Points, prizes, and elephants

 I used to base myself around Times Square when in New York. 

Then I branched out to a few other venues.  The Waldorf Astoria, when I still had points make prizes, and I could get invited out of the checkin line to the special checkin with champagne service. Sadly the Waldorf looks like a building site at present - undergoing renovations, which include reducing the number of rooms. Sounds expensive.

Then there's the Pierre, up by Central Park. Another old-school ritzy type of venue, where I was fortunate enough to be placed in the spacious Presidential Suite - with its own manned elevator. I was fronting a group of high rollers on that occasion, but came out as the top banana. I still remember hiring a ballroom and the $38,000 bill (not just for me, I hasten to add). I asked for the bill to be printed and received about a foot of fan-folded paper (which had certain blackmail potential).

Subsequent visits have been more modest but I was still able to stay at (for example) The Soho Grand, which is like an all-night party.

And this time still spiffy on the 10th floor in Chelsea.

So back to Times Square. I've stayed at The Sheraton, The Marquis and the W, from each of which one can tip out onto the bustle of -er- tourists in Manhattan. My stay at any of them would be courtesy of cashing in  loyalty points. 

The thing about Times Square is its busy-ness. Nightime cab tail lights aglow and everyone walking in the road. 

We decided to see a show on Broadway and the criteria was a musical not already in London. 

We picked Water for Elephants. which was playing along the busy part adjacent to Broadway, yet is reminiscent of a building site. London's West End is certainly tidier. 

Oculus

 

Different visits to New York have seen the area around the World Trade Center redevelop. Now it incorporates the transport hub known as The Oculus. 

It's a structure that shouts 'photograph me!' and its size is enormous. My picture shows One World Trade Center in the background and the mega-structure of the Oculus in the foreground. 

Peek inside and it's a transport hub underground, with a massive Westfield shopping mall at a convenient shopping level, complete with all the usual suspects. 

Between the shopping Mall and the new World Trade Centre are the two ominous black squares and the monument where the original twin towers stood. 

High Line ramble

 

The High Line is quite an attraction, leading along the old train tracks from Chelsea Village up into midtown. 

At various places the original tracks are still visible, where freight trains used to chug along the edge of the Hudson River, until the the line was closed and then saved from piecemeal redevelopment. 

Instead it became a linear park dotted with cafes and stalls. It turns inland to midtown behind the Hudson Yards where Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) trains are stored to support 200,000 daily passengers. 

The midtown end settles close to W 34th Street, which flourishes Penn Street Station, Madison Gardens, Macy's and the Empire State Building. Decidedly walkable with the wild flowers contriving to make it seem not a lot slower than a taxi.

Industrial heritage becomes mindful.

The view from the 67th floor.

One of the well known views in New York on my iPhone. From the Rockefeller Center facing towards the Hudson and with the Statue of Liberty in the distance. Oh yes, and One World Trade Center in the distance and the Empire State Building prominent in the foreground. 

Skew

Oh yes, there were red baseball caps on sale on street corners. 

The TV channels were mostly polarised. Fox vs MSNBC. Choose your rhetoric. 

Curiously it was similar with the Olympics coverage. The US channels seemed to only feature America, except when Frenchman Leon Marchand won the swimming - but even then they found the story that he had been trained in the USA. 

Lunchtime Paris 2024 cafe society at the Rockefeller Centre

Constitutional

The very first time I ever visited New York, on a stopover from Charlotte, NC back to the UK, we had about 10 hours in the city. We took the Staten Island Ferry (25cents) to pass the statue of Liberty, We travelled up to the top of The World Trade Centre, and also to the top of Empire State. We grabbed a fast lunch in Times Square and took some time around Wall Street and then Greenwich Village and South Sea Port. I guess taxis must have been involved, and I even brought back a New York Snowman - melted of course.

I can't really believe we did it all in a single day, but somehow, we did. 

Nowadays we'd do some of those sights in depth and take a whole day, like on this trip we did my first ever trip to the Statue of Liberty and to Ellis Island.  I've flown around them in a helicopter previously. Both are interesting, although they don't really tell you about the very long queues to get the ferries. And we were queueing in a New York heat wave. 

I've hidden the 4th July proclamation being held up in Liberty's other arm. I'm  not sure how well it is stacks up at present. 

As PJ Harvey's soundtrack says:

"Can you hear them 

 The helicopters 

 I'm in New York 

 No need for words now"

Ruins of Empire II or The Earth Swallows the Master's House

We were right by the Whitney Museum as well, so it was well worth a visit. It's also a good point from which to pick up the High Line, but more of that later. America is in the run up to the Presidential elections and we once again found ourselves in the middle. I was struck by this artwork, which is a piece of the White House, made from earth and fixed to the roof of the Whitney. Being made of earth it has a strange life of its own, which includes baking in the summer heat and significantly crumbling away.The stars and stripes flutters upside down from its roof. The artist Kiyan Williams is somehow an activist and their other work, also on the roof is a likeness of Marsha P. Johnson.

Some will recognise the original protest photo from which this was taken and which showed Marsha P (Pay it no Mind) Johnson outside Bellevue Hospital, captured by Diana Davies.

Oh yes, we visited the New York Public Library too. And here's the version of the picture, as a sculpture on the roof of the Whitney.

“I may be crazy, but that don’t make me wrong.”

And there's so much more, just within the walls of this one building.

I need you, I don't need you and all of that jivin' around.

This time we were staying around Chelsea, an area I once worked close to and rather different from the part of New York that most tourists gravitate towards. We were staying close to the Chelsea Market and the High Line, both of which are busy yet different somehow from the Times Square vibe.

Of course the Chelsea Hotel is well-known and had rebirth recently, under new ownership. 

Many well know of the folk that have stayed there: I'll list a few: Chet Baker, Nico, Tom Waits, Jim Morrison, Patti Smith, Robert Mapplethorpe, Jeff Beck,Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Iggy Pop, The Grateful Dead, Edith Piaf,Bob Marley, Andy Warhol, Jackson Pollack, Cher, Madonna, Dee Dee Ramone, Joni Mitchell, John Cale, Marianne Faithfull, Bette Midler, Stanley Kubrick, Sid Vicious. Nancy Spungen, Jimi Hendrix, Canned Heat, Pink Floyd, Alice Cooper, Janis Joplin, Dennis Hopper, Uma Thurman, Jane Fonda, Viva, Elliott Gould, Edie Sedgwick, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Mark Twain, Arthur Miller, Arthur C. Clarke, Tennesse Williams, Sam Shepherd, Jack Kerouac, Quentin Crisp, Valerie Solanas, William S. Burroughs, Gregory Corso

...to name but some.

And the immediate area has the pretty cafes like in Europe. We enjoyed lunch in Pastis, a twist on a French pavement cafe. People from the ship, natives of New York, had recommended a whole string of places to us, all within short idle. 

Just around the corner is the bustle of the Chelsea Market and we're only a couple of Blocks from the Hudson River.

Oh, and did I mention that the cabs have changed? They used to be slab-like Ford Crown Victorias, but now they are nearly all Toyota SUVs or similar van creations. I could still spot the cabs from across the river which still looked traditional, but even the green suburban cabs have changed. Apparently Ford stopped making the iconic taxicab in 2011 and now there are just two left in the city. 

Its a helluva town

 

These are some clearer shots after the sun had risen. Liberty and Lower Manhattan, from our cabin (aka stateroom) on the liner.

Verrazano

 Well, we finally sighted the Verrazano Bridge, which is the way into the waters around Manhattan. It was about 03:30 in the morning and from the Sat Nav to our sighting seemed like a matter of seconds. I'd expected to capture its approach, but instead got a picture already underneath the bridge.

The area of water is called The Narrows and we sailed through, at the same time scrabbling to get up on deck to watch the unfolding of the morning and the approach of New York.

Then my worst ever zoomed picture of approaching New York...

I guess its 'in the moment'.

novel moment

Another fun thing were the around 20 plus 'events' scheduled for each morning, and then another 20 for the afternoon and maybe 15 for the evening. Some were inappropriate, but I found a few session on novel writing, both as a couple of presentations and then as some workshops in a slightly secretive part of the ship. 

Come to think of it, I'm not sure where this elephant cocktail fits exactly, but never mind.

I attended the first of the novel writing sessions, which was like a weird continuation of the sessions I attended on the South Bank in London a few weeks ago. There seemed to be more emphasis on  use of writing agents in these sessions, but I was able to listen with my own opinions as the topics unfolded.

It briefly brought me back to thinking of my own revisions and republication of novels, but I mentally put that to one side because this was 'holiday time'. That and the elephant.

I'll prepare a post about all of that when I'm back on dry land.

wasn't born to follow

So we had Roger McGuinn from the Byrds on the crossing and he was only too pleased to tell of his very varied musical career. 

Fascinating that some of the Byrds setup was entirely pre-meditated. They studied the Beatles, and watched a Beatles movie to write down the names of each of the instruments being played. Oblong-sunshaded McGuinn uses a 12 string Rickenbacker - which looks deceptively like a 6 string.

Then, they acquired suitable hairstyles and found the Bob Dylan track, fresh at the time, which became their greatest hit. McGuinn is a highly accomplished musician and decided to adapt the tune to a Beatles-esque lead line and listened to various twiddles of George Harrison to get a suitable accompaniment to the song. They played it back to Dylan and made the song, which was 2 minutes and 40 seconds of history.

Roger McGuinn had played with many other bands and singers before this and knew the likes of Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Ritchie Havens, Barry McGuire, and many of the troubadours who played in Greenwich Village. He even played the guitar for Simon and Garfunkel on their Sounds of Silence demo.

A deep dive into McGuinn soon yields Dylan Baez and McGuinn playing together.

The 'Byrds' mis-spelling was also in deference to the Beatles.

And its fascinating to see him  start out as a jobbing muso playing 12 string and banjo for other acts.