Just a little glimpse of a story I’ll tell, of an East Coast city that you all know well

The evening after I visited Princeton, David took me to meet two of his friends who were ‘genuine Midwesterners’, Nick and Grace from Kansas and Oklahoma respectively. We had a fun evening involving Mexican food (another first for me) and ten pin bowling. The bowling was especially fun, as we went to a place which David fairly described as ‘a dive’. It looked like it hadn’t been redecorated since the 1970s, and the bowling balls looked like they’d survived a nuclear holocaust. Particularly fun was the 10.30pm ‘Laser Bowl’ which involved turning out the main lights of one half of the alley, some glow in the dark pins and fairy lights, and the blasting out of Phil Collins at max volume. Although i’m utterly useless at bowling I enjoyed myself a lot, and it was good to go somewhere that – how to put it? – real Americans go to, so as to get an albeit brief look at ordinary life. Yet once again I caught an insight into the way race affects everything in the USA. Nick, who is studying at Princeton, explained to me that while he loves this particular bowling alley, he suspects the reason few fellow Princetonians come is because, to put it bluntly, there are many ethnic minorities that frequent the place and white Princeton students feel scared to go there.

My plan was to travel around New Jersey by car after leaving Princeton, but that basically became impossible because it would have set me back $300 for 2 days hire. Although i looked into getting a bus to Atlantic City, the travel plus accommodation costs made this less than viable. So I decided to head back to New York city, to meet up with Saz again, whom i had hardly seen on my first visit because she was busy working andjetting back to the UK for a long weekend with family. Sarah’s friend Sophie, another Brit, was staying andit was cool to meet a new person as well as catch up with an old friend. On the Saturday we had a fun time doing nothing much; wandering around the Lower East Side of New York and going to Little Italy, then watching the film Stop-Loss in the evening (a well-made and clever film about US soldiers forced to stay in the army despite completing their tours in Iraq, and well worth watching).

On Sunday we decided to take the train to Long Island and go to the beach. This was a great idea on Saz’s behalf because not only did it afford me the chance to see more of the state than New York city, but a day on the beach was exactly what I needed. In fact, I don’t think i’ve been to the beach in over 2 years, so it was a really pleasant way to spend the afternoon especially as the place was so clean, busy yet not over-crowded and the sea was simply fantastic (I had much fun regressing to the mental age of 9 and playing in the enormous waves):

Although in the USA it seems you never can quite get away from it all. Below is a picture (albeit not a very good one) of 1 of the 3-4 airplanes that fly up and down Long Beach all day, trailing enormous advertisment banners behind them. Advertising is basically everywhere in the US – it’s even on the actual steps of the stairwells of Penn Station, and as for TV you can barely go 5 minutes without a commercial break. In Massachusetts there was likewise a Zepplin that hovered over the beaches emblazoned with advertisements. To be honest, it kind of gets on my nerves, as i’m sick of being told that I need to buy stuff to make my life better, though it’s not all that different in the UK (however the merciless slaughtering of named rival products on TV commercials, something which is illegal under UK competition law, is quite amusing).

In an act of what can only be described as infinite wisdom, I decided to put sun cream on 5 minutes before going into the sea, and then not re-applying for 3 hours. The result being that I am now a fine shade of lobster, and face the joy of carrying a 20kg pack on my sunburned back around New York. Oh well.

In the evening, after a good shower and the liberal application of after-sun, Saz, Sophie and I headed out to a jazz evening in Harlem, which turned out to be one of my best experiences in the US so far. The evening is held every Sunday at the Harlem American Legion, which is like the British Legion, but for US veterans.

I have to admit, I was a little anxious at first about going to Harlem, as it has something of a reputation. But things have changed in New York, as several people told me. Even 5, but especially 10-15 years ago the area north of 120nd Street in New York was a no-go area unless you wanted to score drugs or be shot. Yet the area has undergone significant change, partly due to the economic boom in New York, but according to locals, partly due to the actions of former Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Harlem now is fairly safe.

However, I must admitt I was nervous. Saz had been to this night before, so she knew there was nothing to worry about, but I confess that when we arrived I felt somewhat scared by the fact that most of the people present were black, if i’m being honest. This turned out to be something I should never have worried about, because we were welcomed with open arms. The two ladies in charge of food and drink made us feel right at home as soon as we got there, and as soon as i realised that the mannerisms of black people are somewhat different to what I’m used to. A little on edge, I quickly realised that these people were in fact incredibly pleased that three white kids from as far away as England had come to hear the jazz, and they let us know it.

The most interesting person we spoke to that night was Seleno Clarke, the man who started the jazz night 10 years ago. He was really pleased that we had come, and got talking about all the clubs he had played jazz in across the world. He also explained how he had started the jazz night in Harlem 10 years ago with the hope that it would promote diversity and the mixing of different people – indeed, as the night wore on and he drank his way through a vast quantity of rum, he repeatedly stressed how much he loved diversity over the microphone, as well as introducing us to the room as his friends from London! Looking around, his dream has come true: as the night progressed there were all sorts of people coming in, of all ages and races, and all there simply to enjoy the music and have a good time. After eating some delicious southern food (in my case, turkey wings, beans and potato salad) we kicked back to listen to the jazz.

And it was really fantastic. Although only one of Seleno’s band members was with him that night, there were 3 drummers and 2 sax players stepping up to jam over the course of the sets we saw – and these people could really play. One of the best things about music is how it brings people from different walks of life together, from different places all around the world. Two white Australians were jamming with Seleno, and as cliched as it may sound, it was just great to see men and women of different races and from different places getting together just to enjoy the music. The highlight for me was the last set of the evening when an 18 year old girl from Chicago stepped up to play drums, and completely brought the house down, and really ended the evening on a high.

Aside from the fun of listening to great music – and I know only a very little about jazz, so it was something of a new experience for me – the Veterans Club left me with a marked positive impression. I’ve only been in the USA a couple of weeks, but you hear a lot of rhetoric about ‘community’, on bill-boards, on TV news, in newspapers etc. To be honest, i’ve not really seen much of it – my early impression of American society is that it is overwhelmingly atomised. Last night was the exception; the Commander of the club gave a brief ‘speech’ in which he welcomed all the guests – i.e. non-veterans – stressing how important it was to the club that we attended, because we help raise money for their community projects and events, simply by buying the food and drink on offer. He also explained that the drinks and food are cheap because veterans are on fixed income, so we were all benefiting financially by a scheme to help the veterans, whilst also helping them by spening our money – which i thought was a pretty good deal for everyone. The Commander then stressed some of the work the Club does, such as raise money for scholarships so that poor kids from the Harlem area can get to University.

Both these active projects, and the overwhelmingly friendly welcome we received form everyone in the room – when we left it seemed like I shook everybody’s hand – all brought together just to hear some great music, left quite a deep impression on me. This was a real community, and one that welcomed outsiders with open arms. Never will I think of Harlem again without remembering this wonderful and inspiring place.

Anyway, i’m off to Washington D.C. this afternoon, so updates to follow in due course.

Over and out.

You watched in awe, at the red white and blue on the 4th of July

Tonight was 4th of July, and there were celebrations a-plenty, namely an enormous fireworks display over the East River, which lies between Brooklyn and Manhattan. Earlier in the day i took a walk over Manhattan Bridge after visiting Little Italy and China Town, and after the fireworks i went to Times Square. If you’ve never been to Times Square, imagine what the world would look like if you worked in marketing for 25 years and then took enough LSD to kill a horse. It gave me the shakes, to be honest.

Pictures pictures pictures…

This is the new architecture piece of New York, an artificial waterfall under Brooklyn Bridge. I think it’s quite cool.

 

Brooklyn Bridge leading into Manhattan

Fireworks (are rather difficult to photograph):

The Empire State Building ‘colored’ red, white and blue (sorry bout poor picture quality):

Grand Central Station and the Chrysler Building:

Hangin’ on the corner, of 52nd and Broadway

My second day in New York saw Shaun and i getting a bit more touristy, as we decided to go up the Empire State Building, despite it taking almost an hour to get to the top (there are also sorts of secret hidden ques inside the building, so that when you think you are nearly at the top you round the corner and find that no, you are in fact at the back of another line). Pictures below.

First however it’s time for my first reflections-proper on what i’ve seen of America. There are three things that have especially come to my attention so far, although i’m not sure any of them qualify as ‘Paradoxes’ (i.e. what my project is supposed to be on): race, 9/11, and disability.

Considering race first, this is something which I guess many foreigners would associate with the USA from the outset: the attempt to achieve racial tolerance and harmony in the fabled ‘melting pot’, and the relative successes and failures thereof. From my so far very short experience, it is clear to me that race matters and awful lot in New York, and i’m so-far presuming, the rest of the USA too. A couple of examples spring to mind; the other night Saz and I were standing outside a bar and a guy on a bike had to swerve to avoid being hit by a car. He was Hispanic, and his angry reaction was an unambiguous cry of ‘fucking blacks!’. A more positive experience came from the ‘Positive Brothers’, a team of street-dancers who ply their trade down at the ferry-ports of the Hudson river, where tourists gather to take (overpriced) Ferries to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. All 4 of the guys in the dance crew are black, and in many ways they conform heavily to what i would see as ‘black stereotypes’; they breakdance, and their interaction with the crowd (jokes cracked, use of expressions and different voices for comic effect) are clearly ‘black’ ways of acting – or at least, so you would believe if you watch MTV for more than 3 seconds. However, an integral part of their performance was race: most of their jokes had good-hearted racial connotations (white people don’t give much to street-performers, except for Canadians, etc), but they had a very clear message. On at least 4 occasions they all intoned in unison that “there is only one race: the human race”. Clearly this meant a lot to these guys; they weren’t just street performers earning a living, they saw themselves as carrying an important message about race. This made for an interesting blend of entertainment and politics, either side of tricks like this:

The other aspect of race which I have noticed – although i’m drawing from limited examples, so am probably importing more expectation than observation – is connected to class and social position. Two examples spring to mind. Whilst Saz has described to me the honestly quite abhorrent treatment that the homeless in New York sometimes receive – people verbally abusing them without provocation in Central Park, for example – I saw a quite heartwarming example. A young black teenager was taking part in a youth scheme frequent throughout the city, which involves selling packets of sweets to raise money for projects in deprived areas, whilst simultaneously getting the kids to take part in community activities. This young man gave away a couple of packets of sweets to a black homeless guy, which clearly he wasn’t supposed to do. What was interesting was that both parties kept it very low profile; the homeless man looked positively embarrassed to receive the aid, whilst the teenager was keen to make the exchange as quickly and discreetly as possible. Now i’m not sure the extent to which race really played a part here, but my gut reaction is that if the homeless man had been white or Hispanic, that would not have happened. My second example was witnessed on Canal Street, where there are a lot of street traders. A young black mother was explaining to a black stall-holder selling hats that her little boy, about 5 or 6, didn’t want to go to school. The stall-holder’s reaction was instructive: he turned to the boy and said “hey kid, how about I go to school, and you sit here all day and sell hats?”. The kid knew straight away that this was not a good deal and vigorously asserted that actually he wanted to go to school. The message was clear and the boy picked up on it no problem: if you are poor and black education matters, because you don’t want to spend your life selling hats. This is an interesting contrast to the ‘bling’ culture that the media would suggest pervades black culture. Then again, if the youth had been 17, the story might have been very different.

The second thing that i have noticed about New York pertains to disability. On the one hand, if you are blind in New York life must be a nightmare. The traffic is insane, and crossings give pedestrians only ‘right of way’, not absolute traffic-stopping priority. So at a crossing, you wait for the white man to be lit up, and pray the guy coming around the corner in a cab stops. There is no audio indication that it is (relatively) safe to cross, and no physical indicator on the floor etc for the blind to know that they are at a crossing. Indeed, i haven’t seen a single blind person in nearly 12 hours of walking around New York. At first my reaction to this was quite negative: it seemed indicative of the American ‘rugged individualism’ attitude  whereby individuals must help themselves and not rely on the state, no matter how unfortunate they are, and it reminded me of a comment made by an American undergraduate at Balliol, herself a self-professed, Democrat-voting liberal, who asked why in Britain we build ramps for disabled people outside public buildings, after all, “they haven’t done anything to deserve them”. This shocked myself and many other Brits in Balliol.

But Saz, who has been in New York nearly a year, had a different perspective. She points out that it would be virtually impossible to have a UK-style crossing system in New York given their traffic laws and the sheer volumes of people and numbers of crossings. She then drew an interesting parallel with the physically disabled, who i had noticed must also have a tough time getting about in New York, namely that they receive an awful lot more help from ordinary passers-by than in the UK. In New York, the disabled are frequently helped around by strangers, simply on the basis of need, without needing to be asked or thanked. Saz spoke of an English wheelchair-bound friend who found that in New York there was always somebody on hand to help him, whilst in London he would go days without anybody lifting a finger to help him up some stairs or across a busy road. This interests me a lot, because of the question of causal relations in play; do the Americans make fewer provisions for the disabled because there is no need – people automatically help each other – or do they help each other because there are few state provisions? Do the English not help each other because that is ‘the State’s job’, or are they inherently less inclined to help each other? I suspect this question is pretty contentious, and how one answers it will reveal a lot about American versus British mindsets across many issues, not just the provision of state help.

Finally, 9/11 and Ground Zero. Ground Zero looks like a giant construction yard:

9/11 is still, of course, an extremely provocative issue in New York. Saz reckons, and i’m inclined to agree, that there is a quasi-perverse longing to be reminded of 9/11 permanently. I say quasi-perverse, because there is nothing in itself wrong with remembering the events of that terrible day  indeed there is much positive. But it seems strange that Ground Zero is still Ground Zero, seven years on. The devastation was indeed great, but i’m not convinced it takes over 7 years to clear – think of developed cities hit by earthquakes; it doesn’t take the best part of a decade to rebuild them. The atmosphere around Ground Zero is odd; it’s packed with tourists, all taking photos. A special security man armed with a whistle shouts at people trying to climb to vantage points for better photos – a sort of ongoing battle between the forces of enforced respect, and the voyeurism of car-crash syndrome spectatorship, which is quite strange to witness. The area is surprisingly commercialised; you can readily buy souvenir magazines packed with pictures of the towers being hit and coming down. The commercialism extends beyond the immediate vicinity; on TV they advertise a limited edition ‘coin-certificate’, a metal banknote portraying the Twin Towers and downtown Manhattan, with sun-beams streaming behind them. The ‘certificate’ is legal tender with a value of $20, but the value is given by adding two numbers on each side of the bill – 9 and 11, obviously. This is touted all day on cable, and viewers are warned that a limit of 5 per person is in effect. The words “We will never forget” are proudly emblazoned – and that seems certainly true. But the kind of not forgetting at issue is an intriguing one.

Anyway, enough rambling for one day. Here are some photos, the first of which give you an idea of the vast size of New York – but only an idea, you really have to see it for yourself.

According to my friend Phil Thorne, this is ‘where the magic happens’. He never actually said that, but he would:

Piazza, New York Catcher

Today Shaun and I had a wander. We considered going up the Empire State Building, but didn’t fancy the 90 minute wait. Instead we just walked a lot, and took in Central Park – including a softball game between the New York Times team and some rubbish team that played in red – and St Patrick’s Cathedral. We’ll probably do the Statue of Liberty et al tomorrow.

Here’s the view from Saz’s apartment:

Central Park is huge, and completely surreal. Skyscrapers and trees. I’m not sure my small provincial mind can deal with the conjunction:

What really struck me about New York is the fact that everything is so tall. In, say, London, most buildings are 4 storeys high, maximum, with a couple of skyscrapers thrown in here and there. In NY it seems that every building is at the very least 10 storeys, and most a lot more. Give how big NY is on the ground, when you consider that it basically extends upwards again, you start to realise that it really is huge.

So far i have only seen one thing that i would class as ‘stereo-typically-American-for-all-the-wrong-reasons’, namely this: a gym for dogs. That’s right, two rooms in which a bored looking Chinese man sits, while ugly little dogs run around and crap on the floor. Presumably their owners are too busy to walk them, or just can’t be bothered (although i guess a small minority may be unable, say due to physical disability – but there were a lotof dogs in this place). But in that case, why have a dog? Is this just a New York thing (where there appear to be concentrated 90% of the world Chihuahua population, most of whom appear to reside in handbags), or is this a common US thing? Answers on a postcard.

Finally, the view at night:

Up Up and Away

Landed in New York JFK last night at 9pm local time. The flight was utterly uneventful and boring, as well as being delayed by 45 minutes due to a 100mph head wind all of the way.

I failed to endear myself at the border control and my first meeting with US authorities, however, because in an act of fantastic stupidity I put my diary, with the place of residence of where i am staying in New York, back into my checked-in bag at Heathrow when boarding – which meant that i couldn’t for the life of me remember the address of where i was going. The border control officer was not impressed (and certainly didn’t meet the ‘US Passport Control Pledge’ of treating me courteously and with respect, though i probably didn’t deserve it so no grudges held). Yet there was nothing i could do, so i just stood there for five minutes and apologised for being an idiot. After five minutes he accepted that i was just an idiot and nothing more sinister, and that saying “Apartment 14L is not a satisfactory address” (that’s all i could remember of my destination) would make no headway, and so basically told me to get out of his sight. I’m not sure whether i should record this as the kind charity of the great and benevolent United States, or a chink in the immigration armour waiting to be exploited.

Anyway, i proceeded to annoy the next America I met, a cab driver who insisted that 27th Street and 2nd Avenue don’t meet (i’d found the address at this point). In the end it turns out that they do – much to my relief – and he was actually quite nice about it. Or maybe he was nice about the fact i somewhat accidentally tipped him at about 40%.

I finally made it to my end destination, the apartment of lovely Sarah “Saz” Lewis (Balliol PPE, 2004), who is also hosting fellow pathfinder Shaun Palmer at the moment. After a worrying 5 minutes in the lobby when i thought they’d forgotten about me, they both appeared and everything was fine.

Today Saz is at work in a huge skyscraper, so Shaun and I are going to do some sight-seeing. Photos to follow.

The most interesting thing that happened on my flight (apart from finding it amusing that Delta Airlines don’t know what an entree is, and my debating whether to inform the cabin crew), was looking out of the window after 3 hours and noticing another plane, which somewhat annoyingly appeared to be over-taking us. (i again debated whether to inform the pilot, so as to ensure no mid-air collisions occured, but again decided against):

(it’s there, look top right)