Like most native New Yorkers, whether resident or expat, I have a
love/hate relationship with the city of my birth. In my case it might
better be described as like/hate or maybe tolerate/hate. In any
event, New York isn't a
place I'd go out of my way to visit. But when work requires that I
spend time there I do make an effort to make the most of it. And New
York does have its compensations, from the theatre scene (which even the
half-price ticket booth in Times Square can't make affordable,
although it does help) to the widest range of eating experiences on
the planet. Street vendors are just part of the scene, and are a damn
sight more appealing than the death dogs of the typical convention
center snack bar.
Walking around Manhattan is fascinating, exhausting and hazardous to
your health and wellbeing all at the same time. Every block has
something to attract the eye, from the vast array of merchandise in
store windows to the incredible diversity of architecture. This isn't
a place that prides itself on uniformity: skyscrapers share space with
older, less shockingly modern structures, with small surprises tucked
into the spaces in between. The exhaustion and danger come from the
experience itself, as you dodge a combination of gawking tourists,
experienced New Yorkers who don't stop for anything and the
motor traffic that comes a poor second to those on foot. Only in New
York do pedestrians challenge cars and taxis at every intersection.
And only in New York do they win with such regularity. You can only
imagine the effort required to take pictures in the middle of all this
chaos.
Everything in mid-Manhattan has appeared on film or on television a
thousand times, somehow looking a lot larger and far more impressive
on screen than
in fact. A case in point: the ice rink at Rockefeller Plaza,
which in movies always looks like a place you could hold the Olympic
trials or battle for the Stanley Cup. On the far left you can catch a
glimpse of the set of the
Today Show. If this were a couple
of hours earlier there would be a small crowd of people watching Katie
and Bryant doing their thing, which the camera crew would magically
transform into a large crowd.
On the right you can see a real crowd: people hoping for tickets to
Letterman. They arrive many hours before the show is scheduled to
begin. Tour buses come from far and wide to bring the crowds of
Dave's fans to the show. Which makes me wonder: just how far do you
have to go to locate someone who thinks Dave is funny?
Times Square is one of those places that doesn't look all that much
better as you go higher. In fact, it looks even more crowded than at
street level. (Most buildings don't make allowances for those of us
who look down on them.) From the twenty-fifth floor you can't see the
billboards and animated signs, which are such an interesting part of
the landscape. Whereas at street level they're unavoidable. Like this
little ad for the Microsoft Network. It makes you wish for stronger
Truth In Advertising
laws, the kind that would force Bill's ad to
raise the proper
finger to the public.
I'm glad that there are parts of New York that are just the way I
remember them. Macy's still dominates an entire block in Herald
Square, just as it did when my mom would take me there to buy Tom
Swift and the Hardy Boys (only 95 cents in hardcover!), just as it did
years earlier for Miracle On 34th Street. Sadly, Gimbels is long
gone, its stately building a block away transformed into a
chrome-and-glass shopping mall. (A shopping mall? In
mid-Manhattan? What's the point?) And 42nd Street and
Broadway, once famous and then infamous, is now nothing at all.
The buildings are shuttered, waiting for Disney to work their
magic and turn the area into something new, clean and inoffensive. I
can hardly wait.
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