending machines inside with their backs up against windows. And inserted between the glass of the window and the back of a vending machine is a small cartoonish painting of a rain cloud.
Figure 20: Non sequitur painting
Figure 21: Detailed view
K and I have seen paintings just like these posted up around Davis Square in Boston. Whoever makes them often mounts them up on street sign posts (e.g. below No Parking signs) and the public works departments seem to leave them be. I've seen maybe a half dozen of these in Boston, always slightly different but always obviously done by the same person. They're always paintings of concrete things but conceptual in nature (like clouds, but not people). And they're entirely non sequitur -- no context, no meaning, no relation that I can tell to anything at all.
I think these are brilliant. It's like the smart version of graffiti: guerrilla art that's inexplicable but somehow fits some otherwise inscrutable purpose. And here was one in effing Connecticut, at some po-dunk Roy Rogers. Does the artist ride the Fung Wah? Is there some connection? What does it mean? The fact that I don't know is something that I really enjoy.
Back on the bus. Back to Boston. The next morning, back to Seattle with me and back to school with Kristan.
New York. Neat place.
Despite the contrivance of the W, the bed worked. And thus we awoke suspended thirty-odd stories above Times Square, ready for day two.
Chapter seven: Breakfast (or, That And $14.75 Will Get You A Cup Of Coffee)
The first order of business was getting some grub. Our hands-down fave breakfast joint in Seattle is Roxy's Deli, and since it's right around the corner we spend inordinate amounts of time money there. Somehow dim little greasy-spoon joints that serve breakfast 24 hours have become small centers of our happiness (diannadinoble will recall Nookies in Chicago, which grew to be our favorite place in the whole city). Roxy's closes at 6:30 or something equally stupid, but still.
We've overheard several people in Roxy's ask, "Is this the same Roxy's Deli as in New York?" And the delightfully scruffy staff usually says, "Er, no." So this had our curiosity up. Roxy's, in New York? Huh. Then eagle-eye Kristan spotted the Roxy's Deli sign in the closing scene of her new favoritest movie about human fallibility, Closer. So that pretty much sealed the deal that we would have to go to the far ends of New York City to find this place.
The far ends of the New York City turned out to be directly next door to our hotel. Cool! Directly next door to our hotel turned out to be a tourist trap. Duh, not cool.
At first blush it seemed authentic enough. We looked at the menu and thought, Mmmm, good breakfasty stuff. And then we looked at the menu a little longer and thought, Great Belching Bollocks! These prices are stupider than a bag of George W's.
Figure 14: That had better be the best fucking American cheese of all time, melted or no
But hey, we were here and so was the food and obviously we weren't going to find better sustenance for less anywhere nearby, so we re-engaged with the good breakfasty stuff. Mmm, eggs. Mmmm, french toast. Mmmmmmm, bacon. Huh. Bacon. In a New York deli. Bacon? That's odd. I mean, Roxy's in Seattle is a Jewish deli with all sorts of kosherish goodies and whatnot, but things like cheeseburgers and bacon didn't really strike me as that weird, given the setting. But in NYC? Very odd. But bacon they offered and when it came, it came in a great heaping mound.
And the obviously Israeli people who got seated next to us apparently didn't expect to find bacon there either, judging by the enormous stink they raised about the bacon we ordered. They muttered and tutted and scoffed and then asked the waitress what bacon was doing on a table in arm's reach of them, and she responded, "You don't want bacon? You don't order bacon." So they didn't order bacon, very specifically and several times, and they also did not shut up about the presence of bacon on our table. We got long looks of disdain, us Heathen, happily chowing down bacon.
So yeah. Roxy's in Seattle is killer breakfast. Roxy's in New York City is simulated New York deli for the Unkenner. (As a footnote, I ran into some woman in Seattle's Roxy's the next weekend who turned out to be from New York, and she said that Zabar's is definitely the deli of choice for the city.)
Figure 15: K pondering bacon
Chapter 8: the park (or, The Park)
We decamped from the W, checked our bags with them, and headed out for our next goal: Central Park. Neither one of us had ever been to the park, and we figured it's gotta be a pretty nifty place. The weather was stupidly beautiful: a hint of chill in the air overpowered by a surge of Spring, nary a cloud to be seen, brilliant sunshine bathing the city. We set out on foot, cutting across to Fifth Avenue.
Fifth Avenue on a Sunday morning is swarming with people who think they are tremendously important. To be fair that's probably true at pretty much any other time too, but it seems particularly vivid on a bright Sunday morning. We strolled past Tiffany's (as in, Breakfast At) where several tourists had their cameras out and taking pictures. "Look! Just like in the movies!"
Arriving at the park we were a bit underwhelmed. It was early Spring so the grass was struggling to get some momentum going from brown to green, and the leaves were only just emerging on trees. A lot of the open areas were roped off to let the new grass grow in. Layers of twigs and leaves left over from Autumn were still visible in the shadows. The park was emerging from the deep sleep of Winter, stumbling around in an open bathrobe and slippers, unshaven, grasping a mug of coffee, tousling its hair and wondering what the hell time it was. None of us are in our best shape first thing in the morning, and so too it is with parks.
What it lacked in sprawling grassy areas and leafy trees rustling in the wind it made up for with sheer quantity of loos.
Figure 16: Judging by the forensic evidence you'd think it would be easier to find coffee shops here
As we wandered deeper into the park it began to change in character. It's bigger than you expect. Even now that you have read this, it's bigger than you expect. We remarked on how uncrowded it was, and this on the second stunningly gorgeous day of Spring and on a weekend at that. The place is big enough that even on that day you can explore the park and not feel consumed by throngs. Amazing, amazing place and probably one of the reasons that New York can manage to exist.
We passed some ponds with people rowing about and came upon The Ramble, an area that very much resembles a real forest with winding paths. The trees absorb the sound of the city and you'd think you were off in a woods someplace, not smack dab in the middle of Gotham. And this quickly became one of my favorite spots on Earth, sitting on massive granite rocks in the dappled shade, gazing out over a pond with the skyline of Manhattan rising above the trees.
Figure 17: New all-time favorite picture of K
Figure 18: Even in the throes of Spring, New York just wants to be in black + white
Beautiful place. We missed Zoe, who would have been happy exploring the city and thrilled to be bounding through the trees. We missed Bergen and Dayde, the latter of which likely would have been similarly thrilled to be bounding through the trees after the dog, the former thrilled by sight of the latter. As much as it seemed like the kind of place we'd like to keep secret and to ourselves, it's in freaking Central Park, so really we could miss everyone. All of our friends should have been there. Picnic, food, frisbees, Austin and Usama bickering over how to light the grills, Zoe chasing after Austin and causing him to yelp like a little girl, Melissa laughing with us over the oddness of a chorus across the water singing the entire Canadian national anthem in French, Matt hunkered down on a rock and people watching or disappearing into the woods in search of trouble (and later returning in triumph, having inevitably found it), the DiBlooms spread out on a blanket and wondering if Izzy would remember any of this. You all should have been there.
Eventually we tore ourselves away and wandered towards the edge of the park. We could have easily spent hours more there, but the departure time was looming before us and there was much more to do. We wanted to get down to the southern tip of the island to see Battery Park with a view to the Statue of Liberty, the World Trade site, lunch in the Village, and whatever else we could pack in before the Fung Wah departure at four-thirty.
We wandered past another small pond for people with remote controlled boats. Someone had mounted up an egregiously large telephoto lense onto a 35mm camera (and a large flat panel monitor) and pointed it at the buildings overlooking the park. For one, it's stunning to think how much the condos with rooftop gardens overlooking the park must go for; and then it was very New York to see this guy sitting there obviously trying to get pictures of the residents through their windows with nobody really taking notice.
We caught a cab to take us down to the south tip of the island, amazed at the density of interest in the city. We passed the United Nations and the Brooklyn Bridge and the driver asked if we were going to Battery Park or Battery Park City. Crap. I couldn't recall which was which and after a couple of false starts went with Battery Park City. They're right near each other so it's not really that big of a deal, except that one of them looks out across the water to the Statue of Liberty and the other sets you on the edge of Ground Zero.
Chapter 9: World Trade (or, The Place Of Falling Ghosts)
Battery Park City is the complex directly West of the World Trade site that sits atop the PATH station, and looks across the water to Jersey. We weren't really prepared to be there yet, but in a way that's an appropriate way to experience it. I realized a few seconds before we got there what we were about to see, but still it was stunning. In the dense pack of lower Manhattan there is a scar of openness. Empty space that should not be. A vivid lack, an inescapable volume of air that felt wrong. It was silent and made you want to stoop your shoulders and stare at the ground. Nietzsche said, When you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you; this abyss was inverted and stood above ground, and I had the distinct feeling that if I turned my eyes upward it would be staring at me, into me, silent and sad and weaping tears of falling bodies.
We could not help but to examine the neighboring buildings for indications of damage. Most of them had no visible markings, but surprisingly the buildings directly north (where the top of the North Tower hit) were still under construction. We walked around to the North to the main viewing area to the East. The site itself is now largely a cauterized wound. Clean, even, closed. A portion of one of the World Trade outbuildings was still standing -- the remnants of a stairwell with rubble still lying on it, a vivid reminder of the chaos and likely deliberately left the for the time being.
The mood was somber, and things that did not mesh really stuck out. There is a sporting goods store right across the street that had a big sign facing the site: "SALE! BIG SAVINGS!" and yet I could not look at it without thinking, I remember -- they used that as a morgue. The tourists there snapping pictures were also an odd distraction -- "Look! Just like in the movies!" It felt weird and rubbernecky. Some girls pulled up in a car blaring hispano-hip-hop and got some snapshots but didn't bother turning down the music.
The spectacle of all this really grated on K. She was bothered by the idea of the falling bodies. Actually, it wasn't the idea of the falling bodies that got me. It was the inescapable idea of impact, the immediate fact that somebody landed there. And there. I am standing in a pool of blood, among the organs and airplane parts and the reek of burning jet fuel and the sound of firefighters running into the building where they will be crushed and ground to paste. That awful void above me screamed downward and would not be ignored.
Kristan was obviously as moved by this as I was, and couldn't deal with the rubbernecking contingent. She wanted to be away from there. We walked away, and discussed what the point of going there was. It was mercifully without raging jingoistic patriotism, but it still felt a little sickening to go and gawk. Unlike me, Kristan has actually been to a concentration camp in Germany. We talked about that a bit. I think it's similar in many ways, paying homage to a disaster.
I knew a lot of people that were there that day. Only one died (on one of the planes), and that was a fairly indirection connection. Still, being there and knowing that that's where the piece of building landed and that's where the people emerged from the subway and that's where the plane impacted helped me resolve things a bit.
We walked, leaving the place of falling ghosts behind us.
Chapter 9: Battery Park (or, At Least It's Not World Trade)
Battery Park is the southernmost tip of Manhattan. Across the water toward Jersey stands the Statue of Liberty, and the squat Ellis Island complex lies on the far shore. This was the first time I've seen the statue without being a little awestruck by it. As a kid it was a thing of somewhat mythical proportions for some reason, like Santa Claus or Antarctica. Something that was more concept than anything, and seeing it embodied -- even at the age of 25 -- was really stunning for me. Maybe it was because we were still in the emotional shadow of planes versus buildings, but it seemed like just another thing this time.
It was good to be out in the open area with people talking and laughing and the blazing sunshine washing over us. We wandered a bit along the edge of the water and K felt obliged to get a tourist snapshot with the Statue of Liberty in the background.
Figure 19: Kristan's forehead is roughly as tall as the Statue of Liberty
It was pushing noon, so it was getting time to find some lunch and retrieve our bags from the W. Walking back up from the park a traffic cop stopped cars to allow K to cross. I'm satisfied living on the fringe benefits of being married to a hot young thing. We cabbed our way back up to Washington Square Park and wandered back into the Village in search of eats.
Chapter 10: The Village (or, Nice Joint They Got Here, This New York)
Finding a charming sidewalk cafe in Greenwich Village is like finding a traffic jam in Boston. I was really taken by the Village, I have to say. We snagged a table outside, the shade making for perfect balmy temperatures and the sunshine making for yet more people watching and the people watching making for yet more conversation. New York street life is definitely the ultimate in American reality TV. I still think that New Yorkers are generally arrogant and ignorant to the rest of the world, but I have a better understanding of why now. There's so much going on, why would you bother with anything else?
Throughout the trip K kept remarking, "How did I manage to not live here?" This was the major theme over lunch, as we both decided that New York is on the list of possibles (along with Vancouver and San Francisco). And if in some bizarre twist that did happen, I'd definitely be pulling for Village residency. It's as close to Fremont as I could really find: quirky and buzzing with curious goings-on. But then, we both noted how New York just isn't Fremont. There are no mountains in every direction. The ocean is there but it's entirely different. The city is everything and if the city isn't everything for you, well, the only thing left is Jersey. Or Long Island. Or -- yeesh -- Connecticut. Blegh. The closest that New York has to the great outdoors is the faux wilderness of the Berkshires in Massachusetts. If we traveled the same distance from Seattle we'd be on the summit of a mountain in the Canadian Rockies, gazing out onto the Pacific and reachable only by helicopter.
On the other hand, upon returning to Seattle I was surprised at how small it seems. It's like small town America in comparison. The bottom line is that New York does not have many of the other things that so many other cities have. On the other hand, no other city has New York.
Epilogue (or, Hey, It's One Of Those Sign Things)
Another cab to the hotel, then another cab back to China Town. Well, kind of. We got caught in the narrows of SoHo and traffic ground to a halt. The car was being outstripped by the pedestrians, and K was a bit antsy to get to the bus on time. So we paid off the driver and got out. For about four blocks we actually kept pace with the cab, but then it suddenly opened up and we were left there with lots of blocks to go and not so many minutes until four-thirty. So it was a hard march down to the Fung Wah, but we made it in time to be near the front of the line. Again, a nice bus but a little jarring to hear this diminuitive Chinese woman yelling, "FOH TEHTY BUS! FOH TEHTY BUS! FOH TEHTY BUS!" at the shell-shocked white folks getting on board. More jarring yet when she saw people she assumed to be Mexican and yelled, "ANDOLE!"
And just like that, off we went. On the trip back we actually got a dinner stop somewhere in the wasteland of Connecticut. This poor Roy Rogers burger joint was actually beset by three Fun Wah busses simultaneously. I amused myself with thoughts of the utterly overwhelmed staff of this otherwise sleepy burger shack in back in the managers office saying, "We all quit now."
And then, weird thing. We're sitting on the bus waiting for some moron who wandered off for fourty-five minutes, and I look over at the windows of the building. There are vending machines inside with their backs up against windows. And inserted between the glass of the window and the back of a vending machine is a small cartoonish painting of a rain cloud.
Figure 20: Non sequitur painting
Figure 21: Detailed view
K and I have seen paintings just like these posted up around Davis Square in Boston. Whoever makes them often mounts them up on street sign posts (e.g. below No Parking signs) and the public works departments seem to leave them be. I've seen maybe a half dozen of these in Boston, always slightly different but always obviously done by the same person. They're always paintings of concrete things but conceptual in nature (like clouds, but not people). And they're entirely non sequitur -- no context, no meaning, no relation that I can tell to anything at all.
I think these are brilliant. It's like the smart version of graffiti: guerrilla art that's inexplicable but somehow fits some otherwise inscrutable purpose. And here was one in effing Connecticut, at some po-dunk Roy Rogers. Does the artist ride the Fung Wah? Is there some connection? What does it mean? The fact that I don't know is something that I really enjoy.
Back on the bus. Back to Boston. The next morning, back to Seattle with me and back to school with Kristan.
New York. Neat place.