Day 8 – Sunday 6 May 2019. New York City, United States of America
New York, New York: the self-proclaimed capital of the world, the most highly populated city in the USA with a population 8.4 million, spectacular sights, excellent museums, Broadway shows, cosmopolitan inhabitants, the city of literature, film and TV. And we are ‘doing’ it in seven hours. Ho hum. Let’s get started.
We awoke at 0400 (just in time for the Morning Watch, I thought ruefully), the better to see the Verrazano Bridge, which joins Staten Island to the mainland, as we passed under it with just a few metres to spare. I threw open the curtains and stepped out onto the balcony. It was as black as your hat. It was foggy. It was cold. And it was teaming down with rain. Nothing was in sight except a clanging red navigation buoy, beating out an eclectic tune like a bell ringer seeking plague victims. I retired to the warmth of the cabin and avoided Jane’s eye: best not be in the firing line when Jane vented her spleen about the weather, and this time it was not even British weather. We watched the bridge pass overhead from the comfort of our cabin and started to dress for the next highlight, the Statue of Liberty, due in about half an hour. This we would not be able to observe from our cabin. Suitably wrapped up, we ascended to The Lookout, an open gallery located on 13 Deck immediately above the ship’s bridge. We had some difficulty in opening the exterior door – Jane had not had her shredded wheat for breakfast yet – but eventually forced our way out into an atmosphere of what can best be described as the inside of a dishwasher: it was dark, the wind buffeted us from all directions, and the pelting rain drenched us. We moved rapidly into the lee of the clear windscreen, located at head height, and could just make out through the speckled glass, in the distance, a pale green lit-up Statue of Liberty. This was not the welcome to New York that we had envisaged. Then Jane had a brilliant idea. We went back inside, entered the adjacent lift, and descended eleven decks to the passageways that surround the theatre and cinema, where we usually play Scrabble or chess. There, entirely on our own and through huge picture windows almost on the waterline, we saluted the Statue of Liberty as we steamed past.
We were alongside the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal at 0630 (yep, still raining) and took an early breakfast. We were required to muster for our excursion in the Royal Court Theatre at 0730, though I noted that there would be a delay in disembarking because of a problem with the ship’s winches and securing us alongside. I winced at the reference to, “we will soon be tied up”: it was always hammered into me that shoes are tied up, ships are secured. Standards, standards. But maybe that is just warships. And so, at 0730, to the theatre where we were given stickers to wear, ‘Coral 6’ – ‘coral’ referring to the colour, which translates as ‘pink’. We gathered in a sort of corral of seats at the back of the theatre and eyed up our fellow tourists, like you eye up fellow patients in a doctor’s waiting room. A mixed bag: possibly two pukka sahib PLUs, an English family of three including a long-haired boy of about 12 (why is that child not at school?), a male couple, a collection from Liverpool…We had booked a ‘smaller group’ excursion, paying extra in order to enhance the experience. Clearly, Cunard’s definition of ‘small group’ did not match ours: we expected no more than 12, but there were 24 people sitting in our little area. Hrrrmph.
Eventually our number was called and we crossed the brow into the terminal building and the US immigration process. Enough has been said about this torture in the open literature already, so I will not add to it (I dare say UK immigration is just as bad for foreigners). Suffice it to say that we stood in a long zig-zagging line for an hour in a very noisy aircraft hangar containing fork lift trucks and luggage, and I did not make a smart remark to the immigration officer, who proved to be perfectly pleasant. Our bus, when we finally emerged from the terminal building, was a small furniture van. Or, at least, that is what it looked like to British eyes. It was gleaming black, had a long bonnet like a lorry, and had blacked out windows. Inside it was modern and very nice, but packed solid. Two seats at the front were reserved for the disabled so we squeezed into the last two seats on the long row of seats at the very back. Hrrrmph Mark 2. Fortunately, it appeared we were the last to join so we were offered the reserved seats in the front, which we accepted with alacrity. This was unfortunate for another couple, who then appeared, late, and got our old seats in the back. And so to New York.
Well, of course, we could not possibly take in the whole of New York City, which comprises five boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Staten Island, Bronx and Queens with only the Bronx on the mainland, the rest being islands. Our tour was of Manhattan, which most people identify as the main or significant part of New York: the bit that holds all the well-known places such as Times Square, Broadway, Wall Street, Greenwich Village, Kojak and so on. Our tour guide was Irving, a wiry middle-aged New Yorker with a forthright and slightly abrasive manner that immediately guaranteed him Jane’s enmity. He was clearly a tourist guide who fundamentally disliked tourists, like a man allergic to bees imprisoned in an apiary. I did not find him too bad, but it was true that he was not terribly approachable, had no sense of humour, and had assertive leadership skills that were a bit scary in someone meant to be hosting us. On the plus side, he was very effective at guiding the bus driver around the hazards of the New York Cycle Marathon, and gave a good spiel about the various locations we visited.
We drove through the Battery Tunnel that joins Brooklyn to Manhattan and took in Tribeca (derivation, Triangle-Below-Canal-Street) and Hell’s Kitchen. We stopped for a stroll through Strawberry Fields (part of Central Park dedicated to John Lennon) and were given the opportunity to photograph a hallowed mosaic called Imagine; Jane photographed the nearby plants instead, while I observed, incredulously, a dog that was wearing a raincoat and defecating in the park. On to Upper West Side, Trump Tower (where we stopped to pass water) and the Rockefeller Centre. At the last of these we rode the lift to the top of the tower (68 floors in 43 seconds) and promptly rode the lift down again; the summit was shrouded in cloud. Jane also indulged herself with a large Ben and Jerry’s ice cream as we toured the shopping centre in the basement, so that was her satisfied for the day. Jane likes ice cream almost as much as she likes botanical gardens and penguins. We then moved on to Grand Central Station for lunch (as you do) and it proved to be a remarkable experience.
The decline of rail travel in the USA in the 50s, 60s and 70s led naturally into the decline of the infrastructure that goes with it, and Grand Central Station was inevitably part of that neglect. The station reached a point of disrepair where developers were eyeing it up for demolition, to be replaced by yet another tower block. Fortunately, a conservation group sprang up and was successful not only in getting the building ‘landmarked’ (the US equivalent of the UK ‘listed’), but also in raising funds to restore the building to its former glory. The result was magnificent. We entered an amazing subterranean world of sandstone arches on various levels, connected by broad sweeping ramps and staircases, with arches inscribed with legends such as ‘Tracks 30 – 60’. For some reason I started humming Chattanooga Choo Choo in my head. Although trains still run from the station (regional trains to the north, and the subway), much of the building is now dedicated to retail. The central hall was still used for its original purpose and was huge, imposing and inspiring. Our guide then took us, via a system of descending ramps, to an even lower level where we were to be left for an hour to obtain our lunch. We were quite hungry and I was looking forward to some typical American cuisine (whatever that is) taken in genteel surroundings. As we descended, the noise level seems to rise and we entered a heaving ants nest of humanity, a cacophony of noise and smells and movement. It was The Food Court.
Readers of this journal will recall my aversion to Food Courts as a source of culinary satisfaction, after my experience in Melbourne. This was worse. Far worse. There were food outlets everywhere, each selling fast food of just about every different type of world cuisine, and each with big queues waiting to be served. Clumps of tables and chairs were clustered here and there, all packed solid. We wandered around like two lost strays, completely out of our element, and looking for a quiet little café selling, perhaps, an Eccles cake or a scone with a pot of tea. Strangely, there were no establishments doing that and we couldn’t even find a seat and table where we could have a drink of American coffee. Without any disrespect to the American people in general, or New Yorkers in particular, it was absolutely awful. I would no more have considered eating in that bear pit than I would have considered sleeping in an iron foundry. So, by mutual consent, we ascended to the higher levels in search of a higher alternative. I announced that I was happy to skip lunch, but Jane wanted a bottle of water, which we found easily. We moved on to explore some of the shops, bought some sleeping pills that you only seem to be able buy in the USA, then I found a hot dog stand. What can be more American than that? We had a really good chat with the vendor, who had spent two years in the UK playing for the Wasps rugby team, then I bought a ‘New Yorker’ and ate it while leaning against a wall. Hot dogs with all the trimmings are not the easiest of things to eat and I soon had mustard, ketchup and sauerkraut all over my hands, and this mysteriously managed to transfer itself onto my face, hair, sweater and Barbour jacket. Fortunately, mummy had some tissues with which to wipe me down, tutting in the process. At least she didn’t moisten her handkerchief first with saliva, like my real mother used to do.
After lunch we were back on the bus and took in Broadway, Times Square and Wall Street, then on to the 9/11 Memorial, which was a very moving experience. Imagine, if you will, a large square hole in the ground, a square with side length of about seventy yards. Now think of a wide rampart or wall around this square at waist height, with a sloping top that faces outwards. Now think of looking over the rampart, into the hole, and seeing a waterfall on all four sides, falling about thirty or forty feet to a pool which has, in turn, another square hole in the middle into which the water disappears. Well, there were two of these square holes, side by side, one for each of the Twin Towers that had been destroyed and located on the same footprints as the towers. Around the top of the surrounding ramparts were the names of every victim of 9/11 in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania, all inscribed in metal. Each square, or hole, was one acre in area and the two were set into a tree-lined plaza. To one side, Tower No 1, a 104 storey office block soared and disappeared into the clouds. On another side a subway station and subterranean shopping centre were contained in a futuristic building with a roof like the wings of a dove. This was called the Oculus (Greek for ‘the eye’ apparently) and it was immaculate inside. The only tree to survive the 9/11 disaster, a pear tree, still stands as ‘The Survivor Tree’. The whole thing, the memorial, the Oculus, the Tree, had been very well done and we were deeply moved by the former.
Back into the furniture van for the final leg before returning to the ship, a drive through Downtown and Greenwich Village. Now this was nothing like the rest of Manhattan. It was obviously older, with narrower bumpier streets, and lower buildings with those external fire escapes like you see in films. Even the streets had names, as opposed to numbers. Greenwich Village was a bit shabbier, a bit more dirty, and had a bit more graffiti and litter than Midtown and Uptown, but I thought it also had a bit more character: its older buildings, its varied small shops and cafés. It would have been worth exploring on foot. But it was 1600, and we had to be back onboard by 1630, so back through the Battery Tunnel to Brooklyn, goodbye to Irving, and back into the terminal building It also stopped raining at that point. The only sour memory of New York was Jane receiving an unpleasant harangue from the Port Authority security guard for not removing two nickels from her jacket pocket before passing through the metal detector and thus setting off the alarm; he then turned his ire on the rest of the party and ordered us, basically, to sort ourselves out before defiling his machine. What a rude man and the only unpleasant New Yorker we met in the entire trip.
So, summary of a seven hour tour of the biggest US city in just a few terse sentences. The first thing that struck us was how nice it was to see trees everywhere in such a very urban environment; it added much to the good impression. The city was very busy, despite it being a very wet Sunday, and there was much honking of car horns. The roads, in very long fairly dark canyons between city blocks, actually reminded us of Sydney though, I suppose, it ought to be the other way round. I liked the logical numbering of the streets and avenues. We loved Central Park. We even liked Trump Tower with its opulence and peaceful adjacent courtyard (nice lavatories too). The Rockefeller Centre was all right, but not brilliant; the underground shopping area dark and unappealing. Grand Central Station was very impressive and even the Food Court left a lasting impression. The 9/11 Memorial was sombre, beautifully designed and deeply moving. Greenwich Village, though shabby chic, had style. We were confused by prices showing only the cost before tax and by quarters with what looked like a ‘1’ on them that we thought meant ‘1 dollar’ (Jane was quickly disabused of this belief). Dislikes? None except for the rude Port Authority Security man. Of course, next time we will stay for at least a week and walk around Manhattan. Graffiti, 5% (and that only in Greenwich Village and Brooklyn); dog turds, 1 (and that only outside the terminal building); litter, 1%; dossers and tramps, NIL; skateboarders, NIL; friendliness, 99.999%.
We sailed at about 1730, escorted by a very slick-looking NYPD launch with a flashing blue light. I also noted that there was a NYPD police officer on the bridge, kitted out with body armour and an assault rifle, which was both reassuring and scary at the same time. We opened our second bottle of bubbly, retained in the fridge for the occasion, and toasted New York from our balcony. By the time we came in we were frozen stiff, squiffy, and zonked out: we had been awake for fourteen hours. A hot shower, an early supper of fillet steak, and we were tucked up in bed by 2030 and unconscious by 2045. It was all like a dream.
"A Very Vintage Chap..." 