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The Stonewall Inn, Sticky Ice Cream and Pick-ups with Pianos, New York, May 2012

19 Sep

Wednesday May 16th – I wake up to find a news report online that actor Nick Stahl has gone missing; I find myself overly occupied and strangely perturbed by this news. I’ve always been a fan of his, and at one stage during my teenage years had a small crush on him.

…Okay, no, let’s be honest and make that “I had a WHOPPING BIG crush on him.” Ha ha ha! I’ve always kept half an eye on his career; he’s about the same age as me and seemed like he picked interesting movies, like Man Without A Face and In The Bedroom. I actually really liked his turn as John Connor in the much-maligned Terminator 3 – which was universally hated until the big pile of cinematic poop known as T4 came out, after which time people didn’t seem to have such a problem with T3! His disappearance left me uneasy, and pleas from his wife asking for any news of his whereabouts were sad to hear, to say the least. I would just like to say here and now that despite my big fandom, I did NOT have him locked up in my cellar or anything like that! Ah well. Time will tell where he is, I guess. (Addendum: it was later discovered that he had gone on a giant drug bender and turned up only when he needed more money for drugs. He then went to rehab, left rehab, went missing again, and at that point I started to care just that little bit less…)

After breakfast at home, I wandered down 7th Avenue to the Village, to get a closer look at the Stonewall Inn on Christopher Street. When I was a teenager in the UK and my mum was away on business, I used to stay up late and watch all these ‘unsuitable for teenage audiences’ late-night movies on Channel 4. One night they had a movie about events at the Stonewall, and although I must admit that I was so young I didn’t fully understand everything that was going on (one scene where a man heard about the death of Judy Garland and then killed himself left me particularly perplexed at the time… “Why would you kill yourself over Judy Garland?” I thought), it did leave a fair-sized impression on my psyche. I must remember to seek out that movie and see how much better I understand it now, at this age! Anyway, later research revealed parts of the real story. The Stonewall Inn was a gay bar, which in the 60s in America (and a lot of other places, for that matter) was a big no-no. I believe that, at the time, it was also illegal to be LGBT or a cross-dresser, too. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.

Anyway, in the late 1960s, after years of suppression and now in an era of civil rights activism and liberation, tensions were, I suppose, at an all-time high. In June 1969, the police raided the Stonewall Inn, looking to arrest ‘deviants’, and after excessive use of force (not to mention the basic injustice of the whole situation) was observed, there was resistance… then a crowd gathered outside, the bubble burst, and the next thing you know there’s riots on Christopher Street. These riots continued over a number of nights, the riots turned to protests, and this turn of events was basically the catalyst for the gay rights movement and gay pride. Quite something, eh? From little things, big things grow. The Stonewall Inn now is kind of a non-descript place, a little hole-in-the-wall bar, but it proudly bears a giant rainbow flag across the front wall. Across the road there’s a small park that holds statues of same-sex couples, commemorating the events at the Stonewall. I personally find the statues a bit ugly (they’re all white and just a bit robot-looking), but the idea behind them is a good one. The park is pleasant and usually filled with a small handful of curious tourists, people scarfing down sandwiches from nearby delis and the odd guy asking for change.

I left Christopher Street and took a circuitous little toddle around the Village. I passed the narrowest house in New York at 75 ½ Bedford Street (2.9 metres wide, apparently), previously home to a selection of writers and actors. It was on a beautiful street, but to be honest, if I had the money they had I’d probably pick somewhere a bit more spacious, despite the novelty of being able to claim the narrowest living room EVER!!!

I eventually made my way to Bleecker Street, where I stopped at Cones Ice Cream Artisans for a quick snuffle at their selection. I had heard that the ice cream was almost chewy, which piqued my interest. As I approached I shared a smile with a guy who was sitting outside in the sun, and he followed me in – turns out he was working there. I tried a whole bunch of delicious flavours, from ginger to lemon to corn (according to the sign, it is ‘Brazil’s favourite’, but it was a bit weird for me, even as someone who loves corn), but in the end I opted for the chocolate. And, true to the rumours, the ice cream was – and I can’t explain how – a bit chewy, but not substantially so… kind of like cotton candy after you’ve had it in your mouth for a few bites and it bunches together briefly before dissolving. And it was yummy to boot, so I was a very happy girl. I wandered past Murray’s Cheese Shop, once more resisting the urge to go inside and go nuts like the proverbial bull in a china shop, only because I didn’t want to carry around cheese all day only to come home and find it had died a smelly death. A few steps down the road I was greeted with a confusticating sight. A ute (a ‘pick-up truck’ to our North American friends, I think) was parked on Bleecker Street, and another ute had pulled up alongside it. In the back of each vehicle was a man in a beret playing a piano. Real pianos. Big pianos. And both of these guys were singing and laughing like loons. Did I just drop acid without realizing it? No camera crews or anything that I could see, just two guys playing piano in berets on Bleecker. Nice.

After a nice long walk, I eventually found a subway station and went up to the Uniqlo on 5th Avenue. When I had gone in the other day I had discovered that they do FREE alterations on their jeans, which to a shortass like me is a godsend! Even the ‘short’ length trousers in stores are usually too short for me, so I always end up spending a buttload on tailoring (if I don’t just let the extra couple of inches drag on the ground)… when I saw that Uniqlo did it for free I was like, “JEAN FRENZY!!!” I picked up my new, fabulously-fitted jeans and then walked north until I hit the south-east corner of Central Park, passing those poor stinky carriage horses, and then took a walk along Central Park South.

Wow. Talk about a case of ‘how the other half lives’. Swanky hotels and apartment buildings with smart awnings, and doormen who eyed me suspiciously if I veered too close to the doorway. I passed two or three people hailing cabs, all of whom were wearing beautiful cologne. The views of the park and northern Manhattan from any one of those hotel rooms or apartments must be simply stunning. I started to imagine what it would be like to live there, but my reverie was interrupted by a man shouting into his mobile phone outside a very, VERY expensive-looking building. He had one foot in a giant black car and looked just like one of the head honchos from the Godfather; slicked-back black hair, striped long-sleeved collared shirt, big gold bling necklace and rings… Mafia? I think so. As I passed, he was yelling into his phone (sounding dangerously like Robert De Niro in Goodfellas), “YOU WANNA COME HERE MOTHERFUCKER?” I made sure to give him a wide berth and keep moving VERY QUICKLY.

I made it to Columbus Circle alive, and then got on the subway. It had been my intention to get off at 18th Street and go home, but instead I stayed on til 14th and went to the Chelsea Market. On the way, I passed a fried chicken joint called Dirty Bird To Go… I must remember to give it a try some time! Once at Chelsea Market, I dropped into Anthropologie and browsed around, drooling at all the beautiful clothes, and by the time I came out the food places at the market were closing up. I walked home along 8th Avenue, passing two guys who were freestyling just for the fun of it, one-upping each other with their rhymes.

I dropped off my jeans and looked around for dinner, feeling terribly indecisive. Nothing really appealed, and I had forgotten to pick up my book at the apartment so I didn’t really want to sit at a restaurant and stare into space. In the end I found myself in front of my apartment again. There was a police officer standing, as usual, in the door of the cop shop across the road; he waved hello, and then a police car pulled up in a spot just in front of him. Next thing I know, the cop in the car uses his loudspeaker to shout at his friend, “WHY YOU BEIN’ SO LAZY?” I snorted with laughter as cop number 2 got out of his car and they had a friendly tussle. It’s nice to see that there’s a sense of humour in there.

I eventually decided just to go to the Garden of Eden market to pick up a few things for dinner (they have a great hot food and salad selection), and then came home to read. I tried turning on the TV but really it was such bad reception that it wasn’t worth it, and it just looked like Law & Order on every channel so I gave up and went back to my book. After eating, I wasted time on the internet. The connection was dropping in and out, and when it was working it was terribly slow, kind of like the shitty internet you get if you forget to pay a bill and they put you on dial-up speed. I was worried for a moment (“Would Annie have forgotten to pay the internet bill? Surely not…”) but decided not to give it any more thought; it was time to be disconnecting and getting to bed anyway!

Thanks for stopping by,

Tara.

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Extremes of North and South: From The Bronx To Lower Manhattan, New York, May 2012

22 Oct

Wednesday May 9th – Having signed up for a walking tour of Da Bronx, I woke up early and bounced downstairs to grab my roasted garlic bagel with cream cheese for brekkie before meeting up with the tour group. Our guide for the day was Ed, the same elderly gentleman who’d taken us around Harlem on the day that I met Calvin. The weather was  dreary (again) but I think I was finally getting used to it! The group was a mixed bag of quiet French folk (plus Hicham, on his last day in NYC) and a travelling group of Aussie beer yobs who had apparently been on a 4-day bender and decided to actually not drink before noon today. I will simply never understand people who go halfway across the world and spend bucketloads of money just to get pissed with other people they already know, and never actually get to experience anything new because they’re too busy nursing a hangover or looking for the next beer. Often these people have ‘lists’, and they just run around and go, “Tick! Empire State Building! Tick! Times Square!” without actually stopping to look around. Ugh. I have to admit that these guys were slightly less offensive than your usual yobs; they actually bothered to greet me, even if it was with bloodshot eyes and the stench of too much deodorant over unwashed bodies. Usually yobs like that tend to ignore me because I don’t look like ‘one of them’ and/or because they think I don’t look shaggable (which is just fine by me, because the feeling is mutual!). Anyway, they had shown a little interest by signing up for a non-specific walking tour of a lesser-known area of NYC, so I decided not to hate them…! Wow, sometimes I’m such a snob. ;P

Anyway, first stop on our tour was Yankee Stadium, and I smugly stood back while the others peered through the entrance trying to get a glimpse inside. I am SO glad that I got to go to a game with Charlie! We passed the mini Statue of Liberty poised on top of a small strip mall (“Why go all the way downtown when we can see Lady Liberty from right here?” – Ed) and then walked up to a large park opposite the Borough Hall. Ed valiantly tried to explain some of the local politics but it was drizzling and we were all cold; the little brown squirrels bounding around in the park actually kept our attention longer.

It turns out that Ed grew up in a poor part of the Bronx, throwing peanuts down onto passers-by from his fire escape and sleeping out there when the weather was hot. He talked about meeting a girl from ‘the other side of the tracks’ and how unhappy her parents were that he was from that neighbourhood (the marriage later ended in tears, although who knows if that was one of the reasons…). He also told us about some of the social problems that the Bronx had had… not that we really needed to be told, seeing as the Bronx’s notoriety spreads further than just New York. Crime, drugs, poverty, shabby ghettos, unemployment, violence, we’ve heard it all. A lot of New Yorkers still view the Bronx with a suspicious eye; telling anyone about my forays into the area, I was greeted with a horrified look and a “What on earth did you do THAT for?!?”

There is one episode in the history of the Bronx disturbs me particularly: a time during the 1970s when large swathes of buildings burnt to the ground. Ed said that the projects built to house people after the second world war became so run-down, crime-riddled and uninhabitable that the people who lived in the projects started to burn down their own buildings in the hope of getting new, improved ones built. Now, I wasn’t sure that people would have burned down their own homes voluntarily, but after doing a bit of reading I find that the theory was considered quite plausible – people were desperate to get out and obviously some thought that lighting a fire was the only way to do it. I’m sure that insurance fraud wasn’t out of the question, either, and thanks to the ‘white flight’ from the neighbourhood (I’m appalled that it happened enough for someone to coin the phrase), a lot of buildings were abandoned for long periods of time and ended up in the hands of gangs or squatters. Thinking about it, it’s possible that the gangs were paid to burn down the buildings by shonky owners trying to make a quick buck off property whose value had plummeted, but that’s just a theory. And then of course, you’ve got the likelihood of a higher-than-average accidental fire rate, purely by virtue of the fact that most of the buildings weren’t being kept up to regulation standard with fire safety.

Whatever the cause, big chunks of the borough went down in flames – not just apartment buildings, but schools and other infrastructure too. Apparently, at a Yankees game in the late 70s, the TV broadcaster shifted the focus from the stadium to a helicopter view of the Bronx dotted with out-of-control fires; the commentator is alleged to have uttered the words, “Ladies and gentlemen, the Bronx is burning.” It all sounds very dramatic, and I’m sure it was, but there’s some doubt as to whether the guy ever actually said the words, and it DOES happen to be the title of a book and a movie that came later, so I suspect that it is the stuff of urban legend rather than a direct quote. Still, I get a shiver down my back when I think of what life could have been like in the Bronx in the 70s, if people were so desperate that they set fire to their own homes rather than continue living in them.

From today’s perspective, and from the very little experience I personally had in the neighbourhood – most of it based on that day in Melrose – I saw an area that was very quiet (probably due to the rain), and not without its issues (signs for free HIV tests and quickie divorces lined the streets), but which seemed to be well on its way to clawing itself out of the doldrums and into a better time. The current majority of Puerto Rican and Dominican communities have finally, it seems, had enough, and neighbourhood initiatives run by locals seem to be changing the face of the area where government initiatives might have failed. New housing developments intended to offer home-ownership opportunities to low-income families are springing up, and they look a damn sight better than some of the older projects that are still standing. I’m sure that there’s still work to be done, but it’s nice to see that things can change, given the chance and the right encouragement.

We wandered through Melrose, typically one of the poorer areas (I think), past old barns forgotten amongst the newer buildings, and past large walls covered from top to bottom with brightly-coloured graffiti. We even passed an old German church, founded in 1862, red brick with a smattering of green moss. A police station had posted a large sign offering cash for guns. Most interestingly for me, a fire station bore a series of slogans, proclaiming this engine ‘The War Wagon’, and their little mascot was a hand-painted Garfield climbing up a ladder, flames licking at his orange-and-black-striped backside, underlined with the words ‘Not To Worry.’ I hadn’t thought of the firefighters’ perspective when I thought about the Bronx burning. Imagine being on the receiving end of all the flack! From the people, from the city government, from the media… what a shit time that must have been for them too.

After our walk through the residential area, we ended up on Melrose Avenue (I think it’s also known as 3rd Avenue), which was packed with shops and families and human hustle and bustle… a nice change from the backstreets! The tour ended here; some stayed to do a little shopping (which was likely to be cheaper than shopping in Manhattan), and Hicham and I jumped on the subway at 149th Street with Ed. I briefly considered going to the Bronx Zoo, which is apparently free on Wednesdays, but I had other activities up my sleeve for the afternoon. Sadly, that was to be the last I’d see of Hicham; his plane was leaving that afternoon, so he went in one direction (boo hoo!) and I went in another – I stayed on the subway and made my way to Chelsea Market to meet Calvin, Karen and a couple of his old Uni friends.

Now at this point I suppose I should clarify what had been going on with Karen. If you’ll remember, she was a harmless girl – and friendly – but she was very, very negative about New York and seemed to see me as something of a tour guide. Alarm bells went off in my head the first time I met her and as much as I was friendly to her, I tried to keep my distance because I didn’t want to end up as anyone’s babysitter. Every night when I got back to the hostel, Calvin, Hicham, Karen, myself and any other waif and stray that fancied it would catch up to shares stories of the day and just hang out. Karen managed to strike up a friendship with an older Brazilian lady and spent a lot of time with her. Despite the absolute language barrier, they seemed to get on and this worked out as well for her as it did for me – she got a companion, and all I had to do was field nightly questions about her activities the next day. Still, every night Karen asked if I would like to join them the next day or the next evening, and I usually made polite excuses. Now, as it turned out, this Brazilian lady had just left New York and Karen was more than a bit scared of being alone. Calvin and I had been making arrangements to meet at the Chelsea Market for lunch the next day (along with some other friends of his), so I had extended the invitation to her and she accepted. She then said that she wanted to go to Central Park and asked if I wanted to come after we’d been to the market. Now, I had two months to see Central Park if I wanted to, and the weather had been rubbish up to that point, so I told her that if the weather was particularly sunny I might come, but if not then she was on her own. I also told her that if her plans changed, not to worry – Calvin and I would be meeting anyway so if she didn’t turn up we wouldn’t be offended, and we’d just assume that she was off having fun somewhere.

Anyway, the time to meet came and I waited outside the market; Karen was the first to show after me. It was absolutely tipping down with rain at this point. Karen looked up and said, “Hmmm, pretty crappy weather, eh? Never mind, I’m sure you and I will find something to keep us occupied in Central Park!” At which point I looked at her, and she at me, and I told her (as I had done the day before) that I would not be going to Central Park in the rain. What followed was a tantrum of almost epic proportions (and when you consider it was coming from an adult, it was definitely epic). “But I wanted to go to Central Park! And I can’t possibly go alone! And you have 2 months in New York, so why can’t you just go again later and just take me around the park today? I don’t want to be alone! It’s scary! And New York is horrible anyway! And I was at the NBC studios earlier and I could have gone on a tour, but I came here instead to meet you and now I can’t go back for the tour AND go to see Central Park! I don’t know how to get there! Why can’t you show me around?” etc etc etc, ad nauseum. I couldn’t believe it. I managed not to blow up in her face, and explained quietly that I HAD made it quite clear that I wouldn’t be going if the weather was bad, and that just because I had 2 months here didn’t mean that I wanted to waste any of my time, and that I hadn’t stopped her from going on her NBC tour – she knew that Calvin and I would have carried on without her. The ‘angry Sri Lankan eye’ look must have been coming out of me, despite my best efforts to contain myself, because she pulled her yapping head in and turned instead to giving me the silent sulky treatment. I now understand that she came not to see the Chelsea Market, but to have company in Central Park, but I think that I had been very clear about my expectations the night before, and refused to be made to feel guilty by some childish little twerp chucking a wobbly. That might work with Daddy at home, Karen, but not with me.

So, Karen sulked throughout lunch, poking at her food and destroying her own experience of the market, and I did my best to ignore her, just wishing that she WOULD simply bugger off and go back to the NBC studios or traipse about in the rain in Central Park. Thankfully Calvin and his friends arrived, and I pulled him aside to let him know what was going on. I was still fuming! His friends must have just thought Karen was wierd; she gave them the silent treatment too, and then claimed not to understand them when they spoke, which is bullshit because their English was great. Childish behaviour aside, we had a pretty nice lunch; I had a great southwestern shrimp and sweetcorn chowder from Hale & Hearty, plus a bit of my favourite raisin, semolina and fennel bread from Amy’s Bread (drool). I can just never get enough of it. Calvin also opted for soup, managing 2 giant servings, and his friends went for sushi. I can’t even remember what Karen had; I think it was a sandwich from Hale & Hearty. Calvin’s friends cleared off quite quickly after eating; I think they had a lot of things they wanted to do before the day was over!

A delicious Fat Witch Brownie with rose icing!
New York, May 2012

When we’d finished eating, I tried to figure out how to get rid of Karen. It seemed like her fear of being alone was going to drive her to hang out with us all afternoon, even if she was unhappy and didn’t get to do the things she wanted (and made everyone else miserable in the process). Calvin and I exchanged desperate looks. We tootled around the market, hoping she would just leave if she thought we were doing boring things. I still didn’t want to have to be overtly mean to her, but gawd she was being a pain. We stopped by Fat Witch Brownies and I was delighted to find that today’s special creation (every couple of days they create something slightly interesting and different, and sell it from a little cabinet on the counter) was an original brownie covered in a swirl of pink rose-scented icing. I snarfed it down in about 3 joy-filled seconds. Chocolate and rose – genius combo.

Eventually I enticed Karen into taking a walk along the High Line and then deciding if she still fancied Central Park later, and I tried to make it clear that Calvin and I had plans of our own. She decided that she’d like to see the High Line, and I managed to allay her fears of personal safety by telling her how busy it was and really, that she would be in no danger. In the end, though, she would still not walk there by herself – Calvin and I actually had to walk her the block and a half from the Chelsea Market to the High Line entry stairs to ‘drop her off’. There was a moment there when I actually felt sorry for her; we left the market and started walking, and she was shocked that we didn’t have to check a map. She marvelled, “How do you just KNOW how to get there?” I have to remember that New York CAN be overwhelming for some people, and that not everyone is automatically a good traveller – it can be difficult. I almost considered walking with her and showing her around, and then I remembered the tanty, and the fact that I didn’t actually enjoy her company, and the fact that I had other, new things to see (and a good companion to do it with), and hot-tailed it out of there as soon as she had set foot on the stairs. Wrong? Mean? Maybe. But she was not my problem, or my responsibility, and I had already done more than could be reasonably expected by not opening a can of whoopass in her face when she went off… in my humble opinion!

Calvin tried to rationalise it for me – he said that she probably liked me, and looked up to me, and saw me as a useful source of information, and she couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t want to spend time with her, and would instead choose to spend time with some Korean guy I just met (and hadn’t known any longer than I’d known her, so why the preference?). He also said that she was probably a bit jealous of him and me hanging out together all the time, which I guess makes sense. Still, you know, as I get older, I realise that it is just not necessary to like everyone. When you’re a teenager it’s very important to get on with everyone, and to be liked by everyone, and for everyone to get on, and often you find yourself hanging out with people you don’t necessarily like just because you think that you should, or that you have to. Now that I’m older I just think, “I don’t like you. I’ll be civil, but I don’t want to spend time with you. So why should I?” But it’s still hard to put away old habits and actually act out these ideas. 10 years ago I probably would have tried to get a big group together and hang out with everyone at the hostel, all together, at the same time, but not so much any more. Quality, not quantity.

Two little people get boozy on the subway,
New York, May 2012

Anyway, philosophical meanderings aside, we ditched our little Barnacle of Negativity (yay!) and made for the subway. Passing my favourite little metal people on the subway stairs (mini sculptures are scattered around certain stations – I think on the 8th Avenue line – toasting each other with booze or hanging from metal beams), we headed for the downtown area, getting off right near the World Trade Centre. There was a man with a GIANT bunch of roses in our carriage, and I couldn’t help but wonder where he was off to, and what the occasion was!

Arriving at our destination, we first went to the WTC Memorial Preview site. I’d already seen the World Trade Centre Memorial, but I don’t think that Calvin had, and I really wanted to see the site at night as I knew that the lighting had been carefully planned, but I hadn’t yet had the opportunity to see it. We got tickets for the last entry of the day, which was fairly early – we were concerned that it might still be light outside when we had to go, but decided to give it a try anyway.

We had a few spare hours so we started exploring around the Word Trade Center. We started by reading the silver names and dates set into the ground along the ‘Canyon of Heroes’ – a tribute to all the people who had ticker tape parades thrown in their honour along Broadway. The majority of them seemed to be war veterans or sports heroes, which isn’t really surprising given America’s obsession with war and sports. I tried to imagine the scene in January 1946, when a parade was thrown to celebrate the end of World War 2; the faces and the clothes and the mood. On one hand, I think it would’ve been pretty awesome; on the other hand, they just had to live through a war – not so awesome.

We passed St Paul’s Chapel and then stopped at the Trinity Church for a quick visit. Now, don’t quote me on this, but I think Trinity Church is possibly the oldest in New York City, established in the late 1600s. It saw a bit of action during the Revolutionary War, and burnt to the ground at least twice, so what we see these days is not the original building by any means; I think it dates back to the mid-1800s. Inside, there’s a warm orangey glow cast over its (surprisingly empty) pews, and outside the burial grounds house chipped gravestones with cheery messages like, “Hark from The Tombs A Dolefull Sound – My Ears Attend The Cry – Ye Living Men Come View The Ground – Where You Must Shortly Lie.” This on the grave of a 9-month-old girl. Eeeek. There’s also a giant sculpture made from the roots of a giant tree that was overturned on September 11th, yet another reminder of how profoundly affected the downtown area was by that event.

A bored NYPD officer looks on as people take their picture with the bronze bull on Wall Street,
New York, May 2012

Continuing on our southwards journey, we came across a giant bronze bull plonked on a traffic island right in the middle of the road. And, actually standing in the middle of the road (not even on the island), was a lengthy queue of tourists, dodging traffic and fumes from passing vehicles. All of this being viewed by a pair of bored-looking coppers. What the hell? People were queueing to have their picture taken with this creature and we didn’t even know what it was. For a brief moment we considered joining the queue, and then realised it would’ve been dumb. Why join the queue when we don’t know what it is and have never heard of it? We stood and watched people come and go for a bit and thought about finding a nearby Starbucks and looking it up online, but instead settled on the idea of just asking one of the people who’d finished with it. So, when a likely-looking Italian guy dodged across the street after having his picture taken, we accosted him and asked him what the hell was going on. “Why is the bull important? Why are people taking their pictures with it?” His answer? “Uh… I don’t know. There was a queue. I thought it must be important, so I joined it and took a picture.” EH?!? The second person we asked was just as clueless. Honestly. Why were these people wasting their time if they had no idea what it was all about? Just so they could SAY they’d seen the bull, despite not actually giving a shit? Ugh. In the end, Calvin crossed the street, narrowly avoiding being turned into strawberry jam by a large truck, and questioned some of the people in the queue. He spoke to about three people before he got an answer: that the bull represents the strength of Wall Street. So, I guess I missed out on this little tidbit somewhere along the line. You learn something new every day! But I have to say, it’s a bit ironic. Because let’s be honest, since 2008 and the crash, Wall Street has hardly been a symbol of economic strength, has it? But it looks like some people see this statue as a New York icon… enough to dice with a messy death, even. We decided that, having never heard of it, nor holding it particularly dear to our hearts, we could safely advance without joining the queue or snapping a picture of us hugging the bull.

We backtracked a little, turning up Wall Street proper and finding ourselves before that bastion of economic bewilderment: the New York Stock Exchange. Situated on a little cobbled crossroads, with streets barely wide enough to squeeze a couple of horses along them, the imposing front of the NYSE looms over all. Since September 11th, tourists have been forbidden from entering, more’s the pity. I’d love to see all the legendary screaming and yelling and waving of fists that goes on in there. Instead, we had to entertain ourselves with the myriad of sights that met us outside the walls. Parked right outside was a very expensive, very shiny, very black Mercedes with batwing doors. I think the real term might actually be gullwing, to inspire the idea of flight and strength, but batwing sounds cooler and more realistically implies the fututrismo ridiculousness of the design! Money, money, money… all the cars parked along there reeked of money, and the people getting out of them even more so. A couple of cuddly-looking security guards in red caps loitered nearby, and two female police officers shared a quiet joke about a badly-dressed tourist.

Steam issued from a nearby subway vent as an ageing lone nutter yelled abuse at the NYSE at the top of his lungs. Upon closer inspection, we discovered that he (and a small gaggle of unwashed teenagers nearby) were a small delegation claiming to belong to the Occupy Wall Street movement. A small metal barrier had been erected in front of them, though whether it was meant to separate us from them, or them from us, I can’t say. I suspect that Occupy Wall Street would probably rather separate themselves from this old guy, because he was certifiably nuts, and I’m also guessing that the lethargic teens were just trying to be appear to be rebels; they didn’t actually seem to be doing anything except rolling cigarettes.

I’m in two minds about the Occupy Wall Street movement. On one hand, SOMEBODY needs to speak out against the corruption, greed and general all-round stinkiness of fat corporate yes-men. The world is imbalanced, and it’s true: we are the 98%. There were a lot of people out there making a very good point. But then, we are also a part of a smaller percentage of folk in the world with a western perspective, who generally have the RIGHT to protest and can still have the luxury of a hot meal afterwards… which makes us, on a global scale, a minority. And so, on the other hand, I really think they needed to be more specific about their demands. Yes, power to the people, but to what end? Perhaps the corporate-controlled media just made sure that we, the general public, never got to hear any actual demands…? I don’t know. A great idea, fizzling out sadly because of a lack of direction. And with a bad PR rap because they stopped people from getting to work of a morning, or getting home of an evening – people who were just generally hard-working minions trying to pay a mortgage and feed their kids. And then an even worse PR rap because nutters from all over joined the ’cause’, along with anarchists, yobs and loopy teenagers looking to piss off mummy and seeing a convenient opportunity without actually having to do anything. Sigh.

But anyway, there he was, standing alone against the might of Wall Street, his filthy hair matted to his head and his ragged fingernails clutching a hand-written sign, the writing on which I couldn’t make out. All that was left (on that day, anyway) of the once-heavily-populated Occupy Wall Street.

We left him shouting to the rooftops and started taking random twists and turns down side streets. In this part of Manhattan, it truly is Old School – these streets were here from the founding of the settlement (in some shape or form), and the grid system is not only lost but apparently deliberately opposed. The city grew from here, evolved out of muddy gutters right out of the bottom of Manhattan. Here is where you find some of the oldest, smallest buildings tucked down little lanes and alleyways behind skyscrapers. Once they were small workshops and waterfront businesses, but now they are swanky bistros and elitist retro-nouveau-haute-cuisine restaurants for the mega-earners of the Financial District. Pedestrian crossings and traffic lights can be few and far between (the roads are only a couple of metres wide anyway, in some places), and the street surfaces are brick instead of concrete or tarmac. One can almost imagine a bunch of drunken Dutchmen of New Amsterdam, wearing big pantaloons, emerging from a pub and stumbling blindly down to another tavern to find some wenches (actually, I’m pretty sure that that tradition probably still endures, except the drunks wear Armani suits and Rolex watches instead of britches with buttoned-up bum flaps).

The Fraunces Tavern, NYC

All this thought of drunken carousing and feasting on grouse with greasy fingers was making me hungry, and the wind screaming down the alleys wasn’t helping. Luckily, Calvin had the hungers too, and just as we were about to get desperate (neither of us had budgets that would stretch to the latest ‘it’ venue for food in this neck of the woods, and it was hard to find anywhere that wasn’t a historical building smothered in chrome or black silk, all signs of megabucks meals) we stumbled upon the Fraunces Tavern. This little gem turned out to be (allegedly) New York’s oldest building and tavern, and I would be inclined to believe it. You could almost FEEL the history, and the worn wood floors and old wooden beams in the roof screamed of ‘Ye Olde Yesteryear’. George Washington apparently downed a few drinks within its walls, so we knew we were in good company. Squatting near the corner of Pearl and Broad Street, the tavern is divided up into different sections, each for different drinking or eating purposes, plus a museum at the back; we entered through the very sophisticated-looking whisky lounge (if I remember correctly)… I fancied snuggling up in one of the dark, high-back leather chairs and sitting in the gloom with a glass of something strong and a cigar, but then I realised that I am NOT Donald Trump and that I don’t drink, so we moved onto the much more airy general bar and dining area, where the tables are made out of old sewing machine trestles and the seats are covered in animal hide. The menu was actually pretty reasonable, and made even more so by the fact that we had arrived during happy hour. For a measly $3 I got a bowl of deliciously crispy thick-cut chips, and for a few bucks more I got some scallops wrapped in bacon, sitting atop a pile of warm spinach. Calvin tried a sampler plate of burger sliders, all with different fillings, and we drank enough water to drown a small duck.

Mmmmm… late lunch at the Fraunces Tavern, NYC

Much warmer than we started, and digesting happily, we followed our noses and somehow found our way back up to the World Trade Centre site. I’ve said my piece on the events of September 11th and what the World Trade Centre Memorial is like; if you want to read it again, you can find it here and here. This time, I was here to see the lights. From what I understood, the fountains looked spectacular at night, and the names of the people who died had been punched out of the metal surrounding the fountains so that when darkness came, the lights from the fountains shone up through the spaces, illuminating their names. Calvin and I sat for a while, quietly chatting and people-watching, waiting for the sun to go down. We were both driven nuts by all the people sitting on the name boards, and the tourists flipping the 2-fingered, big-smiley LOOK AT ME! pose. I don’t think that we should all stand around weeping and tearing at our hair, but we should at least show enough damn respect not to rest our asses on the names of the people who died here, don’t you think? We were even inspired to photobomb a small Japanese group who were all gathered together with big cheesy grins, pointing up at the tower for their pose and smiling. Maybe we missed the joke, but it’s not the bleeding Leaning Tower of Pisa. So we crept up behind and pulled a crazy face; I dread to think what they’ll do when they go home, look at the picture and find a bizarre pair in the background! We also wanted to ruin the photo of a stupid middle-aged butthead who lifted his young, hot girlfriend up onto the name boards to sit and then cuddled up for a photo, but unfortunately getting behind them to sneak their picture would have involved flying above the fountains, so we resisted.

Anger management issues aside, the sun finally started to disappear about half an hour before the site was due to close. The lights came on, and wow, it was beautiful. The base of the fountains glowed warmly, and all around the edges the names of the lost burned brightly. In true darkness I’m sure they would have been even more outstanding, but as it was, it was still beautifully done, and a really nice tribute. My heart caught in my throat a little when I noticed the name of ‘Vanessa Lang Langer and her Unborn Child’ gleaming in the half-light; I’d never thought about the pregnant women of September 11th and the families they left behind who dealt with not only one loss, but two.

The lights at the World Trade Center Memorial at dusk,
NYC, May 2012

The site was starting to empty out and the security guards were giving us the beady eye; we briefly considered running around the tower footprints to see if they’d chase us out, but then decided that it would probably end in a tasing or a shooting and was therefore was a bad idea. And so, having seen what we came to see, we left the WTC site for the last time. We stopped briefly at a little gift shop-come-museum on the way out, which was full of schoolkids. Projected onto the back wall of the store was footage from projectrebirth.org , with survivors telling stories of their experience, and testimonies from the people left behind about how they were moving on with their lives. Harrowing stuff, but mostly with an air of hope for better things in the future.

We got on the subway and went all the way uptown, back to the hostel stamping grounds. Calvin would be leaving tomorrow – boo hoo! We decided to stop at a nearby Ben & Jerry’s to fill up before heading back to the hostel; I got some sort of Heath Bar Crunch cone thing that was freaking DELICIOUS. We chatted to the guy behind the counter and listened to the radio before heading home. It was wierd; Hicham had already gone, Karen was nowhere to be seen (not a bad thing), and Calvin was about to leave… our time at the hostel was nearly over. Mine too, seeing as I only had a night or two left there. We grabbed our laptops and met in the common room for the last time, and had a fairly quiet late evening… ‘and then there were two”!

Thanks for stopping by,

Tara.

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