Read New York City, Part One.
Day Two
We took the train from White Plains into the City again on Thursday, arriving at Grand Central Terminal at noon. Being quite hungry, we decided to explore our various dining options in the basement of the station. There were many. Mrs. Hill wanted to try the vast array of famous New York foods, from their famous, but inferior style pizza to their namesake cheesecake and strip steaks. That morning she opted for a bagel. I decided on sweet treats from Magnolia Bakery. The display case was full of delicious looking confections, and I was uncharacteristically eager to try everything, but played it safe with a vanilla cupcake with buttercream icing. The frosting was slightly more buttery than creamy, and there was a noticeable sugar texture, but the cupcakes were delightful nonetheless.
From Grand Central we took the No. 4 subway down to the southern tip of Manhattan, and exited at the edge of Battery Park. This was a busy, but open and airy place, and the sunny weather made it seem quite pleasant. It was impossible to miss the ravaged Koenig sculpture that once stood at the World Trade Center. We made our way to Castle Clinton to purchase tickets for the ferry to Liberty Island. Alas, no passes were available to climb to the top of the Statue of Liberty. I suspect that those must go quickly each day. We waited in line to board the Miss New York, and once on the ferry made our way up to the top deck. 
The ride out to Liberty Island was breezy and warm, and everyone on board snapped photos the entire time. Once docked, we walked around the Statue of Liberty, viewed the Manhattan skyline from across the harbor, and took a few photos ourselves. Though we could not go inside the statue, I still felt content to enjoy the weather and the scenery.
We caught another ferry which took us to Ellis Island, a short distance to the north. Exiting the boat there we walked into a large old building, where, inside the lobby was an enormous pile of suitcases. Up a flight of stairs we entered the Registry Room, which once looked like this, but today looks like this. An extensive museum details the experiences of the many thousands of immigrants whose first American experiences took place at Ellis Island. These people arrived with very little. Some of what they did have was on display, too. The clothing–particularly the costumes from eastern Europe–was beautiful. Overall, the museum appears designed to give you the feeling that you, too, are an immigrant arriving in America. Of course, not everyone who came to the United States hoping to make a new life came from Europe. Many thousands of other arrived on the west coast, or elsewhere. But Ellis Island is a remarkable time capsule of an era in which America was, to the rest of the world, a land of opportunity where the streets were paved with gold.
The Manhattan skyline grew larger as we made our way back to Battery Park, and it occurred to me that almost nothing visible along New York Harbor today would have been around when those waves of immigrants reached Ellis Island a century ago. New York City, perhaps more than any other large city that never saw the devastation of war, has remade itself again and again. Draw a circle around almost any single block on a map of Manhattan and you would likely find that that block has changed appearance over and over in the course of the last hundred years. What today is a skyscraper of glass and steel was before a more modest skyscraper of steel and stone; before that, a block of shops with apartments above; before that, a row of brick or wood houses; before that, who knows? I thought of this more and more the next day when I stood atop the Empire State Building.
Making our way back to Midtown that afternoon, we headed to Central Park where we watched an open-air rock show. Pavement, one of Miriam’s favorite bands had reunited for a very short time. We stood as close as could be, on the rail directly before the stage. I don’t know much about the band, but they seemed in good form, and everyone played Fender guitars. Their opening act was a band called Endless Boogie. Their name was appropriate, because their songs seemed to go on forever. The first song consisted of only one chord (an A7), played for over twenty minutes straight. The bass player never played a note other than A. Their guitarists took turns jamming, with remarkably pedestrian results. If you know anybody who plays guitar even just a little, no matter how new they are to the instrument, they could play solos as interesting as the guys from Endless Boogie. It was unbelievably boring. The only excitement in the entire set–which consisted of two songs totaling almost an hour of playing time–came when the singer received what appeared to be a text message or voice mail. He reached in his pocket, took out his cell phone, then proceeded to respond to the text message. I would like to think it was somebody in the crowd writing, “Dude, yr show blows!:-(”
After the show concluded I had to replace a contact lens that fell out during Pavement’s performance. I had forgotten my glasses at home, and I didn’t have any replacement contacts with me, so when it fell out, I had to save it in my mouth. I know that sounds horrible, but there isn’t much else one can do under the circumstances. Central Park isn’t the best place to deal with that sort of problem. But Miriam had a small mirror with her, and I got my hands clean enough with some sanitizer, and using only saliva I got that contact lens back in my eye. Leaving Central Park we saw scores of hipsters inhaling helium from balloons being passed out by some dude who told me not to take any pictures. New York City is much tamer than it once was.
Filed under: Musings, Popular Music, Transportation, Travel on January 4th, 2011 | 1 Comment »
