T H O U G H T S F R O M & A B O U T T H E B IG A P P L E
what's the day today ? somewhere in August, 2011 for sure.
08.46pm - 74ºF - 23ºC
Erudités talk about first impressions. How lasting they are, consequently, how important it is to create a positive one. My first impression -September, many years back- landing at night in LGA, was : W-O-W. Blinking lights rising from below so high that eventually they were above my window seat level. Little starts on Earth, this must be heaven. By then I realized we are surrounded by water, and my second thought was (by those days I was almost terrified of flying) I hope we don't crash. We didn't. Lucky us.
Curiously enough, that is not what I remember when I think back of NYC.
I remember that at night, the second day (first day of actual sightseeing), swollen feet, sweaty and sticky body, undergoing the firsts signs of pot abstinence, I asked my friends "How many days have we been here now?" Not even 24h yet. I was SO ready to take the first plane back to Beaver Creek, home, the mountains, peace, sky, sun and real outdoors. But not quite yet.
We still had a busy few days schedule, which included:
- getting lost at the Bronx one night searching for the Blue Moon JAzz Club.
Not even taxis wanted to stop in the midst of the midnight darkness. And even it's inhabitants were hostile to 4 good looking, definitely well intended and very lost young girls. A-Ma-ZING! Or was it Harlem? Can't remember. It was definitely one where you don't want to get lost.
- finding that awesome argie aerial acrobats of De La Guarda were performing Villa Villa in NYC -we went to see it, of course. How good was it! That was a very welcomed plus :)
- drinking so much lemon gatorade that even today I can't even smell it,
- the classic stroll around the parks,
- the museums,
- the broadway musical,
- the under theatre,
- the ferry to the disappointing Statue of Liberty,
- the Ground Zero territory; THAT was impressive. Even now, so many years later, it is still mind blowing.
And I mean, in so many levels that it deserves a brainstorm of it's own. It's kind of -no offense please- tragicomic the hole that they made there and how symbolic it is.
- the Brooklyn Bridge at night, but because it was around the 9/11 it was not lit, mourning.
What lucky luck mine I though that night. THE one TIME I come to this place and the lights are OFF! I didn't imagine I would return so many more times in the future.
- roaming around the neighborhoods that define the city, the chinatown -biggest and most chinese of the eastern hemisphere-, the fashion district (+shopping, duh!), the Little Italy Little India Little Brazil and Lil All Around the World that paints and gives this place the variance of tones, voices, colors and shapes and stories that make it so rich.
This is one question that arouses every time I'm here. It happened that time, and it keeps happening even nowadays: maybe it's more a thought than a question.
Americans (US americans speaking, there are so many more americans to america than the US inhabitants) take a pride and joy about their country and specially this city. (Maybe I am absurdly stereotyping, shame on me!) But this city is one of the less characteristic parts of USA. I mean, it's THE symbol by excellence, but what is there here that defines it as American? Nothing here is from here. And what's from here is so brought from many other places. . . Is it about the idea? What it represents? What is that? Why is is that so many groups of people from all over come here to grab a bite of the BigApple, hoping it will magically transform their lives, yet, they don't blend in, not with the American culture, not between themselves. They just are, a mirror, a bis of what they are back home but here. I think it's funny. I think it's great. To me NYC is a LilPlanetEarth built up in a not so small -yet not half as big as I imagined it to be- terrotory. Awesome location though.
The things about NYC that I love(d), are that, avid reader as I am, so many things happened here. Not just novel plots, but actual things, like Nikola Tesla feeding pigeons, blowing up the New Yorker's electricity. Or the old days Mafia battles in the streets, the Wall Street's NY Stock Exchange and imagining all that went on there, how it outlined today's world. The fact that it's a Capital of Culture, that there is a l w a y s something going on, for the cult, the nerd, the yogui, the junkie, the yuppie, the classic... It attends all segments of population. Nowadays I also like that the taxis are going green :) They are still yellow but environmentally friendly.
Can't help it. Every time the same word comes to me : overwhelming. Up, down, left, right, no matter where you look at, you can barely see the sky, because there is so much to see in between. Because despite the wide avenues everything is so cramped up, because everything is so phallic, so high, so tall. Symbolic to a certain moment of life. Majestic? And existence in this city is not reduced to just seeing.
There is the texture to this place too. It's
almost impossible to be somewhere without having to touch something or
someone. It's just crowded. In the streets, in the bus, in the subway,
in the mall, in the café, even when I go to the park for a run, there is
so much people! And the texture of the air you breath mutates from place to place.
Aromas! As many as restaurants (so many, for a lifetime you can have dinner out every night and never repeat the place), as commuters, residents, tourists, street inhabitants .. . some things, a smell to forget, others a smell I wish I could pack and take back home with me. There is not such thing like the fresh wet smell of dripping rain hitting the pavement close to the freshness of Central PArk. Upon arrival to Times Square the smell of falafels in the corner of the Sheraton, the freezing smell of flakes falling in the sea by the piers, or Bryant Park in spring blooming with people playing chess, reading the New York Times in their iPads, the gentle sweat of the tai chi-ers.
I sight, I can't deny it: There is no place like New York.
F u n n y D a t a
♥New York's Central Park is larger than Monaco.
♥Dutch explorer Peter Minuit purchased the southern tip of the island of Manhattan a native tribe for trinkets and tools worth
about $24.
♥The first known name for Manhattan was New Amsterdam and it referred to the southern tip of Manhattan that was a Dutch trading port.
♥New York's Yellow Cabs are yellow because John Hertz, the company's
founder, learned from a study that yellow was the easiest color for the
eye to spot. Was he right or was he right¿?
♥The Federal Reserve Bank on New York's Wall Street contains vaults that
are located 80 feet beneath the bank and hold about 25 percent of the
world's gold bullion.
♥More than 47 percent of New York City's residents over the age of 5 speak a language other than English at home.
♥It
takes 75,000 trees to print a Sunday edition of the New
York Times. Sad.
you ♥ NY
I ♥ NY (?):)
w'all ♥ NY !
