Having spent years working a job and fitting my travel and adventure into an annual leave allowance, I am now as a freelancer, free to explore.
Where better place to start than New York.
New York the financial and cultural hub of the world, houses treasures such as the esteemed Empire State Building, vast Central Park, neon lit Times Square and the consumers' heaven - Macy's.
There are literally a million things to do in New York City. The possibilities are endless… Where should I begin?
As I am staying in a hotel located in the heart of New York City's Theatre District - one block from Times Square, I start there.
Times Square
Formerly known as Longacre Square, Times Square was renamed on April the 8th 1904 after The New York Times moved its headquarters to a new skyscraper on 42nd Street. Three weeks later, the first electrified advertisement appeared on the side of a bank at the corner of 46th Street and Broadway.
Almost 120 years later, Times Square is now the most visited place globally with (before Covid) 131 million pedestrian visitors a year.
Today, I am one of them. Whilst I have never been here before, the square (who knew it isn't actually square!) is strangely familiar. But that's not surprising - I have welcomed Times Square into my living room numerous times - in art, films, games, music videos, and on television. I have personally fought off alien forces, driven an RX7 full throttle round the busy streets and strutted the sidewalks with Carrie Bradshaw.
But never whilst playing the games, watching the films and cramming the television shows, did I grasp the intensity of the area. Noises rain down from every direction; people pour from every angle and neon floods the skies. I flatten myself against a building to watch - one person in a concrete ocean of voluminousness, and I suddenly feel honoured to be alive. Proud to be part of a species capable of such vibrancy.
I have an overwhelming urge to understand where it is that I have the privilege to stand. To see the geography of New York City and to visualise the bigger picture.
I need to get high - and no - I am not referring to anything illegal.
The Edge
After riding a high-speed lift which gets me to the 100th floor above the shops at Hudson Yards in just 52 seconds, I step out onto the Edge. The Edge is the highest outdoor sky deck in the Western Hemisphere. Suspended more than 1,100 feet in mid-air, its frameless glass walls angle outward and allow you to lean over the city.
I can't see the neon lights of Times Square, but I do get an unbroken view of New York City - and it's breath-taking.
I have never seen so many skyscrapers. They huddle the skyline in every direction. This is a city that clearly understands how to utilise vertical space.
New York City’s first skyscraper, the Tower Building at 50 Broadway, was completed in 1889 at eleven storeys high. Whilst it was then an amazing architectural feat, such a scraping effort is humble in comparison to the towers that I am currently looking at.
The skyscrapers amass two crowds. At the southern tip of the island, the lower crowd makes up the famous New York skyline.
Further up the island in the 'Midtown' stands the upper crowd. Here reigns the famous Empire State building. Completed in 1931, it was the world’s tallest scraper for 41 years and is still one of city’s most visited attractions. Wreathed in cloud, it rises to a height of 1,472 feet (102 storeys).
But from up here it is clear to see that the whole city is host to a huge selection of interesting skyscrapers. Some sport green areas on their rooftops, most stand straight, worryingly others like the American Copper Buildings are crooked. To the people living and working in New York, being in such high buildings must be the norm.
Whilst I am not particularly worried by being in a building so high, I don't usually view the world from 100 storeys high and I cannot help but feel a little dizzy, particularly when I cautiously shuffle on to the glass floor and see the city streets so small beneath me.
I find myself thinking of the people in the 110 storey Twin Towers on the 11th of September 2001. My exhilaration rapidly chills.
9/11 Memorial Museum
The September 11 attacks were co-ordinated suicide terrorist attacks, carried out by the militant Islamic extremist network al-Qaeda against the United States.
I, like most of us, remember vividly where I was and what I was doing as news broke of the first two planes crashing into the North and South Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. A third plane successfully crashed into the Pentagon in Virginia. A fourth was intended to hit a federal government building in Washington but crashed in a field outside Shanksville in Pennsylvania after passengers bravely frustrated the attack.
We later learned that nineteen terrorists had hijacked the four commercial airliners traveling from the north-eastern United States to California on the morning of the 11th of September 2001. The attackers were in three groups of five, and one group of four. Each group had a flight-trained hijacker to take control of the aircraft.
The attacks caused the deaths of 2,996 people (including the hijackers) and injured more than 6,000 others. The death toll included 265 on the four planes (from which there were no survivors); 2,606 in the World Trade Center and surrounding area; and 125 at the Pentagon. Most who died were civilians; but included 343 firefighters, 72 law enforcement officers, 55 military personnel, and the 19 terrorists.
I visit the 9/11 Memorial Museum, located at the World Trade Center which tells the story of 9/11 through media, personal narratives, and a collection of artefacts.
I've seen some of the footage before on the news and in documentaries, but it is still a hard place to visit. The personal stories of fear, loss, and survival are both upsetting and inspiring. The voices of loved ones talking of the people they lost, break your heart. The stories of bravery send shivers down your spine. The recordings of 999 calls and emergency services communications make the hairs stand up on the back of your neck, and the CCTV images of the attackers passing through airport security, chills your bones.
The continual fight with emotion leaves my throat raw. One minute I feel bruised with shock, grieving for the lost, injured and bereaved, the next - I'm bursting with admiration for the brave, and then comes rage, and I become a pressure cooker of loathing for the attackers.
I feel the anger increasing throughout the visit. Why did it happen? How was it possible? I leave the museum emotionally exhausted, with questions - not answers.
I know the next thing I need to do the following day is see children playing and people living. I plan to walk the High Line.
The High Line
In the mid 1800's freight trains ran on street level rail tracks and used to deliver food to lower Manhattan. The tracks however created dangerous conditions and by 1910 more than 540 pedestrians had been killed by trains. Consequently 'West Side Cowboys' were hired to patrol on horseback and wave red flags to warn pedestrians of the approaching trains.
By the 1980's (due to trucking becoming a more popular method of transportation) the use of the trains had dwindled and ceased. A section of the line had already been demolished but over the next few decades, whilst the High Line’s future was being decided, wild plants and flowers grew - beautifying the space. They inspired a group of people who became known as ‘Friends of the High Line’ to seek preservation of the area, and in 2009 the first section of the 2.33-kilometre-long High Line opened for the public to enjoy.
The High Line, now one continuous greenway, is an inspirational example of how to create public space from redundant industrial works.
Old track and new sculptures compliment the hundreds of species of plants and trees that have made the line their home. The space is littered with seating areas - incredible spots for nosey parkers like me, to people watch. And the people of New York are fascinating to watch.
Whilst each of New York City’s five boroughs (Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens, and Staten Island) exhibits its own lifestyle, people of many ethnicities inhabit the collection of neighbourhoods scattered within. And what I love about the New Yorkers is that, though diverse, with differing beliefs and cultures, they commonly share a happy outlook. In my experience, if the people of New York feel like dancing - they dance - wherever they may be. If they feel like singing - they sing and if they consider something warrants a whoop - they whoop.
Similarly, if something upsets a New Yorker - they say so. It is not uncommon to wander into the verbal crossfire of two disagreeing New Yorkers. 'Stupid' is a much-brandished adjective catapulted into the air on the end of a pointed finger, without much care or thought for people's feelings.
But in the absence of stupidity and in the presence of manners, I found the inhabitants of New York City to be eager to help, happy to impart knowledge of their city, and pleased to welcome visitors. And I found the High Line, fundamentally a rural walk which has been dropped into a montage of city life, the perfect place to socialise with these lovely people.
Katz's
The early morning walk leaves me hungry and so I make my way to Katz on Ludlow Street in New York’s Lower East Side.
Thousands of New Yorkers and visitors from around the world flock to dine at this legendary deli every week. Its corned beef and pastrami have become a characteristic of the city. Why? Well, I learn that the meat is cured using a slower method which best flavours it. Katz say that their finished product can take up to thirty days to cure, while commercially prepared corned beef is often pumped to cure in 36 hours.
I don't eat meat, but I go to Katz's anyway - for the experience (and the very good omelette).
Each customer entering Katz's, is handed a printed, numbered ticket by a door attendant. As food is ordered from various stations throughout the deli (separate for breakfast, sandwiches, side orders, drinks etc.), employees compute a running total of the pre-tax bill to be paid for at the end of the experience.
Guard this ticket with your life! And if you have attended as a party and several people's orders have been combined on a single ticket, guard your blank ones too. A cashier will collect all the blank tickets on your way out and if you have lost one, an additional $50 surcharge is added to the bill. The management state that the fee's purpose is to encourage patrons to go back and find the lost ticket in the hopes of preventing theft i.e., someone swapping a more expensive ticket for a cheaper one.
Being an army boy's mum, I am intrigued by their company slogan, 'Senda Salami To Your Boy In The Army'. I learn that the slogan was born from the family tradition of sending food to their sons during the second World War when the three sons of the owners were all serving their country in the armed forces.
Katz's fame has been enhanced by its appearance in many films and television shows. Perhaps most famously Katz's was the site of Meg Ryan's fake orgasm scene in the 1989 Rom-Com, When Harry Met Sally, followed by Estelle Reiner's line "I'll have what she's having". The table at which Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal sat is marked with a sign.
Luckily for the other diners - I refrain from indulging myself with a spot of re-enacting and spend the rest of the day shopping before heading to Chelsea Piers for a sunset cruise of the river.
The Hudson River
Eager to see Ellis Island (an island which partially belongs to both the states of New Jersey and New York), and the Statue of Liberty, I decide to explore the river. Just like the Englishman Henry Hudson did in 1609.
Ellis Island, together with nearby Liberty Island and Black Tom (an artificially made island that was destroyed in July 1916 when a munitions depot was sabotaged to prevent supplies being delivered to Britain and France during the first World War) were once known as the Oyster Islands. This was due to the large amount of oyster beds that surrounded them. But in time, the beds were eradicated - largely by land filling.
In 1892, following the Federal Government starting to regulate immigration into the United States instead of the individual states, an immigration station was erected on Ellis Island. A teenage girl from Ireland called Annie Moore was the very first immigrant to be processed. This is particularly poignant for me as I recall when I once researched my family name learning that many of my Irish ancestors had fled to America in the post famine era.
After the first World War, United States embassies were established in countries all over the world. Consequently, the consulate started to process the paperwork and complete the medical immigration inspection which had once been undertaken at Ellis Island. Therefore, after 1924, the only passengers brought to Ellis Island were those who had problems with their paperwork, war refugees, or displaced persons needing assistance.
Regardless, Ellis Island remained for three more decades serving many purposes, including a World War II detention centre for enemy merchant seamen. It was in November 1954, when the last remaining detainee, a Norwegian merchant seaman named Arne Peterssen was released, that the United States government officially closed Ellis Island.
More than twelve million immigrants had arrived in the United States via Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty, located on Liberty Island a little further south, had become an icon of freedom. She was seen as a symbol of welcome to immigrants arriving by sea.
I view her glory from my sunset cruise.
The copper statue, gifted from the people of France, is the robed Roman goddess - Libertas. In her right hand she holds a torch above her head. In her left, she carries a tabula ansata inscribed with the date of the United States Declaration of Independence - July 4, 1776 (in Roman numerals). At her feet lie a broken shackle and chain. She walks forward, commemorating the national abolition of slavery.
It's easy in the presence of such magnificence to romanticise how it must have been for immigrants sighting her across the ocean for the first time. But I suspect the reality of starting over in a new, foreign country wasn't very romantic at all. I feel my privilege of viewing her for pleasure.
I spend my final few hours in New York City enjoying the river views over the rim of a cold glass of rose wine and mulling over my time in this vibrant city with her high-spirited people.
As we sail back towards Chelsea Piers the night spectacularly wraps New York in diamonds. She wears them well.
This may well be the city that never sleeps, but I for now, must bid her goodnight.
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