Our Big Trip to the Big Apple

After my grandparents moved away and I graduated and relocated to the Midwest, I never found my way back to New York. It was only last year, when I started attending Board retreats for Simon's Rock that I came back to New York. Twenty years had passed by, and the City had changed. But moreover, I had changed too. Coming back this spring, I began to realize just how much of the change was truly internal.

But none of that really mattered. The purpose of our trip to New York this time was to give Kriss a chance to experience the Big Apple. As probably the only Midwesterner New York phile (complete with a New Yorker subscription) who has never actually been to New York City, it was a long overdue trip. It wasn't a trip that I particularly looked forward to taking (big cities, noise, crowds, fear of crime, etc.), but it was a necessary trip.

Monday

The trip did not start off auspiciously. It was my birthday and I had decided that I wanted to celebrate it with a nice dinner in New York. Our flight, scheduled for the afternoon, was a direct to La Guardia so we would arrive in plenty of time for a fashionable 7pm-ish dining time. I even had a Japanese restaurant picked out and plans to consume a small trawler's worth of raw fish.

It was not to be.

A combination of mechanical problems and torrential rain in New York delayed our flight by over three hours (impressive, when you consider that the flight only took 1.5 hours!). So, instead of sushi in Manhattan, my birthday dinner consisted of Quizno's at the Madison airport (including the onions I asked them to hold to add insult to injury). Three extra hours of airport muzak didn't help matters either.

So, we got in fairly late, but at least we made good time into the City (with Kriss getting her first taste of NYC taxi drivers – ours added something to the maniacal reputation by listening the whole time to a radio program on Revelations [“end times is near!”]).

Tuesday

Now, let's talk about that rain. It is well forgotten now, but we managed to arrive in New York in the midst of an amazing downpour. Flooding everywhere and everyone trying to avoid getting soaked. Cities are no fun in such weather, so it was quite an introduction to our trip. We had previously decided that Tuesday would start with a trip up the Empire State and then some museums in the afternoon, but given the bad weather (and the fact that you couldn't even make out the Empire State from the heavy cloud cover) indicated that we would have to rethink our plans. So, we went with the idea of just doing museums. It wasn't a bad idea. In fact, it was such a good idea that the entire tourist population decided to do the same thing that day.

Our first mistake was to leave so early from the hotel. Having gotten in late, Kriss was none too pleased that I wanted to get up so early (on our vacation!). But I was convinced that it would take over an hour or more to get uptown to the Met. In actual fact, it only took about 25 minutes to make the trip and as a result we were there about a half hour before opening, as opposed to a fashionable 20-30 minutes afterwards.

On any decent day, we could have taken a nice stroll in the park. However, did I mention the rain? It was still coming down very hard (with wind no less) and staying out on the street was not really an option. So, we stepped into a coffee shop on Madison and ordered tea and hot chocolate. Kriss felt very cosmopolitan, especially when a loud French family with three kids burst in (probably also waiting out the rain before the museums opened). After our drinks, we made our way over to the Met, passing a shop with life-sized animal mannequins that Kriss had to get a picture of.

And so we spent our morning at the Met, where (thanks to the weather) it was unbearably crowded with the entire population of Europe (or, at the very least, all of their rudest inhabitants). We did our best to avoid the crowds. We looked at the Tres Heures , at the little medieval statues, and the wonderful Victorian photo collages (definitely on my list for further study!). We caved in to check out the Impressionists, the Temple of Dendur, and the microscopic crossbow collection. And we even bravely ventured into the cafeteria for lunch (where Kriss had a memorable spicy bar-b-que pork and I had a less memorable cheeseburger). By early afternoon, we hadn't done everything there, but we had had enough of the place and were ready to move on.

We took the short hike up Fifth Avenue to the Guggenheim. It was crowded as well and there was a line to get in the door. A man outside was belting out songs and entertaining folks, but the ushers eventually encouraged him to move along (not quite the ambiance they were shooting for). The ushers were also trying to move us along. When Kriss and I had to stop to pull out our passes, one guard went practically ballistic, yelling at us to move along and claiming that we were somehow blocking the way (squished up against the wall like the cowering polite Midwesterners we were). Reasoning with him was obviously fruitless so we tried to ignore him, which seemed to be the only plausible reaction his urban mind could comprehend, so we ended with a New York-style détente.

The Guggenheim proved less interesting. The works of art we had hoped to see (Albers and maybe a few famous moderns) were nowhere to be seen. Instead, most of the works on display were, at best, mediocre representations of post-modern art. The layout of the Museum, with its single spiral upwards, meant that everyone was funneled in the same path. The crowds and the humidity made the dark space even less inviting. We “did” the Museum, but were glad to be moving on (even if it was back into the drizzle and greyness of the day).

So now, where to? We had originally figured that it would be unusually ambitious to attempt to do two museums in one day, let alone plan anything else for the day, but being that we were on the Upper East Side, I had entertained the idea that we might try to take Kriss over to my grandparents' old neighborhood (E 86 th and Carl Schurz Park). Since it was still just mid-afternoon, we had the time and the rain seemed to have resigned itself to drizzle and misting. So, we took a crosstown bus over to the East River.

It was very odd to be back in the old neighborhood. For the most part, the buildings are all the same. The restaurants and stores had all changed, but since the area is largely residential (and posh), it really was like stepping back in time. The biggest changes were actually visible at Carl Schurz Park itself, where dogs are now relegated to fenced runs (one for large dogs and one for smaller dogs). The sheer idea of doing this would have greatly upset my grandfather, who regularly walked his dogs over in the park and would have resented having it placed in a doggie ghetto.

After a few pictures, we walked along the river, past the Brierley School, enjoying some moments of near sunshine. We popped in at a local Starbucks for a break and then went back out into the (now raining) street and caught a bus back across to the subway.

We headed downtown to Grand Central Station (which Kriss remarked appeared “smaller” than she thought it looked in films and TV) and walked over to the Public Library for our last major stop of the day. We had two quests: to see the lions out front and to check out the original Winnie the Pooh. The former were a bit hard to enjoy as the rain was still quite heavy. The latter were surprisingly low key. Winnie and his friends (in their somewhat battered condition) are kept in an inauspicious case in the children's reading room. No special sign directs you to them, and the dozens of children and their parents there paid them no special mind. Yet, for Kriss, it was a highlight nearly as important as anything we saw at the Met or the Guggenheim. We also checked out the reading rooms and a bit of the rest of the library.

Tuesday was not only the day of the rain flooding, but also right after the bombings in the Moscow Metro and so the NYPD were being especially vigilant. Kriss, who always seems to get snagged in any of these crackdowns, was pulled aside at Grand Central Station for special screening. Thankfully, they did not detect her role in any devious Midwestern plots.

The day ended with a trip (at last!) to a Japanese restaurant in our hotel's neighborhood called Iron Sushi, where I had a scrumptious belated birthday dinner. The menu had many unfamiliar items. The “Asp Tempura” looked particularly interesting as I had never heard of snake sushi before. It wasn't until later that I realized that “asp” was an abbreviation for asparagus!

Wednesday

The next morning was cool and overcast, but finally rain-free (as everything would remain for the rest of the week!) and we decided that our first order of business would be to go up the Empire State Building (not finding out until the next day that a young man had jumped off the observation deck the night before so even that was a bit auspicious).

Hitting the Empire State early in the day proved to be a good plan. There were no lines and the worst thing that could be said for the experience was having to deal with rude staff (we particularly were amused by the young woman who scolded us for not “allowing” her “to help us” by listening to her sales schpiel). Anyway, no lines meant that the entire process took maybe fifteen minutes to get to the top instead of the hour or two with which we had been threatened. It was cold and windy on top (especially on the north side) but -- as you can see – we got some great pictures.

After we got done with the view, we scaled back down to the street and headed downtown to the South Street Seaport, getting there in the late morning. There were not many tourists (perhaps because it was still cold and a bit gray), but we did come across a couple of film crews. One of them was from Law and Order Criminal Intent and was quite a large group with catering trucks, trailers, and cranes. The second (working in front of the Federal Reserve offices) was much smaller and seemed to be working on a documentary about economics. Aside from that, there were hardly any people around. A group of Chinese tourists were picking up a water taxi, but the shops of the Seaport were deserted. By Kriss standards, however, the place was fantastic due to the existence of Dr Pepper for sale (from which she had been cruelly separated)!

It was still a bit early for lunch, so we passed on eating there and instead walked back up to City Hall so we could cross the Brooklyn Bridge. The Bridge was surprisingly crowded with fairly poor traffic patterns as pedestrians frequently drifted into the bike lanes (much to the cyclists' chagrin). Things only started to clear out at the halfway point as fewer people come over from Brooklyn and fewer still decide to walk across the entire span.

Our plan was to end up over in DUMBO (the area around where the Bridge ends up in Brooklyn) for lunch. This is one of those up-and-coming neighborhoods and full of a growing number of trendy restaurants and shops. And we had heard of a great place to get pizza there called Grimaldi's, which we figured would work out well for lunch. What we didn't know is that the entire world had heard of Grimaldi's and the line for lunch seating could easily take 2-3 hours. Seeing the long line, we realized that that wasn't quite in our plans so we decided to explore around a little.

Being naïve tourists, we ended up at a quaint looking place on the river bank called the River Café. Not realizing that this, like Grimaldi's, is something of a famous fixture we wandered inside. Now, the limo out front should have been a clue, as should the hundreds of fresh flowers in the reception area, but we felt pretty committed to our choice of a lunch place. The receptionist did her best to scare us off by showing us the menu, but as no one was being crass enough to tell us we couldn't eat there, we went in.

We were definitely underdressed for the occasion. For most of our two-hour lunch, I was the only male in the room without a jacket on (let alone without a tie). And while I normally don't dress too shabby, I had chosen that day to wear jeans since we were heading into the brush later on (see below). Kriss was wearing boots (and I don't mean fancy Italian ones!) for similar reasons. In short, we weren't quite ready for a place with fine linen and fancy service.

Let's start by noting that the food was fantastic (a crab soup was assembled for Kriss right in front of her; my cheese plate for dessert had the most exquisite cheeses on it). The ambiance was incredible (panoramic views of the financial district outside our window). The service was over the top (at one point, a junior waiter came out and placed new utensils for Kriss, but apparently in the wrong order because the maitre d' rushed over to rearrange them in the right place). And yes, the place wasn't cheap, but one should always have at least one exotic fancy experience during a trip. This one was unplanned but saved us the trouble of hunting for a fancy dinner place later.

After lunch, we explored DUMBO a little and walked out onto a new park being built next door to the restaurant and admired the view. The documentary crew we had seen in the morning was now stationed on this side of the river (probably to get a better backdrop). Kriss was surprised by the large numbers of helicopters flying around (which we learned later was due to the proximity of the heliport across the River).

Having now been fed, we headed for our final destination of the day: the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge. This is one of the oddest-located bird refuges in the world, bring placed right in the approach path of jets coming in to JFK International. In terms of things-to-see in the Greater New York area, this would probably rank pretty low on most people's lists, but we had such a good time at the Wetlands Centre in London, that it made some sense to try this out as well for comparison's sake.

It's quite a long trip out to the Refuge, requiring a subway trip out to Broad Channel (maybe an hour or so from Brooklyn Bridge). The Refuge, which is a US National Park, does not provide any directions on its website so we figured it would all be pretty clear when we got off the train, but when we got there, there were no signs at all. So, we called the Refuge to get some help and learned that we had a “short walk” of 10-15 minutes to get there. Thirty minutes later, past such charming scenery as a porta-john company, we found the place (and we found out later that there was a bus that we could have taken that would have saved us the walk).

There are two sides to the refuge (east and west). The east side is the wilder side and favored by bird watchers because it is less traveled. It is also lower and thus was more water-logged from the rains we had been having the previous days. We stuck to the west side, which proved to be perfect for a gentle walk. Taking a full loop around the Refuge on the west side took us about an hour. It was flat the whole way so no challenging climbing, but we didn't see much (beyond a few nesting – and angry – geese). Still, it made a nice break from the City. All that said, it's such a long trip and so hard to get to without a car, that it's hard to say it was worthwhile.

We left around the time that the ranger station closed up (around 5pm) and took the subway back to Manhattan and to our hotel. Having had enough traveling for the day and still a bit sated from our fancy lunch, we got dinner at a pizza place called Vezzo on the corner of our block. The pizzas were fancy, but I'll remember it best for the huge salads they served and the cramped, crowded, and very noisy ambiance of the place.

Thursday

After the rather long trek of the previous day, we decided to start our last full day in the city at a more leisurely fashion. We began down at Battery Park, from where we thought we would take in a little of the area before boarding the Staten Island Ferry. While Wednesday had been the first day without rain that week, Thursday was the first day with serious sunshine and there were huge masses of tourists out in the area.

We took a walking tour, dropping by the bankruptcy court so Kriss could file due to her costs connected with the trip (just kidding!). We wanted to see Stone Street, which we were promised (in a fairly recent guide) was still a cobbled with paving stones. That proved to not be true. So, what we thought might be a good place to have a leisurely café break turned out to be a congested and noisy space. We ended up at the Vietnam Memorial, which was relatively quiet, even if it was across the street from the heliport.

From there, we went to the Staten Island Ferry, which was very crowded. We had not realized before getting on it that a lot of tourists use the Ferry as a cheap way to see the Statue of Liberty. Since the Ferry is free, it beats buying a Circle Line ticket and you get a good chance to see the harbor. It also means that the boat tips noticeably to the right as everyone piles up on that side of the boat to get their photo op. Once we got to the other side, most of the tourists on the boat rushed over to the departure gate so that they could get on the next boat going back. One imagines that they spent a good part of the day riding the Ferry back and forth getting in a good “cruise” and enjoying the sunny day on the water.

We spent our crossing getting lunch instead. We had been informed that the best hot dogs in the NYC could be found on the Ferry, so we didn't want to miss that culinary opportunity. Times change or our foodie was exaggerating because we found them OK, but nothing spectacular.

Unlike those cheapo tourists, our purpose for taking the Ferry was to visit the Alice Austen house. Alice Austen lived on Staten Island most of her life and was something a famous local personage. She was an important photographer of the late 19 th century, taking several thousand photographs of friends and family in the area around the turn of the (previous) century. Her home, which serves as a museum and research center of her life and work, is located on the eastern coast of the Island down near the Narrows Bridge.

It's a long trip on a bus to the House and we had to wait for quite a while amidst jackhammers and construction workers at the bus stop before the bus showed up. And despite studying the bus map fairly thoroughly, we almost missed our stop (I just caught a glimpse of the street as we sped by it). But it all ended up OK and we had made good time. We were there a few minutes before they opened at noon. That gave us some time to wander around the outside of the house and admire the view.

The rainy deluge and winds of the previous days had done a fair share of damage to the Island and there were several downed trees on the property of the House. Thankfully, none of them had damaged the House itself, although one of them had managed to knock out a stretch of picket fence. While we were taking all of this in, a woman came by and began chatting with us. She was going around and photographing all of the downed trees (which she said numbered over 200 from the weekend's storms), but she was having trouble getting her digital camera to work. Ironically, she asked Kriss (the quintessential tech-phobe) for help. She also spent some time talking up the importance of Alice Austen to us. After she moved on, we finished our exploration of the outside of the House and took a portrait of the two of us in front of the house (with Kriss's film camera!).

The museum itself is fairly modest. They've reconstructed the parlor to contain a variety of antiques and cameras like the ones that Alice might have used (all of the original furnishings were sold off long ago when Alice fell into poverty). They have an informative documentary playing in another room and her major photographs are mounted on the wall in a third room. An enclosed porch serves as a study where copies of all of her photographs are available to look at in binders, as well as donated copies of photography magazines. The intention is to provide an educational resource for young photographers (the Austen house sponsors photography classes for children, as well as etiquette lessons). While we were there, the only other major visitors were a pair of schoolgirls working on a term paper.

In general, the whole place was very informal. The staff generally stuck to the back rooms (we had some trouble getting their attention when we wanted to buy some souvenirs) and there were hardly any other visitors. Still, it was precisely this informality and intimacy that made our visit there one of the standout moments of our trip. It was one of the few places without a big crowd.

Not really knowing the schedule for the buses, we weren't really sure how long we would have to wait for the next one to come along, so we started walking along the street in the general direction of the ferry. And, since all we had had for lunch so far was a hot dog, we searched out a place to grab a late lunch. We ended up at a Baskin-Robbins/Dunkin Donuts, which was not the most nutritious of choices but did the trick.

A sunny Thursday afternoon was apparently a popular time to ride the ferry and the terminal was crazy busy when we got there. However, because of the crowds, we learned a little trick about riding the ferry: the bottom deck (where vehicles are usually berthed) is wonderfully free of the crowds and affords excellent panoramic views of the harbor on the return trip.

After we docked, we headed uptown, but only as far as the meatpacking district, where we got off the subway and walked over to the High Line. The High Line is an old elevated train line that is being converted into a garden and park, perhaps one of the more unusual concepts for a green space – some 30 feet off the ground! Eventually, it will run up to Penn Station, but for now you can take it about ten blocks as it weaves back and forth, going around (and sometimes through) buildings. The day was bright and sunny (I picked up quite a sunburn!) and it was crowded as folks were enjoying the first truly good weather of the week.

After we had walked the length of the High Line, we continued uptown to MoMA, which was open late on Thursday night as part of a promotion they do every couple of months. A bar opens up, a loud DJ cranks up some tunes, a fancy dinner is available, and the Museum stays open past its usual 5pm close. For us, being open late simply gave us the ability to cram in another museum in our short stay.

We started with the Monet's Water Lilies, as Kriss had taught her kids about them this year and wanted to see them in the flesh. After that, we walked about aimlessly, taking in whatever we came to. We scorned the Tim Burton exhibit, which was just as well as it was sold-out, and focused instead on the art section and on the design wing (where I saw a few copies of the Bauhaus furniture that used to lay around Ferry House, my dorm at Vassar). We also saw a unique vase that had been made by honey bees through some creative set-up with frames. With some effort, we eventually found the nearly-hidden photography section and stumbled across a Wyeth painting abandoned and untrumpeted in a hallway.

After that tiring day of traveling and museums, we ended up at an Italian restaurant in our neighborhood (managing to eat all three of our NYC dinners in the local area). The service was a bit lazy and slow and the restaurant was a bit too warm, but the food was good and it was a decent enough way to wrap up the day.

Friday

Friday was the last day of our trip and, after checking out of our hotel, we headed across town to the Circle Line pier so we could take a boat tour. Since I figured that we would be out in the open on the water, I pick up some sun block at a Duane Reade (noticing as I did so that they had Tastycakes for sale!).

For once, starting off early from the hotel was a good idea as the M42 was painfully slow so early in the day. And when we got to the pier, we found the line for the boats was quite long. I took advantage of the wait to buy a hat to protect my sensitive skin (the only souvenir I picked up the entire trip). When we boarded the boat, all the spaces on the deck had been filled so we ended up going below deck (which solved the sun problem for me).

The boat tour itself was pretty unremarkable. We had seen a good amount of the harbor on the Staten Island Ferry the day before. I'd only recommend the trip if you were getting it for free (which we basically were, thanks to our City Pass).

After the tour, we had planned to try to cram in the Museum of National History, but a number of factors worked against us. One was the traffic leaving the pier. We got stuck on an even more painfully slow crosstown bus (on which we lost nearly an hour). The other problem was not accounting for just how popular the Museum would be on Good Friday, with most of the schools closed and parents looking for something to do with their children.

So, instead of going to the Museum, we ditched it for a leisurely lunch at a diner on Amsterdam (the type of place with a 12-page menu which basically boils down to “if you want it, we'll cook it for you!”). Nothing fancy, but Kriss enjoyed grooving along to the Elton John and Sting songs they played overhead and she had her first (ever!) Monte Cristo sandwich.

After lunch, we spent our last two hours taking a walk through Central Park. Being a combination of gorgeous sunny weather and the beginning of a holiday weekend, the Park was crowded, but pleasant to be in. We made our way around the Great Lawn to the Obelisk and then up to the Reservoir (looking for good places to stash murdered Midwestern tourists, of course!). And we ended up having ice cream and just taking the whole place in.

Our time now basically up, we made a quick return to the hotel to pick up our bags, hailed a cab, and headed out to LaGuardia to catch our flight home.

Conclusions

There is a big difference between visiting a place as a child and returning as an adult. Places I remembered well were still there (the park near my grandparents' old apartment) but the way that you look at such places is different. It was also different to be traveling around the city when you are the one giving the directions, rather than being dragged around by your parents.

New York has certainly changed in the past two decades as well. It's cleaner, probably safer (terrorist threats notwithstanding), and better organized.

But, in the end, it is still not the place for me. The pace, the noise, and the people are all things that I can take only in small doses. It is fine to visit (and especially so when you can show things off to someone who's never seen the place before), but the four days we were there were plenty.