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Larry L. Dill's
New Hope Journal
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I’m in a New York State of Mind
I’ll be leaving for New York in about a week to visit my daughters there. Both veteran girl scouts and veteran New Yorkers who came in from Texas to make their marks on the big apple. They have both made those marks. One is soon returning to her home in Austin. One is staying in the city. But as the song goes, “If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.” This essay is dedicated to my daughters and to the girl scouts everywhere who come to New York for the first time and realize for the first time the awesome possibilities that are within their reach.
A Girl Scout’s guide to New York
For Shelly
By Larry L. Dill
Rule number one: Be Prepared!
Rule number two: Don’t forget rule number one!
You could spend your entire life in New York City and never see it all, not only because you wouldn’t live long enough, but because the city is such a rich palette of ever changing social and cultural dynamism that even if you lived forever you could not keep up with the overwhelming kaleidoscopic immensity of New York. If you only have a week to visit the city you have to plan carefully and you have to pace yourself if you want to maximize your experience and minimize your pain.
Almost anywhere in Manhattan, walking is the best way to absorb the city. But anyone who has walked around a large suburban mall for an afternoon knows how tired you can get. Manhattan Island, 3 miles wide and 22 miles long, is the largest and most spectacular mall in the universe. From sky scrapers to street musicians, from $200 entrées to $2 slices of pizza, from million dollar diamonds at Tiffany’s in midtown to $5 dollar street jewelry vendors at the northeast corner of Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village, New York offers more varieties of food (and food prices), more varieties of clothing and jewelry (and clothing and jewelry prices) than any place else on earth. You can’t see it all. You won’t see it all. But here are some suggestions.
First full day after arrival, just get to know your neighborhood. New York is a city of neighborhoods. If you are staying near Broadway on the upper west side, for example, just walk about a half mile uptown, cross the street and walk back down. Then go the other way. Along the way, no matter which half mile you choose, you will find dozens of interesting shops, deli’s and café’s. And above all you will see people. A sea of humanity. The people are what make New York. And the people who make New York are all right out there on the street in front of you. You will see tall dreadlocked black men who look like basketball players (or maybe they are hit men) and you will see tiny little Jewish white women who appear to be three times older than your grandmother, and all shapes and sizes and colors of people in between, all confidently walking down Broadway as if walking was the only reliable means of transportation on earth. It is the greatest show on earth and it is absolutely free. When you start wearing out you just go a few blocks east (if you are somewhere between 59th and 110th streets and you’ll be in Central Park. Just chill. And guess what? More people to watch, plus dogs. New Yorkers are passionate about their dogs. Is there a merit badge for listing the most dog breeds on a field trip?
Now, I could just do the same thing as I’ve just described every day for a week or a month or a year in New York City and never get bored. One neighborhood after another. Cross town, uptown, downtown. Little Italy, Spanish Harlem, Harlem, the Lower East Side, Chinatown. In New York you can spend a lifetime shopping, people watching, dog watching and food sampling til you drop. In the spring, summer and fall you have the added bonus of never knowing when you are going to stumble on to a street fair or a flea market which only intensifies the already hyper experience you have been having.
But as a first time visitor to New York you will probably want to see some of the official sights. Central Park, Greenwich Village and the American Museum of Natural History are my three all time favorites with the Union Square farmers market (on weekends) and Washington Square Park in the afternoons as runners up. Of course there are also the most famous tourist attractions, the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, the Staten Island Ferry and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Not to mention Time Square, the theatres on Broadway or the infamous ground zero (site of the World Trade Center bombing). Every single one of the sites I’ve mentioned is a day in itself. So don’t try to overdo it. Be prepared! And do your homework. Be aware, for example, that a trip to the top of the Empire State Building can be expensive and can take 3 to 4 hours of waiting in line. The reward is a 360 degree view of the city that you can’t get anywhere else. And that you will never forget. Same tourist crush for the Statue of Liberty (which is still fun to ride the boat out to see though at last check they are not letting you climb inside to the top anymore). On the other hand the trip across New York Harbor on the Staten Island Ferry is fast and cheap and riding back across the bay the view of the Statue of Liberty in the distance and the skyline of New York as it looks to every ship that passes into the harbor is spectacular. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, one of the top two or three art museums in the world, is for art lovers only. Enough said.
And now a note on transportation.
Not counting the people who walk everywhere, New York City moves 10 million people a day around town without the use of private automobiles. Most people travel on the subway which is generally the fastest and cheapest way to travel. New York couldn’t function without its subway system and New Yorkers love it. But if you are from out of town you must have someone in your group who knows the subway system and can get all of you on the trains and get all of you off at the same place at the same time. It is an adventure that is as amazing as all the other New York attractions I’ve mentioned put together. But buyer beware.
For a tourist who wants to see the city while traveling about town above ground, taxis are the best choice but they are the most expensive. For groups though, there is an algorithm. $2 dollars will get one person all the way from one end of the island to the other on the subway. Cab fare for one, on the other hand, to go only a few blocks can cost three times that much. But you can put 4 people in a cab for a few block ride and it might cost $10 which is only $2 more than it would have cost those 4 people to travel by subway. (Busses by the way charge the same fare as the subway and use the same card. But in general they are slower than both the cabs and the subway [depending on the time of day] and have more limited routes.)
One of the ways in which a New Yorker can distinguish herself among her friends on a Saturday night, is her ability to assess the current location, the desired destination, the number of people in the party, the proximity to subways, busses or cabs, and come up with the cheapest fastest way to get the gang there.
Now about the bathroom problem.
Rule number one: Think ahead!
Rule number two: Punt!
We’re going to try to talk about this without being graphic. There are three bathroom problems: number one, number two and what I call number three (which is a problem that older girls and women have occasionally). Still we are all in this together. When you have to go you have to go. In general, small shops, delis and open markets will not let you use their bathrooms. There are some exceptions. If the deli or market has tables for people to sit down and eat, there may be a public restroom. Walk straight to the back, when confronted, ask directly for the bathroom. Restaurants (including places like McDonalds and Starbucks though in some of those places you often have to go up front and ask for a key), bars, and large department stores are good choices. When in a real bind, dispense with the formalities. Walk directly into the place chosen, walk in the direction of the kitchen or just the back. If there is a stairwell, go down it. If still lost ask the first Mexican you see and he will direct you to the bathroom.
A last word about security.
Ironically, New York City has one of the lowest per capita crime rates in America. That doesn’t mean, though, that there are no criminals in New York (pick pockets are the biggest problem for tourists). To avoid having to deal with one of these guys (and most of them are guys though some women are getting into the act) adopt the following guidelines:
Rule number one: Be assertive (which is another way of saying Be Prepared). Try to avoid standing in high traffic areas and behaving as if you were lost. Even if you are. Always be going from point A to point B. If you have lost track of where point B is, just pretend that it is that Deli over there across the street and go there and hang out until you have your act together.
When confused in a subway station, go and stand within eye contact of the person running the token booth. When really lost, go back out of the turnstile (though it might cost you $2 dollars to get back in) and stand as close to the token booth person as you can. If you can get in their lap, get in their lap.
Never be afraid to speak to a cop. One of the refreshing things about New York City is that there are cops (or "New York's finest" as they are often called) on almost every corner at all hours of the day and night. Most of the time they are bored out of their minds and welcome anybody who will come up and talk to them. Most of them grew up in New York and they have a wealth of knowledge and can usually solve your problem. (Well maybe not all your problems).
And always remember that 99% or more of the people around you in New York City are honest, hard working people. Just a peep of distress out of anybody, tourist or not, will bring a corps of New Yorkers to your aid. If you feel like you need to scream, scream. You’ll see what I mean.
Have a good trip girls.
--Larry L. Dill
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