NYC Day 1 - the walkabout

This time there was no epic journey across the seas. No language translation problems. No month without personal grooming. Just a 4-day immersion in a strange, foreign exotic society: that of New York City. It is really the only major City in North America that I have never visited, but Tig had been a few years ago, so based on 3 days experience, she was the tour guide for our whirlwind trip through the Big Apple.
Our trip did include a stop in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. I enjoyed this stop very much, on account of a couple of twins I met there. 

see the stree leaving my body?

Now, accommodations in New York are not famous for being affordable, which is strange in a City That Never Sleeps® as you figure there would be a glut of spaces for sleep and the invisible hand of the market and all. However, we found a relatively inexpensive place on West 44th, a half a block from Times Square. Nice hotel, 15th floor, but not what you would describe as “roomy”.

Objects in room may be closer than they appear. Like the walls. 

Luckly, we were not ON Times Square, and the air exchangers for the 75-story building next door were outside our window, so the white noise made it possible to sleep.

Our view: herds of wild photons sweeping majestically across 43rd Street West

It was well after the peak of activity at Times Square (that is to say, well after midnight) but we took a bit of a stroll to check out the surroundings on a clear, cool night. Mostly around Rockefeller Centre.

FYI, I am a bit of a freak for Art Deco architecture. New York has the highest density of big Art Deco buildings in the world. The Rockefeller is one of them. So I spent most of the first night gap-jawed and staring up, like the tourist rube I am.

For those who aren’t sure what Art Deco looks like, I give you this simple guide:
Batman = Gothic. Spiderman = Modern. Superman = Art Deco.
So think about what type of superhero you would see swooping about the building, you are 90% there. Architecture 101, first lesson is free.

The next day we woke with the birds (the very late-rising birds) and walked down Broadway to West 34th, and up the greatest piece of Art Deco ever conceived: The Empire State Building. There we got the obligatory picture of us standing in front of an anti-suicide cage with a lot of buildings behind us in the distance.

We then walked towards downtown, past the Flatiron, which is all Chicago-School Terra Cotta instead of Art Deco, but still one of my favourite buildings.

As we got down towards Greenwich Village, we stumbled upon the Union Square Farmers Market: a real farmers market, evidenced by the 300 varieties of potatoes, apples, kohlrabi and brussel sprouts available, with not a single out-of-season vegetable visible. Note to the RCFM: In New York City, local wineries have tasting at the Framers Market. Trust me, with all them brussel sprouts around, you need something to rinse your mouth out.

After a bit of a Pho stop, we continued through the Village, to Washington Square Park. Yes, the sky was this blue, and people were in shirt sleeves on the second week in November.

The park is famous to most for it’s ode to the Arc de Triomphe (here dedicated to George Washington), and for the constant stream on protestors, public speeches, and musical performances going on at any given time. However, it was more famous for me as being the place where Jane Jacobs first became an activist for sustainable communities, by working to stop a plan to expand the roads through and around the park.

And we thought about how lack of roads really hurts the real estate prices:

That night, while sitting on a bench watching the world go by, we were aghast to find out we were in violation of the law…

But we figured we could gat away with it, as the only cop nearby was writing up Edward Scissorhands. Something about needing a permit to give haircuts on Broadway.

I know I slept more soundly knowing New York’s Finest were on the job.