The City That Never Sleeps … But Sometimes Naps On A Park Bench

By Catherine Evans Inkspot Publishing

If I say New York, what immediately springs to mind? The Empire State Building, Times Square, Bloomingdales, Macy’s, Broadway, Park Avenue, yellow taxis, the glittering wealth of Wall Street, the Statue of Liberty … but there’s far more to it than that. This is a melting pot city full of history, where fortunes have been lost and made and which can suck money out of you faster than a giant vampire squid. I first visited New York in my twenties. For me, it was a party town, full of achingly cool clubs and bars. I preferred the smoky underground joints of Greenwich Village where you could watch live music by bands like Mozart’s Grave. But now, as a broad in her fifties taking her teenage daughter, Rom, to the city for the first time, leaving her dad and the dog behind, I couldn’t drag her to those places. Life’s changed a bit, y’know? Luckily, there’s another dimension to the city if you’re willing to look for it. In fact, the soul of New York lives in its quieter corners, where it slows down, where it’s sometimes weird, sometimes magical, and can even cost you next to nothing. It’s in the subway, the corner delis, the vintage shops that smell of patchouli and cinnamon. Everywhere, New York is redolent of the ever-present scent of unfulfilled artistic ambition hiding behind glamour and money (or the lack of it!)

Of course, the kid had her own agenda. She wanted to go to an ice hockey game, to Joe’s Pizza, to walk in the footsteps of the characters from Gossip Girl on the Upper East side, and naturally, she was keen to go shopping.

So first to Greenwich Village for the original Joe’s Pizza on Carmine Street: two enormous slabs of pizza, one margherita and one pepperoni, plus two sodas, and we still got change from fifteen bucks. It was a lovely sunny day, so we sat on a bench in Father Demo Square right next to Joe’s, a perfect spot for people-watching and feeding crumbs of pizza to the overstuffed city birds before strolling back to Greenwich Village for some shopping.

The city’s made for walking. The grid system means you always know where you are, and there’s always someone nearby to ask if you get lost, especially if you have a ‘cute British accent’. In fact, getting lost in New York is a quiet pleasure, and you can always stop in a coffee shop to regroup and consult your map or jump on the subway. We took the underground to Brooklyn and walked over the bridge towards Manhattan, admiring the sweeping views and the skyline over the East River.

We turned our backs on department stores and chains. Instead, we took a subway ride to the Lower East Side, which is chockful of vintage stores selling pre-loved clothes, shoes and accessories. It’s awash with bargains if you’re willing to look. Special mention to the Buffalo Exchange, to AuH2O, Crossways, L Train Vintage and Tokyo Joe. There are places you can have a rummage, but most of the things are beautifully displayed and arranged, and it’s possible to find some incredible bargains. We had to be careful as we were traveling with hand luggage only, but we both walked away very happy shoppers.

We made a few mis-steps, all non-disastrous. I was looking forward to showing Rom the Guggenheim Museum, especially the iconic view from the top looking down into the central rotunda, but sadly the top two floors were closed for the set-up of a new exhibition. Still, looking upwards, we could see a hanging jungle of cacti, palm trees and other leafy greenery, part of a new exhibit, which was kind of cool. Mis-step two was eating a very boring lunch in their very boring canteen. Still, we cheered ourselves up with a walk in Central Park, where we found a comfy bench to sit in the sunshine munching ice cream as the joggers slogged past us. Mis-step three was visiting the cinema to watch Minecraft. What a terrible movie. We actually paid for the privilege of sitting in reactive seats blowing wind in our hair, water in our faces and jiggling about as if on a defective roller coaster while watching one of the worst films possibly ever made.

We could have spent a couple of hundred bucks on a Broadway show … instead, we bought some crushed but very delicious sandwiches from a nearby bodega and plonked ourselves on a bench in Washington Square where we enjoyed a Cuban band, a wig-wearing rap artist and a performance poet who declaimed on the wonders of astral travel in between contorting himself into improbable yoga poses. The

square is full of flowers and benches. It’s strange, it’s unpredictably entertaining, and it doesn’t cost anything – although a modest show of appreciation in monetary terms is never sniffed at.

Rom’s obsession with ice hockey took us to New Jersey for the Devils vs the NY Islanders game. We booked these tickets way in advance. We were hoping to see the views of the city from the train, but the windows were grimed to opacity. Amtrak really needs to buy a couple of squeegees. We couldn’t see our stop, but it was easy enough to follow the army of jersey wearing fans from both teams to the Prudential Center. Even the babies were dressed in team colours. The atmosphere in the stadium was fabulous, but sadly the Devils lost: they had already made the playoffs so were holding their top players back in case of injury – Boo. Hiss.

To give Rom a tiny insight into New York nightlife, we visited one achingly cool bar, Manhatta, where the glamorous clientele sip cocktails surrounded by a panoramic view of the city. It was a wonderfully clear evening and we watched the sun go down enjoying beautifully presented drinks: Berry Me In NYC for me, and a virgin Mojito for her. We were both woefully underdressed for the occasion, but the bar staff could not have been more welcoming.

We didn’t visit the Empire State, we didn’t see the Statue of Liberty, we didn’t make Summit on 1 Vanderbilt, but we did go to the 9/11 Museum, where we sat quietly listening in a darkened room to a few words on the victims of the horrific attack of 2001, quiet tributes by the people who knew and loved them. It was a gentle way of humanising them, extracting individuals from an unimaginable number into fully fleshed people with families and friends and children and pets and hobbies, who liked to cook, who enjoyed sports, who had funny quirks, who collected fridge magnets and who wanted to do very ordinary but very wonderful things with their lives, such as see their children grow up, before being snuffed out by an evil attack motivated by a warped ideology. The monument is staggering in its size and simplicity: two immense black reflecting pools on the footprint of the original twin towers, the water disappearing into the void, eloquently representing absence and loss. It’s a reminder to all of us that there is magic in the everyday, in the ordinary, in our relationships with those around us, and we should never take these things for granted.

On our last day we tried to go to Summit One Vanderbilt, an observation deck with ‘with three floors of mind-bending immersive art, a bar, and incredible panoramic views.’ Sadly they were booked out, so we spent our last few hours in the city sitting in the sunshine on the steps of the Rockefeller Centre reading our books before traipsing back to our hotel in Times Square to collect our luggage and get the subway to JFK.

Now she’s 13, Rom is a much more civilised traveling companion than her younger self, and we’re already thinking about where to go next. There’s something very relaxed about girls’ trips, but if we feel generous, we may even take her dad next time. Probably not the dog though.