brooklyn: the coolest borough of them all
walking over the brooklyn bridge, wandering around the tree-lined streets named after fruits, surrounded by beautiful architecture and cool deserted streets: there's no doubt i'd rather be here than the lunacy of manhattan. even the people seem cooler (unlike those in the east village, who are just plain weird). the brooklyn museum of art: no crowds, beautiful pictures, nice ambience. bloody awesome.
harlem
i doubt i would have ever ventured out here on my own. luckily some bearded dude hungover from the sixties did a walking tour straight from the hostel. it was hot and dirty, but mostly worthwhile. i think. we meandered through big empty streets and lush dirty parks littered with crack cocaine containers and baggies: apparently a significant improvement from the days past when cocaine vials crunched underfoot. far out.
lincoln centre
saw cinderella (american ballaet theatre) at the metropolitan opera house. i was right up the top, in the family circle (think hamer hall, near the roof). i know what you're thinking: ballet?! look, whatever, it wasn't too bad. it was dance. i like dancing. we had something in common. and nice music to go with the whole thing as well. i would probably go again. you know what they say about traveling changing people...
museum of modern art, metropolitan museum of art
i'm lumping these two together because they are basically the same: enormous, cumbersome, crowded places filled with way too many picassos and renoirs and rocks from egypt. i think its the congestion of people that really get to me. and the rude suited security guys really piss me off. and the fact they keep roping off sections for no apparent reason. and the museum shops at the end of all the exhibits with selling overpriced crap and filled with obese people with annoying accents blocking the well-hidden exits. AARRRRRRGGGHHHH!!!!!! gimme brooklyn anytime.
guggenheim museum
now this place is something else entirely. for me, its second only to brooklyn in the coolness factor. i even spent way too much money on a print and big fuck-off tube to carry it around in. i have no idea how im going to cope lugging it around the country and on to the plane etc etc. ironically, one of the pieces in the museum told us: the more we own, the less free we are: aint that the truth! but, im getting ahed of myself. first of all, the building itself. i know it's been talked about to death but it is absolutely magnificent. and the art inside, not just pictures (although there were plenty of those) but installations too, were really exciting. finally, i don't know if i was just early or lucky, but it wasn't particularly crowded. i got a bit carried away...
fifth avenue walkabout
in my post-guggenheim ecstacy i decided to wander down fifth avenue from the 103rd street, hang a left at the 42nd, check out the united nations building, then take in east village and chinatown. after walking about 150 blocks later, i realised it was a bad idea, but by then i had very sore feet and not much of a mental capacity left.
midtown along the fifth avenue is like wall street, but feels like a dusty, exhaust-choked wasteland in the guise of capitalist paradise. there were plenty of expensive shops, countless brightly dressed young women (why don't australian girls like wearing short semi-transparent dresses? they all do here! drool...) but it was about 35 degrees and a string of sirens went past, eleven police cars at one count. it felt like i was in an absurd play, everything was warping at the edges, then...
the air-conditioned grandeur of the grand central terminal. once again, like all american things, this place is bloody huge. 130+ tracks? spencer street, eat your heart out! but, like all american things, it felt coarse around the edges. massive domes left undecorated. elaborate archways leading to drab concrete tunnels. beautiful marbled floors but litter everywhere. basically, the whole vibe of the place was cheap. what a shame.
after several more hazy streets filled with car horns and angry vendors selling hotdogs and pretzels, finally, the relative cool of the united nations building. there was a queue for a tour of the place, which cost thirteen bucks. but the line was moving at sloth-pace so i turned around and headed south instead. but cbgb was no longer there, graffiti on the walls said our world was a little darker, but all i wanted was a cool drink and a little shade. stumbled onwards deeper into east village. it was a strangely wonderful place being slowly eroded by relentless waves of commercialisation. what was that tom petty song? there was even a cbgb souvenir shop. it was all wrong, but the red and brown buildings were really captivating.
finally, i was in chinatown. it sprawled like a crumbling guargantuan. by this time i had been reduced to a mindless savage. thoughts of food, shade and sleep took over my entire consciousness. the first was easy to come by in an area occupied by the chinese. it was unsurprisingly cheap as well. but the second required more dragging of tired feet across town. finally, i was inside an air-conditioned train shooting north back towards the hostel.
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