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New
York! New York!
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My New York Diary (October 1998) - Part 1Friday 24th October Getting up at three in the morning after a full day's work is not my idea of fun! But with a forty mile drive to Teesside Airport in order to check in by 5.30am at the latest, what else could I do? Suffice it to say that I did it and I got there. From Teeside it was on to Amsterdam, and then, a couple of hours later, off to New York. One Transatlantic flight is much like any other when everything goes smoothly and the only unusual thing about this one was the fact that we arrived at Newark half an hour early. I suppose that in itself is unusual enough! The other unusual thing was, having left a cold and windy north east of England, discovering that the temperature in New York was over 70! A surprise, certainly, but a very pleasant one. The Olympia Airport Express lady at the ground transportation centre, however, did not give the best of first impressions of NYC. For $15, she said, I could have a bus ticket to Grand Central, and then a minibus would take me to the door of my hotel on E. 25th Street, so I paid up only to find when I got to Grand Central that the mini-buses only went to Midtown hotels and E. 25th does not count as Midtown. "She's always doing this," said the driver, but, although he had no idea where the hotel was, he agreed to drop me on the corner of 25th and Lexington. Having visions of a long walk, I was not best pleased, but I was fortunate in that the hotel was just a block away. Just as well, as I didn't really fancy starting my visit to New York with an angry phone call! Up a steep and narrow stairway The Carlton Arms can best be described as "basic": my room had a bed, some rather dilapidated pieces of furniture, a cupboard-cum-wardrobe, and a sink that took two hours to empty if you ran more than two inches of water. The whole place - walls, ceilings, staircases, everything - are decorated by local artists, who, I'm afraid, are destined to remain local! Still, it was clean and, as I was to discover, convenient. I have to admit that I could have crashed out there and then, but I didn't want to waste any of the limited time I had, so I had a quick shower (shower/toilet down the hall), changed, and went out to explore. I wandered south to 21st and along to Gramercy Park, and then strolled up to 23rd where I discovered a theatre, the Gramercy Theatre (a recently converted cinema, so I discovered later). Showing there was a musical based on the life of jazz singer Dinah Washington and, as I do like her recordings, I decided to see if I could get a ticket for the evening performance. There was one left, so I booked it there and then. Then back to Third Avenue to find somewhere to eat. I discovered a veritable cornucopia of restaurants of all kinds, all within a few of blocks of the hotel. One that caught my eye offered Afghan cuisine. Now I'm very used to Indian food - there's a takeaway just quarter of a mile away from where I live - but Afghan was something new to me, so I decided to try it. It was excellent, sufficiently different from Indian to be distinctive, and yet similar enough to feel familiar. Once I'd eaten, it was time to head back to 23rd to the theatre where I saw Dinah Was. As I came out of the theatre I was struck by sudden tiredness, so it was back to the hotel and, in the words of another rather more famous diarist, so to bed! Sunday 25th October My first experience of truly American food was breakfast, taken in a diner recommended to me by one of the guys at the hotel. It was cheap and good quality, but why is American ham so thin and bland? I did miss a good gammon steak! Then it was off towards Greenwich Village. One of our Newsletter readers had been in touch by email, suggesting we meet up for brunch at about midday, and I'd promised to ring her between 11.00 and 12.00. I also had decided that I fancied seeing the play at the Lucille Lortel Theatre on Christopher Street (matinee at 3.00), so I walked down there and discovered the box office would be open at eleven. Great! Time for a good exploration of the Village. I enjoyed the wander around and, as 11.30 approached, decided it was time to ring Marcia. "Hello," she said. "You're early." "I'm not," I replied. "It's half eleven." But it wasn't: it was 10.30. The clocks had gone back an hour the night before - Daylight Saving Time - but no one had told me! So we arranged to meet at the real 11.30 and I continued my perambulations, finally spending quarter of an hour sitting in the sun in a litle park in Abingdon Square. Did I mention that the temperature was in excess of 75? Bliss! Anyway, we met, had a good meal and an even better chat and then, after a visit to Balduci's, we went our separate ways. The box office was open, so I bought my ticket and then wandered some more until it was time to see Ute Hagen in Collected Stories. After the theatre, another gentle stroll via Union Square brought me back to Third Avenue and a Vietnamese meal. Another good meal, and this one measured up to what I had been led to expect about food in American restaurants - it was huge! I'm sure there were three chicken breasts in the dish I had! After that a post-prandial walk was essential, so I headed towards Midtown, going as far as 42nd Street (where I hunted out the News Building, where the Mining Company is based) and back again. Then I had a sudden exposition of sleep upon me, so off to bed after a full but very enjoyable day. Monday 26th October A cooler day today, with the temperature in the low sixties, which was just as well as I had a lot of walking planned. First, however, breakfast. Horror! the diner was closed. Don't know why - there was a notice on the door which just said, "Sorry. We're closed." So off I set down Third, heading towards Midtown, kowing that I'd find somewhere to eat soon. Actually, it wasn't till I got to 40th (or was it 41st?) that I found somewhere I fancied. They served chips (fries) with breakfast. Weird! The inner man filled (to overflowing!), it was up to 42nd Street and into Grand Central Station. What an amazing place, quite fascinating. Equally fascinating was the video-based exhibition of Grand Central's history. I quite lost track of time and spent at least an hour in there, after which I headed for Broadway and Times Square. I wanted to see another show that evening, so I had decided to get tickets from the TKTS booth at 47th and Broadway. That didn't open till three, however, so I filled in the time wandering around theatres, theatre bookshops and theatre giftshops. I spent a fair amount of money, too! Then it was time to get in line for the TKTS booth. It's one of two places in New York (the other is the World Trade Centre downtown in the Financial District) where tickets can be bought with a discount of up to 50%. Well worth waiting in line for! I'd been reading a lot about the musical/dance show Footloose, so I hoped to get a ticket for that. Unfortunately the booth doesn't announce what tickets will be available until it opens, so I waited for nigh on two hours to find there were none for Footloose. My second choice had been Phantom (which I've never actually seen), but would you believe there were no tickets available for that either? In the end I settled for Forbidden Broadway, which had been recommended to me by a number of people. On Mondays most New York theatres are closed because of the Sunday matinees so the choice of shows was limited. Still, my Broadway Theatre colleagues at the Mining Company had recommended the show, so I felt reasonably satisfied. It was about four o'clock, a bit too early to be going back to the hotel, so I wandered down East 42nd Street to the United Nations building. What a disappointment! The usual TV wide-angle establishing shot, with all the flags in the foreground, make it look most impressive, but it is rather disappointing in actuality. Still, I had to see it. By this time I was feeling a little footsore and weary, so I took a taxi back to the hotel - in spite of it being rush hour we made pretty good time - where I was delighted to get my shoes off and relax before heading out for a Japanese meal. Although Nissan have a massive plant in the town in which I live, there aren't any Japanese restaurants so this was a new culinary experience. I chickened out of sushi, I'm afraid. It wasn't just the raw fish but the vinegared rice too. And anyway, I wanted something hot. So I had Tempura, which was wonderful! Another taxi - lazy so and so! - to the Stardust Theatre (really a diner) on Broadway to see Forbidden Broadway Cleans Up, after which I strolled back to the hotel and fell into bed, well content with my second full day in NYC! |
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