Walking to Manhattan

We were in New York from Thurday night through Saturday noon - a quick but packed trip, in keeping with the energy of the city. This was our first visit to New York since really settling in as parttime city-dwellers, and it was interesting to observe the changes in myself. I've always loved cities, but now I am truly comfortable in them. Montreal felt small and very very calm compared to Manhattan, but they are both unique and special places, worthy of being appreciated separately rather than compared.

We stayed in Brooklyn Heights this time, near the publisher I was visiting, and on Thursday night we walked down the relatively-new promenade along the East River for half a mile, across from the skyscrapers of lower Manhattan - still strange to me without the twin towers - with the Statue of Liberty in the distance and barges and tugboats still busily traveling up and down the silvery river in the twilight. At the end of the promenade we made our way aroudn the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and across a park to climb up onto the deck of the Brooklyn Bridge, and walked the clattery, wooden footpath across to Manhattan. Commuters - some barefoot, some in running shoes, some in high heels - streamed out of the city in toward us, and the faint smell of fish wafted up from the old Fulton Fish market, beneath the far end of the bridge.

We'd intended to take the subway up to 4th Street on our way to our friends' apartment in Greenwich Village, but, as you probably read, there was a terrorist alert and many delays, so we continued on on foot, through the heart of SoHo, transformed in the thirty years I've been going there from a scary place at sunset to a merchandising paradise catering to the hip and glamorous. In the narrow, darkening streets, the ornate old industrial buildings towered over us, their windows spilling light onto the sidewalks, while we peered at astonishing displays of paintings; designer clothing; $400 eyeglasses; handmade leather and plastic purses and verdegris candlesticks and white-veined amber soap and purple beaded slippers; sinks made from crystal geodes; huge lampshades that seemed covered with transluscent white fur above a display of tufted furry bedspreads. Flowers and fruits outside the all-night corner groceries; newspapers from the world over; postcards and packages of energy concoctions to keep you going through the night.

I have no need to buy things, but the level of wealth, the beauty, the design and creativity of the displays were seductive even to someone with highly-developed resistance and a keen awareness of being manipulated. We had wandered and walked for two and a half hours when we finally arrived, a simple bouquet in hand, feeling as if we had emerged intact from the temptations in the desert.

Comments

[ernesto Priego]

Thank you, Beth, again, for a wonderful post. I envy your ability to let words flow; you give a pristine "ink polaroid" of your day in NYC. Sometimes comparisons are unavoidable, but you are right; each city should be understood and experienced in its own terms. I look forward to reading more about your days in the big apple. Warm regards from here.

[m]

visiting publisher! does this mean that your book is still on?

[Sara]

Really, sinks made from geodes? Really? Sheesh! How would you clean that after you spit toothpaste into it?

The things people think of. Makes me feel like such a yokel. Aw, shucks.

[dale]

Such a wonderful post. Thank you.

[Lorianne]

Wonderful post & pix. I'm sorry we didn't get to meetup, but maybe next time. I'm glad to see you got to walk the Brooklyn Bridge: that was on my agenda, but the weather interfered.

Interesting, I repeatedly rode the subway without problem, although it was scary to note that there wasn't much of the way of additional (visible) security given the terror alert. The only time my bag was searched was heading back from Coney Island on Friday night, when the station was nearly empty.

[karen]

great photos and post. haven't been to manhattan in a long time - great fun...thanks!

[Jarrett]

I've always loved cities, but now I am truly comfortable in them.

Bravo.

Yes, New York makes Montreal feel small. But then, New York makes Los Angeles and London feel small.

Great post. Welcome back. J

[Bill]

Beth,

This is a little appalling: on first sight, before recognition, I saw a cemetery. Top photo. Headstones crowded. It kind-of made me reel. I experienced it as such, for a moment. I think a strong cue was the fence.