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Day Three

One of our goals while visiting New York was to try many of the various foodstuffs associated with that city, and to visit a couple of its famous restaurants.  Sardi’s had been a unique experience, but the food was not even close to being worth its high price.  Maxie’s was less outrageously expensive, but the food was still not outstanding.  On Friday morning, our third day in the city, we decided to just be simple.  I got a slice of New York-style pizza and Miriam got some Indian food.  My pizza was okay, but no better than you can get at any pizza restaurant anywhere in America.  Miriam thought her meal was the best she had our entire trip, and it was a relative bargain.  Once again we bought cupcakes at Magnolia Bakery.

We walked the bleak subterranean corridor from Grand Central to catch the 42nd Street shuttle to Times Square, where we caught the subway to Herald Square.  Our destination was the Empire State Building, but I noticed that we were passing by Macy’s, and I thought Miriam might enjoy it, so I suggested we go inside.  Any department store you have ever been in in your life, with the possible exception of Herrod’s in London, is nothing compared to this Macy’s.  The only other store I have been in that comes close is the Chicago Macy’s that’s in the old Marshall Field building.  This place is enormous, occupying at least eight floors.  Though it was only the end of September, Miriam wanted to see the Christmas decorations, and we ascended escalators from floor to floor trying to find them.  Amazingly, the escalators there are made of wood.  Finally, at the very top we found the Christmas wonderland.  It was insane.  So many things, and so many things of each thing.  I thought Miriam was going to lose it.  If you’re looking for a vast assortment of gnomes, or if you want to high-five a stuffed polar bear, go to the Macy’s in New York City.  (If you’re looking for a giant stuffed Unicorn or Pegasus, however, you’ll have to go to Chicago.)

The Empire State Building, only a block or so away, is immediately visible upon exiting the Macy’s.  Indeed, it’s visible from all over the city.  We knew well in advance that we wanted to see the city from high atop this great old skyscraper.  The only drawback, of course, is that it doesn’t offer a particularly compelling view of the Empire State Building itself.  (For that you’d have to go to, say the Top of the Rock.)  The lobby of the Empire State Building is tall and elegant, but not especially large for a building its size.  Visitors wishing to go to the observation deck are routed to an area that must take up half of the ground floor, where $20 tickets can be purchased, before being funneled Disney World-style through labyrinthine channels leading to a bank of elevators.  The special elevators to the observation deck move very fast.  The display counts ten floors at a time.  Somewhere above the eightieth floor you switch to another elevator to reach the eighty-sixth floor observation deck.

The observation deck is open, and visitors are kept from being blown away by a tall fence that curves in to discourage BASE jumpers and the bereft.  I was disappointed that, unlike the previous day which was clear and bright, Friday was smoggy, and the views from the top were limited.  But the area in our immediate vicinity was easily visible, and I snapped many photos, including this one looking down upon the area outside of Macy’s from which I took the above photo of the Empire State Building.  To the south I could just make out the Statue of Liberty behind the downtown skyscrapers.  Nearer to me I could see the iconic Flatiron Building.  To the east I could see the Chrysler Building, the river, and the bridges over to Queens.  Midtown was close and clear, and the old Pan-Am and GE Buildings were visible, too.

I am not a New Yorker, of course, nor do I ever intend to identify myself as one.  But I am one who appreciates beautiful architecture.  So, looking west from the top of the Empire State Building, the area around Madison Square Garden caught my eye.  Obviously, aside from the great old post office next to it, the new Penn Station/Madison Square Garden complex is ugly, especially compared to what used to be there.  As I wrote previously, present-day Manhattan stands over the graves of its once great buildings.  On the spot Madison Square Garden occupies today, the most beautiful train station in America once stood.  Penn Station was built in 1910, and until it was demolished in 1963 it was a masterpiece of public architecture.  The present-day Penn Station is so tragically inferior as to be offensive.  What you see in my picture at left once looked like this.

The same short-sighted foolishness that destroyed the old Pennsylvania Station has destroyed countless other great old buildings.  We can never get these places back.  Even if someone wanted to rebuild Penn Station in its former image, the cost would be so astronomically high that the first shovel of dirt would never get turned.  For all the money we spend on new architecture each year, we always seem to go the cheap route today.  Never again would anyone spend the kind of money it would take to make a new Empire State Building, Wrigley Building, or any other architectural gem.  (I will discuss this topic further when I write about Cleveland.)  Don’t misunderstand me; I do believe that good buildings are still being designed.  But does anyone think that a generic tower of reflective glass is beautiful?   Look at the picture to the left and tell me which is the better building: the plain glass box or the masterpiece behind it?  In great cities like Berlin war brought the demise of beautiful old buildings.  But war is a different kind of foolishness, and some of those buildings are being reconstructed, in spite of the cost.  Verily, there is a time to build up and a time to break down.  But we too often lack the wisdom to know when is the time to preserve what we have built.  It’s too late for the old Penn Station, for the old St. Petersburg Pier, for the old Gainesville Courthouse.  But it’s never too late to start thinking about what we still have worth keeping.

Filed under: Food, Rantings, Travel on January 5th, 2011 | No Comments »

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 »

The average low temperature in Gainesville for this date is forty five degrees Fahrenheit.  I didn’t get that warm today, nor is it forecast to tomorrow.  Worse, it’s been exceedingly windy, with gusts in excess of twenty miles-per-hour.  Bicycling in this weather is worst than unpleasant; it’s painful.

The cats’ water was still frozen at two o’clock in the afternoon.

Given all of the above, where do you think I ought to go this week on vacation?  How about Cleveland?  I’m looking forward to it.

Filed under: Meteorology, Travel on December 13th, 2010 | No Comments »

It occurs to me that I forgot to mention something: last September I went to New York City.

The last time I visited Manhattan was 1989, and though I was old enough to appreciate that I was looking at Rockefeller Center or Radio City Music Hall or Central Park or the World Trade Center, I was not old enough to control my itinerary.  So, I didn’t get to see some of the things I would have liked to, like the view from the top of the Empire State Building, or the incomparable paintings inside the Museum of Modern Art.  This trip, however, was all about doing the important New York City stuff, and it could hardly have gone better.

Day One

We left from Orlando on a Wednesday morning and touched down at the Westchester County Airport before noon.  That made the most sense, since we would be staying in White Plains during our visit.  The flight was half-empty, and though another passenger was initially seated next to Miriam and me, the stewardess offered him his own row, and Miriam and I enjoyed the extra room.  I love looking out the window of the airplane, and Miriam always lets me have the window seat.  On this trip I recognized Jacksonville, Savannah, Chesapeake Bay, and the coast of New Jersey, before discerning Coney Island, and Manhattan off in the distance.  The suburbs of Connecticut looked pleasant and friendly as the plane shifted to a more south-westerly course for landing.

We took a taxi from the airport to our hotel, the Crowne Plaza.  Our eighth-floor room was handsome, with a large corner window that overlooked the intersection of Maple Avenue and Hale Avenue, and the charming homes on a hillside to the southeast.  The hotel offered complimentary shuttle service anywhere in the city of White Plains, and during our stay we took advantage of that luxury.  Though the distance to the train station was not considerable, the path is circuitous, so a free ride was the way to go.

The train station in White Plains is on a platform just west of downtown.  I was not well-versed in the particulars of the New York City Metro, or the Metro North Railroad, and we wanted tickets for both.  The clerk advised us that our best bet was a ten-trip off-peak pass, with accompanying subway pass.  The total was around $60 per ticket.  Off-peak hours are after ten o’clock in the morning until four o’clock in the afternoon, and then after six- or seven o’clock at night.  The price for a ticket that included peak hours was substantially higher.

While we were waiting for the next train to Grand Central Terminal, a woman in a long khaki coat repeatedly cut to the front of the ticket line to ask the clerk questions about the next train.  I thought her actions were incredibly rude, but she looked very rough and flustered, and assumed she was having a bad day.  When we took our seats on the train I had already forgotten her, but then we heard a woman in a thick Long Island accent pestering a handsome English couple with rather personal questions: “Where do you work?  How much money does that pay?  How expensive is your house?”  And so on.  I thought it was unbelievably impolite, and I half expected the Britons to tell the lady to shove off.   But, like good Englishmen, they took it in stride, and humoured the lady for the entire forty minute ride to Grand Central.

Grand Central Terminal is amazing.  First, it’s enormous.  The ceiling is painted with a huge zodiac, beneath which is the circular information desk, topped with a four-faced clock.  Hundreds of commuters are walking this way and that, and hundreds more tourists are taking photos at any given second.  At the north and south ends of the main lobby are two balconies, under which, through arches, corridors lead to an astonishing array of shops and restaurants, plus the various subway lines that connect to Grand Central.

On our various travels, we have become proficient users of public transportation.  Perhaps the biggest challenge for us when it comes to riding an unfamiliar subway in a new town is learning which lines run which directions.  Once you descend the stairs in a Metro station, all sense of direction one has while above ground is lost.  Thankfully, New York City streets are numbered, and Manhattan is long and straight, with lines running, by and large, north and south.  Just look for the signs that indicate whether the train is heading downtown or uptown and you’re good to go.  The only other challenge (and this one is unavoidable), is determining whether it’s better to exit the subway at one stop or another when it appears that your intended destination lies halfway between.  But we managed during our trip, and we went all over New York City.

Our first destination on our first day was the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  We walked the few short blocks to the steps along Fifth Avenue facing elegant mansions, and ate hot dogs in the sunshine before heading inside.

In general, Mrs. Hill and I are thorough museum-goers.  We look at every piece, and read most of the information posted next to each piece, and typically spend many hours exploring.  We did not have the time to do that at the Met.  We spent so much time perusing the Egyptian wing of the museum that we had to skip the Greek art and the medieval art, as well.  The European paintings were astonishing, of course; the sculpture was, too, and I was even fond of some of the modern art, particularly Untitled by Anish Kapoor, a large concave work composed of hundreds of reflective hexagons.  From a distance of several feet it reflected nothing distinguishable.  But moving closer you could make out your own shape, and at a distance of a few inches it became even more mesmerizing.  There was a fascinating round room with a mural depicting the gardens and palace at Versailles painted along the entire length of the wall.  The room had bizarre acoustical properties.  My favorite area of the museum, though, was the reconstructed Greek Revival facade of the 1822 Branch Bank of the United States which once stood on Wall Street.  Beyond the worn stone threshold was room after room of amazing antique furniture organized by period and style.  Today’s rich live in squalor compared to those of yesteryear.  The stairs from the Chicago Stock Exchange Building made me lament that craftsmanship is dead.  Still, I was most touched by something entirely simple: an embroidery sampler stitched by fourteen-year-old Sally Cornelius depicting Adam and Eve in the Garden, beneath which appeared the words, “This I have done to let you see what my parents did for me”.

From the Met we headed back to Grand Central, then took the express shuttle to Times Square.  The density of the crowd there was astonishing.  Throngs of people walking briskly, or stopping hastily to snap photos of family and friends standing at the center of the Western world.  I found it slighty overwhelming, and could easily imagine how one prone to sensory sensitivity might find Times Square oppressive.

We needed to kill some time before heading to dinner.  We had decided to eat at Sardi’s, located in the heart of the Theater District.  When we arrived we were seated right away.  It is a fancy restaurant where fancy people eat.  It is also amazingly expensive.  Our meal was one of the priciest we’ve ever had.  Alas, mo’ money don’t mean mo’ tasty: the food wasn’t that great.  But we paid for the experience of eating at Sardi’s, and, in that regard, I do not regret it.

It had rained during our dinner, which was surprising, and we dodged lightning on our way back to the subway to catch the return train to White Plains.

The next installment: New York City, Part Two.

Filed under: Art, Transportation, Travel on November 19th, 2010 | 1 Comment »

Much is being made of the new scanners in place at airports that depict the human body with more detail than ever before.  These scanners can detect weapons and explosives that metal detectors alone could not.  They also show your junk.

I understand that people aren’t thrilled about airport security screeners gawking.  And I understand that most people don’t enjoy being frisked.  And as one who has flown several times a year for the past decade, I understand the frustration all travelers experience at the airport when forced to remove shoes, belts, and keys.  Flying with a notebook computer or any sort of health and beauty product is a hassle, too.

But for those freaking out today, refusing to be frisked or scanned, I say get over it.  You do not have a God-given right to fly on airplanes unsearched.  It’s embarrassing.  I get it.  But the safety of hundreds of passengers is more important than your modesty.  It sucks that we live in a world in which a small group of determined terrorists ruin travel for all of us.  But that’s reality.  And the same people griping tonight about airport scanners are the exact same ones who would scream and rant if, God forbid, terrorists did sneak a bomb on a plane.

I’ve been patted down at airports on several occasions, and as recently as two months ago the security guard pulled me out of the line and ran his hands all over me.  It isn’t fun.  But neither is dying in a fiery explosion.

Filed under: Current Events, Rantings, Travel on November 15th, 2010 | 2 Comments »