New York, New York

“New York, I love you, but you’re bringing me down”

“I love New York”

“New York, its killing me”

“Empire State of mind”

“Bite the big apple, don’t gag no maggots”

 Anyone who has ever written more than three songs, has written a New York song. They may have never step foot in New Amsterdam, Gotham, the Big Apple, Empire State, etc, but they’ve written a song about her. It may be the greatest city on earth, or maybe just written about like it is. Who knows? And that’s not even counting the songs about the different boroughs like Brooklyn and Harlem. It’s just amazing.  We’re sure someone’s PhD thesis was to link and categorize them all together. Nonetheless, this is where we wanted to be for the next three nights.

Growing up and living it up in the south, in states like Louisiana, Florida, Texas, we’re used to traveling a great distance to make it out of one state and into the next. In Florida, it was mostly North-South with a bit of panhandle “serengeti” going east & west. For the other two, mostly more east-west than north south. That brings us to the Northeast where states seem to run together like small European countries. So, leaving Pennsylvania and arriving in New York was a short jaunt in distance, but a larger movement culturally.

We shouldn’t really write New York, since our arrival campground was in Jersey City across from the Manhattan Yacht Club at a marina that had side gigs (using today’s parlance. Ref: Ashleigh Faia) or businesses of running the Liberty RV Park and renting camping vans to mostly foreign tourists.  OK.  The campground looks just like a parking lot and yes, that is the statue from our RV site 🙂

We’ve been to NYC together and separate over the years. Either staying in the city for work, or staying with a sister who worked in New Jersey and taking a train in from there. So we aren’t city virgins, but this is a big ass city and it would take months to years to feel like you kinda get the place. For example, Lisa has been to the Statue of Liberty via a tourist boat and Douglas has never seen it more than at a distance. But from our RV site, we hopped on our bikes, road thru the marina, across a small pedestrian bridge and we were in Liberty Park.  We explored the old train station that was the first stop after Ellis Island for 2/3rds of the immigrants that came to build America. A 200 yard bridge separated us from the new science center that is housed there now. Another 5 minute bike ride and we were looking up Lady Liberty’s hind side from the Jersey shoreline. Liberty Park was new to both of us.

Perspective is the divine providence of experiencing new things, or experiencing an old thing in a new way. This is what the trip to NYC meant to us beyond eating some excellent food and seeing some Broadway shows. Did we ride our bikes? Yes. Did we take a ferry? Yes. Did we take the Path train? Yes. Did we take Uber/Lyft/Taxi? Yes, Yes, Yes. Did we take the subway? Yes. Did we walk? Yes.

Our first meal was a recommendation from Elinor, Lisa’s sister-in-law. It was a French Bistro called Balthazar. The Duck Confit was excellent and the atmosphere matched it.  As James Brown sang, “get started on the good foot.” The next day we hopped on the ferry to eat at the Liberty House Restaurant across the harbor from our RV park. Lisa lounged on the outdoor red couches to relax after the wonderful meal and amazing view of the NYC skyline.

Once our velvet siesta was finished, we hopped on the ferry again, but headed to the terminal of the World Financial Center, where the twin WTC building once stood.  Everything in the area was impressive, the views from the money making machine called the One World Observatory building that is claimed to be the tallest in the western hemisphere, the WTC memorial, the new Whale Boned, Oculus complex.

Later that evening, we went and saw the Broadway show, “Kinky Boots.” Another recommendation. And eventually had a cab take us back across to Jersey City. It seemed that taking a car share service over worked fairly well, but coming home, good ol’ Yellow Cabs were a much better solution. We were wiped out and were quickly sawing zzzzzzzs.

The next day, we went for a morning bike ride around Liberty Park and then headed to a Broadway Matinee of “Come From Away.” It was about all the people in planes that had to land in Gander, New Foundland and live there for several days as the US air space was on lockdown after the 9/11 terrorist attacks/hijackings. A great, non-stop, feel-good, musical. Afterwards, we went to NOMA and relaxed in the sculpture garden.

If that wasn’t enough, we grabbed a taxi and headed to Harlem for authentic Neopolitan at Sottocasa Pizzeria. Everything is imported from Italy, including the flour. The amazing thing about the borough on the north side of central park were the parents and kids in the streets just living their lives; unlike the people we saw in the financial center or soho where we ate the first night.

We got back to our campervan and crashed again, knowing that our world wind tour of NYC had closed again and it was time to head north into the Adirondacks of upstate New York.

It’s a big, amazing world!