An Urban Excursion. Part One

The Setup: Two friends and I spent a Saturday in New York City. Here follows an account of our experiences.


At 10:30 AM the Staten Island Ferry pulled out onto Hudson Bay. We found ourselves surrounded by languages foreign to our own. Kris could spot the Europeans by their shiny jackets and other clothing – the two standouts were French and German.

Upon landing we made the first trek to South Street Seaport, which lead us under a long overpass. Here’s the thing about New Yorkers, especially the young, trendy ones: they all jog. Tights, iPods, chic sportswear, the works. I stopped counting the runners after fifteen.

At the Seaport itself we encountered a charming and fascinating individual: a nameless woodcutter, early sixties, his hands knobbed and callused from thirty years of honest work, holed up in a ship storage carrier that doubled as his shop. He was very friendly, speaking with a heavy New York accent and earnestly communicating to us his passion. The place was crammed with ornate signs, half-finished ship prows, piles of books and maps and tools. We signed his guestbook, where people from across the world had already put their names. The woodcutter told us he’s encountered many celebrities, and that even Jimmy Carter once paid him a visit. While he spoke to us, an excited Asian tourist who obviously spoke no English ran into the shop, snapped a photo, then dashed out. According to the woodcutter this was a pretty common occurrence.

We climbed the Seaport mall to the promenade that overlooked the Brooklyn Bridge and where once across time Gene Autry and Frank Sinatra sang and danced before a Hollywood camera. The Seaport was a glimpse at the New York City of a simpler past, but it was quickly swallowed by the busy business structures that truly welcomed us to the Big Apple, such as a sleek grey marble Abercrombie & Fitch skyscraper.

St. Paul’s church greeted us next, an old chapel (constructed in the Rococo style according to Kris) oddly situated in the middle of downtown New York City. The small churchyard behind it marked the graves of men and women so ancient the tombstones were illegible. Like so many other parts of the city, St. Paul’s was intimately connected to the 9/11 tragedy and still coping with its strange shadow over the present. In the city’s moment of crisis the church had served as a sanctuary for the rescue workers – and suddenly the small exhibit featuring George Washington’s pew didn’t really matter as much. The murals of old photos, faces of men and women who died, and the written prayers prayed over them gave the old church a greater purpose.

In the place where the Twin Towers once stood is a construction site walled off from the public; not that we necessarily needed to see it, to walk atop the ground itself, but knowing the place is being rebuilt, like the renewed hope of the city’s people, was enough.

A lengthy ride on the Metro spat us out at Central Park East. We bought vendor hot dogs and ate them while sitting on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was then that the beautiful weather really struck us. The sky was blue, air cool and crisp; the city was alive but not thrashing or choked with too many bustlers.

We allowed ourselves to be swallowed into the Met. Through the Medieval/Byzantine section (Taylor thought it torturous that we couldn’t linger there for hours) and round the spiffy new “Guitar Heroes” exhibit, we eventually contented ourselves with wandering around the 19th century European and 20th C. Modern sections. Far be it from me to comment on all we saw there, but some of the highlights: Rembrandt, JMW Turner, Van Gogh, Monet. People move quickly though a museum – everyone except the children who are bored and sit on the benches, leaning sleepily on their father’s shoulder while mother patiently studies an original Singer-Sargent on the wall. It is a place where artistic minds flourish, like the older man who sat furiously sketching Carpeaux’s sculpture Ugolino and His Sons. The drawing was beautifully rendered, but one could see he had done it so many times before it was like breathing.

We took a short detour through Central Park. Here a giant statue of Hans Christian Andersen sadly mourned the orphaned children of 9/11 (as Taylor observed); here a lone man in sweats shadowboxes on the hill. The hipsters share the same tranquil park trail as the middle-aged dog walkers and custodians loudly argue with themselves.

After another blurring, screeching subway ride we mounted the slimy stairs into the open air, only to be hit full on with a delicious aroma: street-side kabobs. Kris had been talking these things up all day, so of course we each bought one. The middle-eastern vendor handed me the chicken kabob, smeared with barbecue sauce and skewered on a stick. But wait, there’s more: the whole kabob was then stuffed in a bun too small to accommodate it. I wasn’t sure how to begin eating it, and unthinkingly I voiced this concern aloud.

“Ah, you must go to school for that,” he said in his thick accent with a cheeky grin.

I took a bite of the succulent meat, and saw that it was very good. I told the vendor this.

“Of course,” he replied. “You think I be out here if it was not good? I’d go home!”

After getting a bit turned around and consulting our magic map a few times, we finally came upon Rockefeller Plaza (which is sort of nestled in a spot off the main drag and not immediately noticeable). 30 Rock was massive, touching the sky high above and making me dizzy. The LEGO store certainly awakened my inner child, but it was especially packed with kids and adults alike.

We followed 7th Ave down to Times Square. Looking back on it, I can summarize my thoughts thus: “Here is our culture. Advertisement and overstimulation.” Everything pops brightly, beautiful people fifty feet high loom over you, and everyone, I mean everyone is trying to sell you something, whether it’s the giant face of P. Diddy plugging some cologne or an obnoxious man on the street hounding you.

“What are you doin’ tonight?” one loud, obtrusive spokesman yelled at us. We basically ignored him, to which he responded, “Now y’all are true New Yorkers. You know what you doin’.”

It felt strangely like a fair or something similar because most of Broadway was blocked off to cars, allowing us to wander freely in the street without fear of the speeding yellow death (taxi cab). We slipped into the Times Square Toys R’ Us, which basically looks and feels like a toy magazine and/or commercial blew up, scattering legos and plush dolls and strange novelties every which way. Here we encountered Spider-Man (who I suspect was just an actor), an enormous T-Rex and Optimus Prime. Kris bought two of these collectible mini LEGO figurines, which accounted for half of our collective purchases of the day.

Next we trekked to Bryant Park, a small square behind the regal, granite-carved Public Library. Here ping-pong tables sat in the open air, people wheeled and careened about on the public ice rink, and preteen boys sold Welch’s fruit snacks out of a box. Kris began to assemble his LEGO figurines on a small open-air café table while I watched two European women try to take a picture of one another in front of the ice rink. I was amazed that people would snap photos of rather mundane things – corner coffee shops and law offices and the like – just as often as the well known landmarks. The foreigners were determined to get the full NYC experience, and so they aimed their cameras not only high aloft to capture the skyward towers but also straight across at other people, New Yorkers, going about their daily business.