New York
New York is a blur. Three days just ain’t long enough for this city, even on the third visit. But in the city that never sleeps, we did manage a few hours here and there so maybe that’s why we couldn’t fit everything into three days.
It was meant to be four days. We were supposed to arrive 6am Monday morning but instead we reached our accommodation at 2am on Tuesday. Now let me tell you about our accommodation. The uncle of a friend of a friend just happens to have a spare apartment in the Chelsea part of Manhattan and he just happens to be a slightly eccentric New York jew. Funny guy though, and a great story-teller.
So we arrived at this place and collected the keys from the 24-hour deli downstairs and not long after the owner, Victor, drops by to show us how things work – he lives nearby and seems to be awake 24/7. The place had lamps galore, as well as kooky collectables and a huge bookcase. He told us half the books there came from a film shoot that was once done in his apartment.
The next morning we were immediately struck by how different NY is to San Fran (and probably the rest of the US). It’s such a competition to see who can be the toughest and the most independent that it’s actually quite funny. It’s that whole thing of nobody having anytime for being polite in NY. Although, I don’t think it’s actually got anything to do with time, I think it’s just all show. Anyway, it’s hilarious and I love the city. I remember wandering around NY on my own when I was 16 and trying to be first to cross the road before the lights changed just like they all did.
The only problem this posed for me was that it meant there weren’t many conversations I could overhear and record. It’s not that I deliberately tape people’s conversations but wandering the streets recording atmos picks up some great snipets of random conversations. There was lots of conversation and random shouting on the streets and in the buses of San Francisco but sadly not so much in NY because everyone was keeping to themselves. I wish I was recording when wandering back to the apartment on 7th Ave late one night and I hear ‘So this guy was about to go to court and then he has a heart attack and dies’. On the radio pieces that could’ve been used in!
We checked out Brooklyn and Williamsburg on the first morning because we didn’t get a good look through this up and coming area last time. After lunch I went onto SoHo and got all excited because there were so many cool shops – a shop called ‘Bags’, a shop called ‘Shoes’, a Camper store, Sephora, Aveda, a MOMA store and plenty of indie designers. I probably didn’t buy anything because I had good intentions of getting back there but my bank balance is happy I didn’t.
My bank balance certainly wasn’t happy that I found a place called Century 21 in the financial district across the road from the World Trade Centre site. I like to think of this place as a department store where designer clothes go to die, but not so much die as be snapped up by a would be super-shopper. Can you believe that there were people walking around this place with shopping trolleys? Inside it looks like Kmart during a boxing day sale, except that it’s full of Moschino frocks, Costume National suits, Paul Smith cashmere and a plethora of other designers too expensive to have previously touched. My prize find was a Vivienne Westwood skirt which has inverted points that remind me of her Witches Suit that I saw in the V&A exhibition last time I was in London. Oh, and a teal leather laptop bag – just the plane accessory a girl needs when backpacking around the US.
Later that night we met Victor for dinner at a local Szchehuan restaurant. Many stories later we were the last to leave as Victor showed us photos of the dogs of Chelsea (there are lots of dogs in Chelsea) and he walked us back to the apartment in the freezing wind.
It seems we packed so much into our short time in NY that the rest will have to wait for another post.