We just got back from our second weekend in New York City in less than a month and being there again after a couple of years absence has made me want to collect my thoughts about the place.
The first time I went to New York was back in 1984 when I was working for Shaw Data Services a portfolio accounting firm that handled the accounting for a number of portfolio management companies on Wall Street. I was quite young, nineteen, and I had never even been on a plane at that point. I had to wear my department store jacket and tie previously only worn of the odd wedding or funeral and my uncomfortable big-boy shoes. We took the Eastern Airlines shuttle from Boston down to LaGuardia. Coming in over the city I remember being amazed at the sheer size of it looking across all the boroughs as the plane descended for the landing. The cab ride into Manhattan was equally overwhelming, all the different neighborhoods, the river, the skyline, the density of it all. The city was very different than it is now, much dirtier, grittier, many neighborhoods a lot less gentrified, the shops a lot less polished and branded. I was glad that I was with my older colleagues who had done this trip many times. I enjoyed my first very expensive deli sandwich and was introduced to the magic concept of the “expense report.” Our office was in the Chrysler Building and the facade and looming size of it made the place seem much more important than it really was. The whole thing made an impression on me, but I really wasn’t sure if I liked it.
Over the years I visited New York City a lot for business and then bit by bit for pleasure. I started to get a grip on the geography of the place, how to use the subway, and the New Yorker’s way of walking many blocks quickly. It was in later trips to accompany my wife on her publishing related trips to NYC that I started getting up early in the morning, choosing a direction from our hotel, and setting out on a many block walk in that direction. I would choose a new direction each day we were there. I would take photos of stuff along the way that caught my attention and I really enjoyed the way the same street or avenue would transition from industrial, to residential, to riverfront, from fancy and upscale to a little bit gritty. I had at that point also gotten to enjoy the anonymity of being in such a large and dense city, I felt very invisible and calm and for me it is always a great place to just be present and let my thoughts flow without a lot of examination. There are so many great places to walk in NYC, Roosevelt Island, The Brooklyn Bridge, Central Park, The Battery…
I’m a big fan of Jazz and New York is a world nexus of Jazz, lots of great venues, a high density of artists who live there, a place that folks go to “make it.” We’ve flown to New York for what my wife terms a “Jazz Emergency” like when Oscar Peterson was doing what was turned out to be his farewell tour. I got to see him before he passed away at the iconic Birdland Jazz Club. In 2017 I discovered New York City Winter Jazz Fest, in a miracle of timing my wife had a Baker Street Irregulars Weekend at the same time as NYCWJF and I tagged along and bought a pass to go to one of the Jazz Marathons in Manhattan. I walked from club to club in the freezing cold and slush down in the area around Bleeker Street and watched act after act that were totally new to me until the wee hours of the morning. Being in those crowds, having those experiences changed how I felt about New York. It’s hard to describe but it’s an event that I’ve attended again and for many nights and I can honestly say I was very sad when I couldn’t attend due to the pandemic these last couple of years. It’s a special feeling like maybe of folks singing in church where there’s a group connection through music.
I like cities in general and I like the texture, grit, and the special things that you just have to know about. I love finding an interesting bar or a restaurant that is excellent but not famous, or just a great location to look at a new view of the city from. I collect places that I like to return to over and over again and when they close it motivates me to search for something to fill that void. The great thing about NYC is that you can find sublime food and drink across the entire spectrum of cost and heightened design and presentation. I think it’s because folks actually live in all of the areas of the city and so they allow a diversity of shops and restaurants to exist and sometimes to thrive.
We’re museum people and NYC is a great museum town, part of every recent visit is figuring out the museuming that we’re going to do. We’ve of course been to The Met, The Frick, etc… all the famous museums multiple times and they are fantastic to get lost in. More recently we’ve been focusing on smaller museums like the National Museum of the American Indian which has an amazing collection and very modern and socially conscious interpretation of their exhibits. There are of course rules to museuming, it needs to be a focused minimum of two hours, only ending grudgingly when everyone is whining “my feet hurt,” and “I’m so hungry.” And you can never leave the museum without browsing the book store and gift shop.
I guess I’d say now every time I leave New York I’m quietly plotting my next visit…