Legion World Forums LEGION OUTPOST Mission Monitor Board Every 10 Years Forum My Big Apple Adventure

Well I'm back from my short break in New York now. Flew out Monday morning last week and flew back Thursday evening. Sort of a combined Valentine's Day and Chris's birthday trip (plus just an excuse for a bit of a holiday).

So how was it? Pretty darn fine it has to be said. A few down points, but mostly good. Coz I don't really like being negative but I want to say what wasn't good as well lets start with the bad and the ugly and then move on to the good.

First the bad. Actually not much was really bad, although we did get some attitude from a few of the poeple in shops and chain resteraunts. Nothing major, and no worse than you get in London or places like that, but considering how friendly most other people were (especially in the small resteraunts and cafes) it was a bit disappointing. Oh, the food on the plane sucked big time again, but it always does with BA. You'd think by now they could have come up with some way of serving airline food that is actually edible wouldn't you? Apparently not though.

Ack, and we were ripped off coming from the airport. The guidebook recommended get one of the shuttle buses which should cost about $15 or so each. Only stupidly we didn't think to ask before we got on how much it was and it turned out to be $59 each plus the tip. We actually refused to pay the tip since that kind of price is bloody ridiculous. Plus then when we went back to the airport and took the underground and airport shuttle turned out that was only $7. Bugger. Like I say as much our own fault as anything else, but still not good.

Now the ugly. Two big things here, the Ellis Island museum and the American ground staff at the airport. Oh, and the Empire State building which, yeah, is big, but just looked a bit lumpy and boring to my eye. Not ugly as in the way the other things were, just literally not very attractive. Anyway...

The Museum. Now I know a lot of people who had been to the museum in the past (including Chris eight years ago and my aunt about the same time) who said it was great. It included a concentration camp for the Japanese living in the US during the second world war and pulled no punches about the down side and the bad treatment of immigrants over the years as well as being informative and interesting and everything. However when we got there they'd obviously revamped it a lot. Like, majorly. It's possibly the most watered down, mimsy cop-out of a museum I have ever seen. A few vague references to some people maybe not being terribly happy about immigrants, very, *very* brief mention of the native Americans treatment by settlers and one room with the bunks in that immigrants were forced to sleep in. But apart from that... well, you'd think that everything about immigration to the US has always been happiness and light. Now I'm not saying that I was expecting something saying how ghastly those damn Yanks are, that'd be silly, but I was expecting something at least objective. The same kind of thing in Melbourne museum is brilliant in how honest it is about the bad things that happened and according to people I've spoken to who visited Ellis Island before it used to be the same way. Only not now. It actually annoyed me quite a lot. I wanted to know what went on, how things worked, what the bad and good points were. Instead you just got this vague film of history over very little substance. Ick, ick, ick. Good social history it was not.

And then there were the airport groundstaff. OK I know they've up-ed security, I know they've got tight controls but really I have never had the misfortune of encountering such rude people before. The staff everywhere else I've been since September 11th (UK, Australia, France, Spain and Germany) have always been pleasant but efficient and made the whole security process bearable. Checking in at JFK on the way back though... ugh. Demanding people take off their shoes, telling me off for not taking out my ear-ring before going through the scanner (since it's made of silver it wouldn't set off the alarm in the first place), the general attitude and so on was really, really unpleasant. A little bit of courtesy goes a long way when you're doing things like that. Just because you have to be extra careful and so on doesn't mean you can't treat people with a little bit of common deceny. eriously, it felt like we were doing something wrong by getting on a plane to leave the country. The actual immigration and customs officers seemed fine (not exactly friendly but not rude either) it was the security staff that got my back up. Snarl.

Right, that's all the bad done with. I've gotta go do a couple of things and then I'll come back and gush about the things I did like. Highlights will include the Chrysler building (sp?), Grand Central Station, the Met and the Natural History museum and (especially) Hugh Jackman stripping in the Boy From Oz. Rowr.

I'm glad you had a nice holiday, and that you're safely back home!

The only time I visited Ellis Island was a couple of years ago, and their exhibits were definitely more thorough and unvarnished. In fact, I was pretty impressed (and a bit surprised) at the museum's objectivity. I probably saw the same things that Chris and your aunt saw previously. The changes sound pretty disappointing...

Looking forward to hearing about good things!

Righty-ho then, the good things.

OK, now I dunno if it's the same for people visiting places like London for the first time but it has to be said that it's very bizarre being somewhere that is so familiar to you from TV and film and such and seeing that it really is like that, if you know what I mean. Not so much the way the buildings look and stuff, but the small things. Like the steam coming out of the vents in the street and stuff. On film that always looks a bit fake in a way and even though I knew it was real atually seeing it for the first time was very cool. It looks so strange but cool at the same time. Has to be said some of it was a bit stinky though. The underground was like that too (strange but cool, not stinky). It's not the fanciest or cleanest underground network I've ever seen but nor is it the icky, dark, sweaty place that the London Underground is. It was cheap and easy to find your way around and pretty darn quick, which is all good. Wierdest experience though on the Underground was when we were on our way back to the airport. It's a long journey (takes almost an hour and that's not including the airport shuttle bit) but almost as soon as we left Manhatten it got to the point where Chris and I were the only white people on a packed train. That kinda sounds like an odd thing to say, but it's something that you just don't get here in the UK. Even though we do have a large non-white population it's nothing compared to the US and so you almost never find yourself in the situation where as one of the 'majority' you find yourself in a minority. It wasn't scary or anything like that, just something that struck both of us as being a bit wierd. The kind of thing that you just notice and go 'ooh, look', if you know what I mean.

The city itself is pretty damn impressive, just by it's sheer scale. Skyscrapers and towerblocks here in the Uk are teeny tiny by comparisson. For example the tallest building here in Manchester (bearing in mind Manchester is the second or third largest city in the UK) is 26 stories high and there's very little else above 10. Being somewhere where almost every building seems to be at least twice the size of the ones we have here is pretty stunning really, especially with such a high concentration in a relativly small area. It's not just the cluster of really huge buildings down at the bottom of Manhatten, it's all over the city. In a way even though the city is so familiar in a lot of ways I still wasn't quite prepared for that.

Plus it's so bloody easy to find your way around. Now I have to say that in a way the grid system seems a little clinical to me, a little lifeless if you will, but you can't deny it makes finding your way around easy. It measn that you can quite happily just go out and wander the city without a map and as long as you know where you started from (or want to get to) there's virtually no trouble finding it. You'd be hard pressed to do that in London or Manchester or Birmingham, or even much smaller places like Chester or Oxford. The city is big (and really I'm just talking about Manhatten here since apart from travelling to and from the airport the nearest we got to leaving Manhatten itself was going across the Brooklyn Bridge and going on the tourist ferry round Liberty and Ellis Islands) but we still walked most places that we were going to. We were up on 96th street (just off Broadway) and walked down to Times Square and round there and only got the underground down to Greenwich Village for breakfast and down to the ferry. Also despite some of the horror stories you hear at no point didn't we feel safe. OK so we avoided Central Park at night and knew there were areas best not to go into but really that's different from any big city. There are more dangerous areas but if you use a little common sense then you'll be fine. New York was just the same. I'm not a nervous tourist, I'm not the kind of person who believes the worst about a foreign place ('gosh I'm a visitor here, the muggers and junkies will be looking out for me') but despite that there was still a sense that New York isn't one of the safest places in the world. Mneh, that was a silly thing to even half think as long as you used sense, so that was good.

Actually we pretty much just wandered the whole time we were there. We had vague ideas about what we wanted to see and where we wanted to go but in actual fact most of thse went out of the window as soon as we got there. We did do a couple of pointedly touristy things (the ferry for example) but for the most part just wandered and saw where it took us. That way we did still end up seeing the sights but kinda discovered them by accident, which was much nicer in a way. Coming round a street corner and seeing the Chrylser building towering above you or exploring Central Park and finding all the little thing in it was fabulous.

Speaking of the Chrysler building... faboo. Like I say the Empire State Building just kinda left me a bit cold but the Chrylser building is fabulous. Impressive but also beautiful. Just the right side of being a bit over the top and all the more impressive for that. The same goes for Grand Central station. I've never been to a train station that's made me just stop and stare before. Some of the fabulous wrought iron stations here in the UK are impressive, but they're nothing compared to Grand Central. Just a fabulous building. Dunno if it functions all that well as a station (often these things don't) but I was just a tourist and not needing to catch a train so I didn't care.

Central Park I loved too. For a man-made park it's pretty darn fine. Some very obviously man-made bits and some that just looked... well, natural. Huge and empty for the most part (empty of people at least, but it was bloody freezing when we were there so not really the weather in which you'd go for a picnic in the park) but that made exploring all the more fun.

Oh, and Toys R Us in Times Square. I love toy shops and the fact that this one had a ferris wheel and ginat Lego models and a roaring, life-size T-Rex in it made it even more fabulous. Heh. Wasn't nearly so impressed by the Disney store though which was a bit crappy really. Never mind though. actually shopping in general was pretty damn good. Didn't really get anything in the way of souveniers but we went into Gap and got two pairs of crago pants, two t-shirts and a hoody for just over £50. Here if you got the same stuff you'd be looking at around £150. Even with the exchange rate being so much in our favour at the moment (getting towards $2 to the pound) that's still ridiculously cheap. Actually I think it's more a case of here it's ridiculously expensive, but we're splitting hairs a bit there.

I loved Greenwich Village too. We only went once (shoulda gone again, it's about the only area of Manhatten we didn't explore properly) and had breakfast in a little cafe just off Christopher Street (right by the little park with the statues that I think were to commemorate the Gay rights movement). Really nice and friendly. The waiter was obviously the guy who owned it and it almost felt like you were just having breakfast in his front room. Very much the image of New York social life that you get in the media. We did have a bit of a wander (Chris wanted his photo under the Christopher Street street sign) but since we were there first thing in the morning a lot of the shops were still shut. Cool shops though. Just looking in the windows most of them seemed to sell random stuff and porn. I mean, there were shops where you could buy porn and bizarre cow Christmas decorations or porn and a Wonder Woman cookie jar (i *so wanted that jar but the shop was shut. Plus it'd probably have been dead expensive and not the easiest thing to bring back to the UK). I've decided I'm going to have a shop myself now called 'Random Stuff and Porn' as a kind of tribute.

We also went to the Met and the Natural History museum and both are dead nice. Kinda too big to really do in one go (it's the same kind of thing with some of the museums in London like the British Museum and the Natural History museum there) and we did keep missing out whole rooms because they're both so maze-like (again something quite a few big museums suffer from) but they were both still well worth it. I think of the two I prefered the Met (we did stroll around rather more leasurly there though) but both were well worth a visit. e didn't check properly but apprently MoMA is being renovated at the moment and most of the collection is out somewhere in Queens so that's one thing I wanted to see that we didn't, but I'm not sure if we'd really have had time to see it even if it were open so I'm not too traumatised about that.

All sorts of other stuff too (they'll probably come to me later) but probably one of the best thing we did was go to a West End show. It was also the first thing we booked after getting the flights (before the hotels even) because of the show we wanted to see.

Yup, we went to The Boy From Oz. Starring Hugh (phwoar) Jackman. Oh. My. Gods. Hot damn it was good. OK so the story is a little... well, not thin since it covers a very long period (pretty much the whole 48 years of Peter Allen's life), but a little skecthy I guess. Too much story to fit into the show in a way. That actually didn't matter though since the songs were so good (well, they were Peter Allen songs, they were bound to be good) and the cast was just brlliant. Obviously Jackman was the highpoint but everone in the show was great. The women playing Judy Garland and Liza Minelli were both incredible and the rest of the cast were great singers too. Everyone seemed to be having a whale of a time on stage and the design and direction was very simple but all the more effective for it.

And Hugh Jackman. I cannot say enough in praise of that man. OK so he's drop dead gorgeous to start with and strips a couple of times (not like full frontal or anything, but nicely topless a couple of times ) but he's also a great singer, a great dancer and very, very funny. The points where he was interacting with audience were brilliant and the highpoint was when a lady in the front row came back from the interval late and he'd already done Bi-Coastal (the second half opening number) so he did it again double time. One of the funniest things I've ever seen. We could have gone to see Bernadette Peters in Gypsey or Hairspray or something like that, but I'm glad we went for The Boy From Oz instead since it was fantastic. Some of the camp humour didn't quite seem to work for the Americans in the audience (there were a few points where you could pick out the British and Aussy audience members simply because they were the only ones to get certain jokes. Like the Waltzing Matilda bit. He he he he) but I think that's down to a certain cultural difference in humour rather than a fault of the musical or the audience or anything. For the most part though everyone was loving it, both on stage and in the audience, and the buzz as we left was great. It's a show that I recommend hugehly if you get the chance to see it.

And that was my adventure in New York. Like I say I'll probably think of other thigs as well but for a three day trip we did a fair amount. I think it was pretty much the perfect amount of time to spend in the city. Much longer and we'd have run out of things to do or run out of money and any less we'd not have had enough time to do the things we wanted. Course now I'm back at work and it all seems a long time ago. *sigh* Just waiting for my photos back now and I can relive it all again.

I've been to the streets and shops you speak of.

And Toys R Us in Times Square is my New York Mecca. rhino works a block or so from there.

I heard Hugh Jackman was great in his show.

That's REALLY great that you had such a good time. I'm not surprised by what you thought of the Ellis Island museum. Unfortunately, that kinf of candy-coating, if not all-out lying, is indicative of the socio-poiltical climate in this country right now, and boy I cannot WAIT for the worm to turn. Truth is always preferable to lies told to make questionable acts more palatable.

I can't wait to get to NYC soon myself (maybe next year!)

glad to hear you had a great time [ even for the couple of negative points !! ]

i NYC !!! i've been 3 times, i plan on going again this summer !!!

i'd agree with your point about seeing all the buildings for the first time [ after seeing them on TV and FILM !!! ] it is "strange" !!!

the moment i saw the skyline and then onto the streets, i felt like "i'd been there before" even though i hadn't !!!

it was a feeling !!!

Matthew.

Exactly. The museum itself wasn't outright lying, and what was there was quite interesting, but it was so obvious that a lot of the more distasteful stuff had been removed that it just made me so bloody cross. I mean, it's not like by admitting to the faults of the past that it's a bad reflection on the present. Quite the opposite in the fact becasue then at least you feel that something has been learnt. By denying (or at least ignoring) the less savoury aspects of history you're left with the strong feeling that you're not being told everything, and if they're not telling you everything about the past how can you have any confidence about what they're telling you know? OK so maybe that's a little bit of a strong way of putting it but it's basically how I feel. I'd rather be told about history as it actually happened and make an objective decision about it than be told the history that someone wants me to hear. Admittedly history is always going to edited but I would have hoped for something a little less obviously sugar-coated, especially since by all accounts it didn't used to be.

We are, of course, entitled to whitewash our past and harass everyone from around the world. You see, we're the rulers of the planet now. {incredibly ironic smile}

Do believe me, huge numbers of Americans detest the amnesia about the past and arrogance about the present that "our" "government" -- it's neither genuinely ours nor properly governs -- is perpetrating. Similar amnesia about history infects other government museums (such as the Smithsonian in Washington) and all of the government schools here. And hordes of us don't fly domestically any more if we can possibly help it.

I'm glad you got to see so much of New York, more than many domestic visitors could manage in that time. Even to get past the legends and see Central Park in the daytime. (By the way, that's a natural park. The land was set aside by the city for that purpose in the 1860s, and it's never been used for anything else.)

That sounds like a cool trip, I wanna see Wolverine: The Musical too!

I empathize with you. It's gotten so bad that I avoid travelling by air whenever possible. The belligerence of the security staff (and often immigration) is unwarranted. If the police state is inevitable, at least put a happy face on it.

That sounds like a great trip, Bevis! Nothing disastrous in the bad stuff, at least, and lots of good. Did you get around in a short time!

We just saw a film about the Robert Mapplethorpe exhibit controversy ("Dirty Pictures"). It seems that museums all over the U.S. (and Canada) are hyper-sensitive about showing anything negative, "unpatriotic" or contradicting the religious right's agenda. It was probably a trend before the Mapplethorpe show/trial, but the movie really illustrated how intimidating, even frightening, it can be to exercise free speech when some of these groups disagree with you.

Pretty ironic since Ellis Island was the entry point for people supposedly seeking the freedom of America.

Glad that you had a great time Bevis! NYC is such a cool place, I live about an hour from it, and I still haven't seen most of the monuments and the city!

The Toys 'R Us seems like it was especially fun . And I'm looking forward to you opening up "Random Stuff and Porn"

Oh Bevis! The hotel I work in is right next to the Toys R Us in Times Square!
If I had known you were coming, I would've had you in for a faboo free dinner!
Maybe next time.

lil'rhino

In film, the role of "New York" is sometimes played by Toronto or Vancouver. You can always tell, because the streets look a little too clean.