In Review: New York by Lily Brett

The book jacket describes Lily Brett’s 2001 book, New York as a “…wry collection of pieces,” about New York City; a city that has “…entertained, inspired and perplexed her for the decade she has lived there in a SoHo loft apartment.”

The daughter of Jewish holocaust survivors, Lily Brett was born in Germany and moved to Australia (with her parents) in 1948. In 1989 she moved to New York City with her artist husband, David Rankin. At just 156 pages, this collection of fifty-two essays offers short vignettes about New York City, that seek to illuminate and throw light onto life, in arguably, America’s most exciting metropolis.

It occurred to me that New York would make a fine companion piece to the highly successful television series, Sex And The City, since so many of Lily’s essays deal with relationships, fashion, women, personal appearance, marriage, plastic surgery, ageing, celebrity hairdressers, and yes – sex.

What I enjoyed most about Lily Brett’s New York was trying to see how much I could identify about the city based on my own two visits there in 2008, and again in 2010.

Her piece on Chinatown, called appropriately enough, Chinatown, captures the hustle and bustle of that New York neighborhood, and the shock and discomfort many people experience when first encountering the live fish, frogs and crustaceans waiting to be turned into meals of endless variety on nightly dinner tables.

In several essays she seems to lament the demise of the old New York. A city that was more reminiscent of Martin Scorcese’s Mean Streets, or even worse, Taxi Driver. A city bathed in low light, high crime, graffiti and poverty. Of course, all these aspects of New York are still there, though thankfully nowhere near as prevalent as they once were. Ultimately, Brett’s various neuroses leave her grateful that the bad old days alluded to above are for the most part gone, and I can only agree with her regarding this.

According to Lily Brett’s website, the 52 essays that make up New York were originally commissioned as weekly columns for the German newspaper Die Zeit. This accounts for their short length of just over two pages each. As a result, New York, can be read in a matter of hours, and while it doesn’t offer any major insights into the America psyche, it certainly offers many insights into Brett’s mind. So much so, that I couldn’t help thinking, as I read New York, that it would be fascinating to eavesdrop on a conversation between her and Woody Allen. One gets the feeling they might have a lot in common, with both apparently revelling in their neuroses, Jewish heritage, hypochondria, and their love/hate relationship with the Big Apple.

New York is an entertaining, albeit short and easily read collection of New York City observations, and is worth seeking out if you are planning a trip to this amazing city.

Unfortunately, New York appears to be out of print in its English language edition, although there are second-hand copies available on Amazon. Be aware though that there is also a German language edition currently available via Amazon. New York is available as a download for Amazon’s Kindle eReader, and may eventually be available in other eReader formats as well. Your best bet might be to visit your local second-hand book shop and see if they have a copy on their shelves.

Details:
Paperback: 156 pages
Publisher: Picador (January 2001)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0330362453
ISBN-13: 978-0330362450

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Lily Brett has written numerous other books and a range of these presented below. As always, you can purchase these directly via Amazon.Com.

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Walking the High Line

An article in the April 2011 edition of National Geographic magazine about New York City’s High Line ‘park’ got me reminiscing about my visit to the High Line in 2010.

The High Line is not a park in the conventional sense – it is more a raised landscape feature following the course of an old, long defunct and abandoned elevated railway line along the lower west side of Manhattan’s Chelsea district. Part park, promenade, meeting place, and sun deck, the High Line is a great example of a good idea whose time has come.

Once classed as an eyesore and slated for demolition, the High Line was saved from the scrap merchants yard, mainly as the result of the shared vision, work and enthusiasm of two men, Joshua David and Robert Hammond, who had the foresight to imagine a new life for the old El line, and who formed Friends of the High Line in 1999 to bring their vision to life.

The rest, as the saying goes, is history.

I walked the first section of the High Line back in July 2010, and thoroughly enjoyed my birds-eye view along a route that led from Gansevoort Street through the Meatpacking District, and across Tenth Avenue to West 20th Street. As you walk some 25 feet above street level your perspective of New York City changes constantly, and the walk makes for a very pleasant way to spend an hour or so people watching, sunbathing, or just relaxing on a warm summer day.

Here, narrated by the actor Ethan Hawke, is a short history of the High Line:

This week, stage two of the High Line opened, extending the route a further ten blocks north to West 30th Street. The High Line now provides unique views of the Meatpacking District, West Chelsea and Hell’s Kitchen, and its total length now extends a full mile.

Best of all, the entire length of the High Line is wheelchair accessible with access provided by elevators located at West 14th, W 16th and W 30th Streets. A fourth elevator is currently being installed at W 23rd Street and should be operating by the end of this month.

The High Line is open daily during the park’s summer operating hours of 7:00AM to 11:00PM, and access is free.

Photographers Delight
Photographers looking for a unique perspective for their New York City images, have found the High Line to be a perfect place to capture the Big Apple in ways that, in the past, may have not been possible – or easily achieved.

Because of the generous opening hours of the High Line, setting up for early morning or late evening sunsets shots of New York’s skyline has made the High Line a popular viewing platform for local and visiting photographers.

Art, Music, Dance
A full program of art, music and dance has being scheduled for the High Line this summer, as well as regular walking tours, volunteering opportunities and more, and you can read about these via the Friend of the High Line newsletter on their website.

More information
More videos can be accessed via the Friends of The High Line YouTube page…
Friends of The High Line Org…

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World Trade Center Panorama

Click image to view the panorama

Really enjoyed this panorama of the World Trade Center site via the New York Times website. The panorama allows you to look around the construction site (from a fixed point) within the location.

You can see newly planted white oak trees, and 1 World Trade Center beyond the South Memorial Pool that marks the site of the former South Tower.

Make sure you click on the ‘Full Screen’ button to view the panorama at its best. Also you can speed up or slow down the rotation by using your mouse to manoeuvre the panorama to all points of the compass: up, down, backwards, forwards, and every direction between.

Amazing stuff. All they need now is a permanent 360 degree camera providing the same panoramic view in real time, and you could watch the complex being built from anywhere in the world.

Since the panorama can’t be embedded on this page, you will need to go to the New York Times site to view it, but it is well worth the trip!

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Here are a small selection of books and DVDs that mark the passing of the Twin Towers and commemmorate the momentous events of September 11, 2001. All are available directly from Amazon.Com. Simply click on one of the images to go to that items page on Amazon where you will find independent reviews and ordering information.

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Friday Photo: Batman Woz Here

Click on image to view full size.

On August 8, 2010 I caught a bus from New York’s Port Authority Bus Terminal on 42nd Street to Woodstock.

Yes, that Woodstock.

I travelled there to see Pete Seeger (see Pete Seeger –Living Legend), arguably one of the greatest living folk artists alive who was performing at the Bearsville Theater.

The two mile walk to the theater along Tinker Street led me past two story weatherboard homes, small bed and breakfast accommodations, cafés, abandoned houses, and through the outskirts of Woodstock past rolling farmland and several apple orchards (a roadside monument at the corner of De Vall Road and Tinker Street states: On the ridge 400 feet south, originated about 1800 the Jonathan Apple, an important commercial variety, long known locally as the “Rickey”, or “Philip Rick”apple from the discoverer.”).

It was while I was walking along the roadside verge that I discover an abandoned Batman mask lying in the grass. It seemed such an incongruous sight, lying there in this quiet rural hamlet, far from Gotham City.

Had some child been walking or riding their bicycle along Tinker Street and lost or thrown the mask away? Had it fallen from a moving vehicle, or been carried by the wind from a nearby front yard, and been deposited here? I will never know. And for all I know, it lies there still, being slowly broken down by the combined forces of heat, snow, wind and rain.

New York City Apartment Living

Image: Apartment blocks overlooking the Hudson River, New York City

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Many years ago I spent a year living in a small apartment in Adelaide, and from memory, I must say the experience wasn’t all that bad – if you discount the neighbors from hell who constantly fought and argued, and who eventually did a ‘runner’ after leaving their rental next door trashed.

I should say, at the outset that Australians are not big on apartment living. Most of us grow up on suburban quarter-acre blocks, with large back yards, covered with swathes of green lawn, numerous trees and shrubs and other vegetation. The idea of living in a multi-storied apartment block with neighbors potentially residing above, below and to both sides of us, does not cause the heart to beat with anticipation and excitement. So it was with a sense of some trepidation that I approached my two month apartment sitting appointment in New York over the summer months of July and August, 2010. However, I needn’t have worried.

While there are no doubt ‘neighbors from hell’ living in New York apartments, the building I was calling home for eight weeks in the upper Manhattan suburb of Washington Heights didn’t include them. In fact, if it wasn’t for the occasional meeting of fellow residents in the building’s foyer or basement laundry, I could have spent two months thinking I had the building to myself. I was aware of no screaming children, no barking dogs, no blaring televisions or music, and no domestic arguments from my neighbors – although from time to time the occupants of the apartment immediately above mine did sound like they were taking part in an exercise class, judging by the thumps and bumps on the floor/ceiling.

Most New York apartments are notoriously – umm, compact. Well, most of them are anyway. Having said that, apartments can range from tiny one bedroom studio units to plush penthouse accommodations that occupy whole floors of new or renovated buildings – as the following image shows.

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Yes, folks, that’s a three bedroom apartment each of which has its own en suite bathroom, with a spare fourth toilet for visitors. Needless to say, apartments like these are not for the average working Joe, and the place I stayed at was certainly on the modest size.

However, that doesn’t mean people spend their leisure time cooped up in cramped apartments, sweating away their evenings in front of their televisions. At least not all of them. I soon learnt that apartment dwellers – on Manhattan in particular – love to get out of their cramped digs whenever the opportunity allows to meet their neighbors in local parks, on sidewalks, to walk the dog, or to just rest on benches watching the world go by.

In deed, after going back through my blog entries I am surprised to see just how often I have written about my impressions of New York City park life, including Central Park, Shakespeare in the parks, my New York promenade, and others. Clearly, this notion of 'park life' made a big impression on me, but the popularity and utilization of New York City parks also testifies to the importance they play in the life the city’s residents.

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Image: Streetscape of apartments in Washington Heights, New York City

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I don’t know if all New York apartments have laundry facilities in their basements, but mine did, and it was a great convenience to not have to go down the road looking for the nearest launderette when washing day was due. In a previous post, I also wrote about the excellent collection of books that could be found in the basement ‘library’ of my apartment block.

Another thing our building contained – as do many other New York apartments – was a fallout shelter. I couldn’t tell if there was a separate space for the fallout shelter, or whether the basement did double duty as laundry and shelter facility. If the laundry does double as the fallout shelter, it is going to be very cramped and uncomfortable down there, as I assume many other similar shelters will be. Needless to say, I hope it never has to be used for the purpose for which it was intended.

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Image: Typical fallout shelter signage… ”Duck – and cover!”

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Another aspect of apartment living I found interesting was the number of pets that New Yorkers keep in their apartments. I myself was caring for two cats that never leave the confines of the apartment I was staying in, and I’m sure they are not the only house cats that spend virtually all their lives indoors. Dogs on the other hand need more space to run around in, and every evening a motley collection of canines, large and small took to the streets with their owners – or paid dog handlers – in tow to sniff trees and garden beds, and deposit their droppings wherever they saw fit.

Thankfully, most owners did the right thing and collected the droppings their pooches left behind, but some did not, and it was always worth paying attention to where you were walking in case you brought some of the poop back home with you. In deed, a New York aphorism has it that you can always tell the difference between New Yorkers and visitors, because the visitors are those who are constantly looking up at tall buildings, while the New Yorkers are always looking down at the pavement trying to avoid the dog poo!

After two months living in New York apartment I was sorry to go. It was a luxury most visitors will never get to experience, and I am delighted to have had the opportunity of living like a local. It’s an encounter I will treasure for many years.

Friday Photos: Duck! Duck! Duck!

Image: Ducks practicing their synchronized preening routines

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I captured the three ducks in the first photograph preening themselves on the banks of the Central Park model boat pond during the summer of 2010, and was lucky enough to get them in an almost perfectly synchronized cleaning session.

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Image: The Alice H. and Edward A. Kerbs Memorial on Conservatory Water

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The Alice H. and Edward A. Kerbs Memorial is the current ‘home’ of the Central Park Model Yacht Club (CPMYC). The Central Park Model Yacht Club was founded in 1916, but model sailing on Conservatory Water started about 40 years earlier.

After a wooden structure burned down in the early 1950's, a new home for club was established in 1954: The Kerbs Memorial Boathouse. The new building was sponsored by Jeanne E. Kerbs in memory of her parents Alice and Edward Kerbs, who enjoyed watching the boats sailing on the pond from their Fifth Avenue apartment window.

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Image: The Jeanne E. Kerbs plaque on the Inventors Gatepost at East 72nd Street, NYC

Source: New York City Parks website…

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You can see larger versions of these photographs and many others through my Flickr page here… or click here to watch a full screen slide show of all my photographs…

More Information

Central Park Model Yacht Club...

Central Park website...

PS: You can find previous Friday Photos by using the search box at the top left of the page.

The Frugal Traveller Takes it Slow

~ I’ve written before about slow travel The Slow Traveller, and the benefits that can be derived from that form of travel. Now that I am getting closer to my next extended trip, I thought I’d take another look at the concept.

At the end of June, I am heading off to the USA for three months, two of which will be spent in New York City. Having visited New York in 2008, and having seen many of the major tourist attractions (State of Liberty and Ellis Island, Empire State Building and numerous major galleries and museums, etc), I am not fussed about returning again to some of these locations.

However I do want to get a sense of how life is for the average New York resident. Or at least how it might be for a local resident on vacation, since I don’t have to go to work five days a week while I am there, and contend with the morning and afternoon rush hours.

So how does a slow traveller get the most out of their travel experience? By acting like a local and participating in the same events the local citizens will be getting involved in. This time I want to immerse myself in many of the events that New Yorkers will also be participating in. To that end, for the past few weeks I have been spending hours a day, researching some of the hundreds of events being planned for July and August in New York. Many of the websites I have visited are yet to post their full summer schedules, so I will need to come back to those over the next few weeks.

Things like the many free or low cost events that take place around the city every summer. For example: Shakespeare in The Park, the Central Park Summerstage program, free film screenings and music performances in Bryant Park, the Lincoln Center Out of Doors summer festival (July 28–August 15), as well as numerous other free events at the Lincoln Center, free events put on by the City Parks Foundations, and events at many other locations.

Perceptive readers will have noticed my repeated use of the word ‘free’.

The only way I can afford to spend three months in America, and two in New York City is by making my limited finances stretch as far as possible. Thus, there will be no luxury accommodations, no $100 meals, and no spending sprees on Fifth Avenue for this frugal traveller. Instead I will be making the most of the hundreds of free or almost free events taking place across the whole of New York.

My few indulgences will include a Broadway show (or two), possibly a cooking class with Rustico Cooking, a Hidden Harbor Tour, a couple of major concerts (if I can find something or someone worth seeing), and several other events currently in the pipeline.

I’m sure I will return to this theme over the coming weeks and months as my departure date approaches. However, if you have any places on your must see list favourite New York locations, or better still hidden gems you think I should know about, I’d love to hear about them.

You know what to do. The Comments box awaits.

Happy New Year!

~ Happy New Year!

Strange isn't it? It is midday on January 1st, here in Adelaide as I write this (with a slightly befuddled head following yet another late night seeing in the new year), which means we are already 12 hours into 2010.

Meanwhile, in New York it is still only 8.30pm on New Years Eve. I imagine there are thousands of people streaming into Times Square to join the thousands who are already there, waiting to start celebrating in style once midnight finally arrives in that great city.

The revelers in Los Angeles on the other hand, have still got more than six hours to wait before they see the new year reach them. I hate to tell you this folks, but you may as well stay home and get an early night because New Years Day, 2010 looks remarkably just like every other new years day I have ever celebrated.

And yet, celebrate it we will. Just like we celebrate the birth of a new child or the start of spring. All hold the promise of something new; something fresh; something we haven't experienced before.

For myself, I hope 2010 brings me closer to my family and friends, and closer to a few more of the billions of people populating this wonderful planet. I hope too that each of us can take our own individual steps closer to peace, compassion and understanding. God knows, we and the planet could do with it.

Wherever you are, and whoever you are with, may this New Year, 2010, infect you with Peace, Love and Understanding.

The Art of Subways

~ For most commuters, subways are often a ‘necessary evil’ that simply help them get from one part of a city to another in (hopefully) the safest, quickest and most comfortable way possible. Generally, people don’t travel around the world just to see subway stations, but some subway systems are well worth the visit.

As someone who rarely uses public transport at home, I was more than happy to re-acquaint myself with that means of travel as I explored London, New York City, and Athens in 2008. Of the three cities mentioned, I personally found London’s subway system (the ‘underground’) to be the least interesting visually. It began operating in 1863, and as the first underground transport system in the world, its designers and architects didn’t waste time or money trying to turn it into a work of art.

Thanks to the 2004 Olympic Games, Athens has a stunning new subway. While the underground component is not particularly extensive, it is clean and efficient. It also incorporates many fascinating archaeological discoveries unearthed during the construction of the network that are worth seeking out and examining closely in their own right.

The first underground line in New York’s subway system opened in October 1904. While many of the old lines and stations are showing signs of wear and tear, the inclusion of works of art or station designs that were aesthetically pleasing to commuters, was part of the brief city engineers and architects had to take into consideration when planning the subway.

Many stations are decorated with intricate ceramic tile work, some of it dating back to 1904 when the subway first opened for business. The "Arts for Transit" program oversees art in the subway system. Permanent installations, such as sculpture, mosaics, and murals; photographs displayed in lightboxes, and musicians performing in stations encourage people to use mass transit. Some of the art is by internationally-known artists such as Elizabeth Murray's Blooming, [see image] displayed at Lexington Avenue/59th Street station.
[Source: Wikipedia…]

The New York subway system was a revelation as I constantly discovered massive murals, quirky sculptures, colourful mosaics and many other types of art scattered through the subterranean depths beneath that great metropolis.

Which brings me to the Design Boom website.

They have posted a feature on some of the world’s most visually stunning subways systems and their stations, and it is well worth taking a look at. Of course, most of the stations illustrated in the article are far newer than either the New York City or London subway systems. Never the less, all are a feast for the eye and would surely make even the most jaded and jet-lagged traveller, reach for their cameras to capture the underground wonders they are passing through.

Artwork: Blooming, Elizabeth Murray (1996).
Photo by: Wayne Whitehorne

Safe Travelling

~ My entry about an encounter with pickpockets in Greece (see Three Man Crush) got me thinking about the issue of safety and security while travelling. As I wrote then, this failed attempt at stealing my wallet, was the only negative experience regarding my personal safety I faced in seven months of travel.

The problem with having been brought up on a steady diet of feature films, television news items, and a host of TV shows old and new depicting life on the streets of major American cities, is that a traveller can end up thinking these shows represent 'real life' as it is being lived today. Modern programs such as the plethora of CSI-type dramas are full of multiple murders and psychopathic killers who seem to lurk on every city corner.

Thankfully, the reality of life in cities like New York, London, Paris, and Athens, Greece, is nowhere near as dramatic for the average traveller.

In New York, for example, it helps that the Greenpoint YMCA, where I stayed for a large part of my visit, is directly opposite the 94th Police Precinct building, which certainly promotes a feeling of safety - and maybe even a degree of complacency.

On the other hand, reading the police reports in the Greenpoint Star (the local paper), did alert me to the fact that I should not take my personal safety for granted. There will always be some individuals who are quite ready to attack and rob people in broad daylight, let alone late at night, which encouraged me to keep my wits about me. I decided to get about with a minimum of cash on me, and to leave my wallet and credit card back in my room whenever I went out and about. That way, if the unexpected did happen, I would hopefully only lose $50-60 dollars at most.

Of course, there was also the issue of the safety and security of my YMCA room, but the more I stayed there, the more relaxed I become about my fellow residents. Besides, in my Internet research for accommodation in New York, any discussion about the Greenpoint 'Y' only touched on the state of the bedrooms, bathrooms, and the helpfulness (or otherwise), of some staff. I did not see any reports from former residents complaining about having their rooms broken into or being robbed while staying there.

How about safety on public transport? My understanding is that the New York subway system is a lot safer than it used to be in the 1980's and 90s, and one of the things I soon noticed while travelling on the subway late at night was the number of young women travelling alone who still used the service. I figured that if the local women felt safe enough to travel alone on the subway system at 2am in the morning, then I had little to worry about. And so it proved.

I also spent several weeks at the North Brooklyn/Tweleve Towns YMCA (570 Jamaica Avenue, Brooklyn, New York, 11208. Phone: 718 277 1600 or 1601) in Cypress Hills (click here for map).

Initially, I felt a loss less comfortable walking through the neighbourhoods surrounding this facility, but once I relaxed and began to observe the daily life of the mostly Hispanic immigrants around me, I realised my initial fears were unfounded. Directly opposite the North Brooklyn 'Y' is the massive Highland Park. On several occasions I wandered through the park and saw baseball competitions taking place. I also watched as local youths played basketball, handball and tennis on a series of well kept playing courts. In addition, every evening the childrens playground with filled with the laughter and shouts of young children who were out with their parents or older siblings, enjoying the warm evening air.

The YMCA ran many programs for its members which were always well patronised, including volley ball, basket ball, aerobics classes, and more. Everytime I walked past the gym it was always busy and filled with sweating bodies working out on the equipment there. All this activity seemed to indicate a vibrant, active community going about its daily life just like any other American community.

At some point you just have to stop worrying, and remember why it is you are travelling in the first place - so relax and enjoy your travels wherever they may lead you.

New York Impressions

~ In a previous entry (My New York Marathon), I wrote about my first full day walking from Greenpoint, Brooklyn across the Williamsburg Bridge to Chinatown and the Lower East Side, down past City Hall, then back across the East River via the Brooklyn Bridge, and back to Greenpoint after passing through the Hasidic Jewish enclave in Williamsburg. Although I described in some detail my route on that extended - and exhausting - walk, on reading through it again, I see that it was light on my actual impressions of New York City. So I've decided to remedy that oversight in this post.

Some people travel only to see the famous attractions, while others travel to immerse themselves as much as possible in the locations they have chosen to visit. I prefer the immersive experience, and as such, I was happy to explore the city on foot as far as I was able to. Right from the start, I tried to blend in as much as I could with native New Yorkers. Of course, this was an almost impossible task given that everywhere I went I carried a digital still camera and a video camera - and nothing cries out 'tourist' more than someone running around taking lots of photographs of tall buildings and famous landmarks. However...

Maybe it's the songwriter and composer in me, but I loved listening to the sound and rhythm of the city. The wailing sirens of emergency service vehicles, the subway trains, the car horns, the whistles and shouts of traffic cops, and the constant hum a city like New York imparts 24 hours a day. But most of all, I tried to tune into the voices. The cadences and rhythms of the staff and regular customers at the Brooklyn diner where I ate breakfast each morning; the heavy accents of the Polish immigrants around Greenpoint; the Russians in Coney Island, and the Hasidic Jews of Williamsburg; and most common of all, the voices of so many African-Americans and Hispanics that now call New York City, home.

Although I was on my first visit to New York City, I had in a sense been there a thousand times before. In many respects I have grown up visiting New York vacariously over a period of some 50 years in the form of feature films, novels, television series, evening news reports, music videos, documentaries, and even Batman and Superman comics. However, it doesn't matter how many movies, television programs or other forms of second-hand experiences you use to form your opinions of New York City, nothing can match the experience of walking those city streets for yourself, taking in the scale of the place with your own eyes.

I loved the familiarity of the city, but even more I loved the serendipidous nature of simply wandering hapazardly around the neighbourhood of the Greenpoint YMCA and over to Manhattan and back again, all the while following anything that caught my attention, or looked or sounded interesting. In fact, New York is a city that engages all the senses: sight, sound, smell, taste, and even feel.

New York was everything I expected it to be - and more. Bigger, louder, faster, brasher, taller, grander, and so on. It was also safer, friendlier, easier to get around, and surprisingly, cheaper than I expected it to be. Unfortunately, it was also dirtier. But then the city does have a permanent population of around eight million, which is boosted on any given day by thousands of visitors who help add to the problem of trash creation and disposal.

Browsing through the hundreds of photographs I took during those first days, I see images of brownstone buildings, fire escapes, stoops leading directly onto New York sidewalks, a bright yellow Hummer, Polish language business signs, graffiti and large murals adorning city walls, and colourful dispensers for the many free publications that can be found all over New York. Then there are the images of unusual and interesting architectural features that are waiting to be discovered right across the city. Everyone takes photographs of the skyscrapers, of course, but my eyes were also drawn towards the swirling iron rails and curved wooden seating on the forecourt of the US Social Security Administration building on Federal Plaza.

Another series of images tries to record many of the other buildings around City Hall: The New York City Supreme Court; the United States Courthouse, and the US Court of Appeals office where I saw my first protest by (presumably) court workers, over some matter of great importance - to them, at least.

And there, in the midst of all this legal activity, I also discovered the magnificent African Burial Ground Monument (designed by Haitian-American architect Rodney Leon). The monument preserves a site containing the remains of more than 400 African Americans buried during the 17th and 18th centuries. According to the Wikipedia entry on the burial ground, historians estimate there may have been 15,000-20,000 burials there. The site's excavation and study was regarded as the most important historic urban archeological project in the United States, which in turn has led to the site being designated a National Historic Landmark and National Monument.

My first photographs of the Brooklyn Bridge fail to do that magnificent structure any sort of justice and are hardly worth keeping - but I keep them anyway. What is it about the Brooklyn Bridge that makes it such an iconic attraction anyway? Why do hundreds, if not thousands of visitors line up every day to take photographs of this bridge, and why do they not also line up to take photographs of themselves standing on the Manhattan Bridge? Or the Williamsburg or Queensboro bridges? I don't know the answer, but I too stood on the Brooklyn Bridge and tried without much success to capture an angle; a vision; a unique perspective that hadn't been photographed a thousand times before.

Back on the Brooklyn side of the East River I stumbled across the first of many public art works that are scattered across New York. This was the wonderful NMS - Nature Matching System mural created by Tattfoo Tan (see image above) with the help of the DUMBO Neighborhood Association. This huge, beautiful work can be found directly beneath the Manhattan Bridge on Front Street, Brooklyn.

And so it went. My two months in New York passed far too quickly, and I only got to scratch the surface of this vast metropolis. That I will return next year for another look is a guarantee I am prepared to make right here and now. If you have yet to visit for yourself, I urge you to put the city at the top of your 'bucket list' and start your planning now.

Friday Photo #15: Columbus Park, NYC

Click image to view full size

Columbus Park Playground, New York City

It was Saturday, May 10, the eve of Mother's Day 2008 (or maybe it was in fact Mother's Day in the US that day), when I just happened to be wandering through the heart of New York's Chinatown area - centred around Columbus Park. The park was packed with Chinese-Americans of all ages enjoying a beautiful spring day.

Groups of older Chinese sat at tables playing cards (generally, women), while the men seemed to favour several types of Chinese board games which were totally unfamiliar to me. Others were dancing to the music and singing of a female Chinese performer in a pavilion at one end of the park. Elsewhere, a small group of elderly men sat in a semi-circle playing traditional Chinese instruments in what appeared to be an Oriental jam session. Scores of young children accompanied by their escorts played in the large playground incorporated into Columbus Park.

My attention was drawn to the distinctive colours of the children's playground, especially the bright red, symbolising good luck, and the bright orange and gold, presumably symbolising good fortune and success.

I hung around for an hour or so, soaking up the music and atmosphere, and marveling at the diversity that makes New York what it is today - that great melting pot that constitutes modern America.

I've also put together a short video made of up footage I shot during my brief time in Columbus Park. On the soundtrack you can hear (and see) the female performer singing in the pavilion, and also get glimpses of the 'jam session' taking place at the same time.

Image: Columbus Park Playground, NYC.

Photo: Jim Lesses, Saturday, May 10, 2008

Travelling Lighter

~ Yesterday, I bought a new piece of luggage in preparation for my travels next year (see image).

It is a 54cm ‘Jet Stream’ bag from Tosca. That’s right, folks, 54cm. That is less than two feet high for those of you still using Imperial weights and measures. Anything smaller, and I would be restricting myself to carry-on luggage only!

I have written before on this blog about the concept of travelling light, and next year I hope to put my own advice into practise. As I said in an early post on House Sitting, I will be looking after a house for six weeks in Melbourne early in the new year, and I am using it as a practise run for my packing skills before I fly out to Europe in April or May.

I figure if can pack light enough to survive six weeks in Melbourne, I won’t need to pack anything extra for my European trip.

I should point out that I will also have a small carry-on backpack which will hold all my non-wearable gear such as camera, laptop computer, battery chargers, and other associated paraphernalia. I will also have a small ‘man bag’ – actually an old laptop computer bag for those extra items one always needs on long haul flights (water, ear plugs, reading material, etc).

Last year I used the 71cm version of the bag you see illustrating this post – as well as the backpack, and let me tell you, folks, a full 71cm bag is a pain in the back (not to mention the @ss) to drag around London, New York, Athens and the Greek islands!

I vowed that never again would I take such a large bag with me on my travels, and so the baby of the set, the 54cm piece will hopefully do the job for me. I say, ‘hopefully’, because I honestly don’t know if it will be enough, but then, one of the benefits of my six week house sitting gig is that it gives me the opportunity to fine tune my packing before I depart for Greece and beyond.

When I do eventually head off to Melbourne, I will post a complete packing list on this blog just so you can see what I have selected. Once the house sit is over, I will again post an entry letting you know what worked and what didn’t.

Friday Photo #12: Bulgari Building, New York

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Bathed in golden light, the upper levels of New York’s Bulgari Building, at 730, Fifth Avenue, takes an a whole new aspect as the day ends and evening falls over the city. This was from a series of images I took, and filed under the category Shadows and Light. Essentially, there are three main colours in this image: the golden yellow light, the blue of the evening sky, and the dark, almost black shadowed areas.

Apart from sharpening the image up in Photoshop, the colours are exactly as the came out of my camera. They have not been enhanced in any way.

I am disappointed to read that this Bulgari store has since closed down. While I never entered the store during my New York stay, I always looked out for the distinctive glow lighting up the top floors if I was in that area of Manhattan.

Image: Bulgari Building, New York City, April 2008

Photographer: Jim Lesses

Three Cheers For Google Maps

~ One of the best online resources for planning any trip is the powerhouse that is Google, and the innovations that have come out of that company’s buildings.

One of those great innovations is Google Maps.

Like thousands (millions?) of users around the world, I often use Google Maps to plot imaginary journeys, search for exact locations in far flung cities, and print maps of unfamiliar neighbourhoods.

I was thinking about this today, and remembering my first visit to New York City where I landed on a freezing Spring day late in the afternoon of Monday, March 17, 2008.

The flight from London was uneventful, long (but nowhere near as long as the 24 hours it took me to reach London from Adelaide), and bearable thanks to some classic movies (All The Presidents Men) on the in-flight movie channel.

Getting through US Customs and Border Protection was no problem, except that it took so long – close to an hour. This was due to the new heightened security measures then – and still – in place for foreigners like myself, where each index finger was scanned and a photograph of my face taken and added to what is no doubt a huge Customs and Border Patrol database.

By the time I got through Customs and to the baggage carousel to pick my luggage up, it was sitting on the floor with a bunch of others that had simply been off-loaded by (presumably) baggage handlers, and left there for anyone to pick up and walk away with. At least it hadn’t been destroyed in a controlled explosion by paranoid, over zealous security staff!

If getting through Customs seemed like a big pain, it was just a taster for the waiting that had to be endured as I lined up for a taxi outside in the late afternoon cold. That took another half hour before I could finally get a cab to the Greenpoint YMCA. I had to wait, not because there were no taxis, but because the queue was so long. As I patiently waited in line, I couldn’t help wondering if long queues where going to be a defining factor of my New York visit. Happily, it wasn’t.

Having scored myself a Yellow Cab, I told the driver where I wanted to go, and he seemed to be making good progress getting there by the quickest, most direct route – until he got lost in a warren of narrow, traffic laden streets close to my destination.

The driver knew the general location of Greenpoint, the Brooklyn suburb the YMCA is located in, but that seemed to be all. He kept stopping to ask the locals where the actual YMCA was, but most of them had no idea themselves. Even the information that the 94th Police Precinct Building was directly opposite the ‘Y’ didn’t seem to help.

However, all was not lost. Thanks to Google, I had printed out a map of the area surrounding the YMCA. This map had just enough information on it for me to help the driver find the building. Once we were on Manhattan Avenue and heading in the right direction, I was able to guide him to Meserole Avenue, the street the ‘Y’ was on.

I thought it quite ironic that having just arrived in New York for the first time, it was I who actually found the way for the taxi driver. If I hadn’t printed that page out via Google Maps, who knows how long we might have been driving around for!

The lesson here is to make use of these simple, cheap and incredibly useful online resources, whether provided by Google or other online mapping sites, and there are other mapping sites. They can save you a lot of time, stress, and money, and that can’t be a bad thing now, can it?

The Week That Was #12

Welcome to my weekly collection of the Odd, the Useful, and the often Bizarre.

The Odd: ‘Yorkshire Airlines’. What with all the fuss about the way airlines are treating their passengers lately, it is good to see ‘Yorkshire Airlines’ doing the right thing by their clients, and working hard to keep them happy.

The Useful: Museum Day, Sept. 26, 2009. Did you know that in America, Saturday, September 26, 2009 is Museum Day? This means locals and visitors alike get Free Admission to hundreds of museums and "cultural venues" across every state in the Union. The Smithsonian has made it easy to find out which museums are taking part (yes, I know, all of them are), and where they are located.

You can go to its website to download a museum card, and search through a database of museums organised on a state by state basis. These include many well-known institutions like New York’s excellent Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, and the New York Transit Museum, in Brooklyn, both of which I visited during my stay in 2008.

Buy the way, if the museum you wish to visit is normally closed on a Saturday, check with them to see if there will be free entry on Sunday 27th, instead. Again, you can use the Smithsonian site to find out if your local museum is thus affected. Thanks to Rick Seaney for this one.

The Bizarre: Passenger fixes faulty airliner. Holidaymakers avoided a long delay to their flight home from the tiny Spanish island of Menorca, when a passenger fixed a mechanical problem with their plane. Having been told to expect an eight-hour wait while an engineer was flown out from the UK, one passenger identified himself as a qualified aircraft engineer and offered to try and remedy the fault. After the airline checked the mans qualifications, the engineer was able to fix the problem, and the plane landed in Glasgow only 35 minutes late. The unnamed engineer received a round of applause from other passengers for his efforts.

But would you want to stay on a plane, knowing that one of the passengers had fixed a mechanical problem? We’ll leave the last word to fellow passenger Keith Lomax, who said, “It was reassuring to know the person who had fixed it was still on the aeroplane.” Fair enough then. Read more here…

Friday Photo #10: Remembering September 11, 2001

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St Pauls Church, New York City

Late afternoon sun casts long shadows across the gravestones of St. Paul’s Chapel, New York, while in the background, dust rises from the site of the former twin towers of the World Trade Center.

Located on Church Street between Fulton and Vesey Streets, the Chapel is opposite the east side of the World Trade Center site in lower Manhattan. It is the oldest surviving church building in the city, and indeed the oldest public building in continuous use in New York City.

The Chapel survived the Great New York City Fire of 1776 when a quarter of New York City (then the area around Wall Street) burned following the British capture of the city in the American Revolutionary War.

St Paul’s Chapel was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1960. Its status as such was further strengthened after the destruction of the twin towers of the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11, 2001, when miraculously the Chapel survived without so much as a broken window.

The Chapel was turned into a makeshift memorial shrine following the September 11 attacks, and served as a place of rest and refuge for recovery workers at the WTC site. For eight months, hundreds of volunteers worked 12 hour shifts around the clock, serving meals, making beds, counselling and praying with fire fighters, construction workers, police and others. Massage therapists, chiropractors, podiatrists and musicians also tended to their needs.

I spent a several hours at the Chapel over the course of two or three visits, and was intensely moved by the many artefacts, exhibits and audio-video displays that are permanently located inside the building.

The first one when entering is "Healing Hearts and Minds", which consists of a policeman's uniform covered with police and fire fighter patches sent from all over the country, and from around the world. The most visible is the "Thread Project", which consists of several banners, each of a different colour, and woven from different locations from around the globe, hung from the upper level over the pews. There is much to see and reflect on at St Paul’s Chapel, and I highly recommend a visit there during your New York stay.

As you might imagine there are many online resources and sites memorialising the attacks of September 11, 2001. Make your first stop the website of St Paul's Chapel itself, which has a wonderful audio/visual selection of many of the artefacts on view in the Chapel. Another excellent online location is the Make History – National September 11 Memorial and Museum site.

Visit the St Paul’s Chapel website here…

Thanks to Wikipedia for the background information…