N.Y.See.

This is part one of my brief Atlantic road trip. For part two, click here

***

At the front of the Lonely Planet guide to New York City there’s a quote from a notable literary figure that—paraphrased—reads

“To belong to New York is instantaneous; one is as much a New Yorker after five minutes as five years.”

When I accepted Ben’s offer of accommodation in New York I wasn’t overly sanguine in my expectations of Big Apple tourist gratification—were it not for the arranged lodging and local guide I may have given the city a miss altogether.

But there’s an aspect of truth in the aforementioned chestnut of Lonely Planet guidebookism. Whether it’s the familiarity one feels for the setting of countless cultural texts, or, the fact that New York was—and still is—mostly populated by those born elsewhere, one does get an immediate feeling of belonging in the heaving metroplolis. (Or, at the very least, an absence of Tourist Shame which should not be underrated).

In fact, I totally dug the place.

Malcolm X mural, Harlem. New York, New York.

***

Ben is a loose New Zealand acquaintance via a chance meeting at a 2001 student symposium, a later mutual university friend, and now the grand connectivity of social networking websites. (He also has his own blog New York Transmissions.)

He’s been in New York since September, beginning a Masters degree in anthropology at the prestigious Ivy League Colombia University. With geographical commonality fostering kinship, he, James and myself had hoped for some sort of billeting exchange between New York and Toronto.

I managed to time my New York visit with Ben’s elongated Christmas break and desire to see the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario by means of road trip—so, essentially, the plan was that I’d quit work, jump on the thirteen-hour train to NYC, stay with Ben for four nights and then join him and another in renting a vehicle to drive northeast through Boston and into Quebec City, and then southwest to Montreal and Toronto (where I’d be deposited), before the New Yorkers returned to their city of origin.

Raised in Rotorua and already a seasoned traveller (Vietnam, Laos, India, Mexico, France, Norway and south-western US Navajo-reservations to name a few destinations), Ben got to Colombia partly by way of a sought-after Fulbright scholarship. Which should reveal something of his scholarly capabilities.

Ben in Times Square. New York, New York.

Ben’s somewhat of an enigma. Sometimes he appears an unabashed and idiomatic New Zealand male, making no effort to suppress tactless Kiwi colloquialisms in front of bemused Americans.

But much like an onion, Ben is a man of many layers. (Although when I think about it, each layer of an onion still tastes the same—oniony—and doesn’t reveal any differing onionness, so really, that analogy sucks and should probably be stricken from future syntax usage.)

(Also, do people still use the word “sucks” as a synonym for the very bad or inferior? I thought so, but when I recently made a statement regarding its longevity to a girl in Wellington, she insisted that the term was outdated and that I was the lone orator prolonging its extinction.)

So, to retread, much like the spherical Earth, Ben is a man of varying atmospheres, crusts, and gases: a cultured intellectual within an everyman persona. This gives him a sort of cerebral Thinking Man’s Bloke aura.

At times I couldn’t decide if we had very little, or quite a lot in common.

But the perfect road companion has to be someone who’s philosophising about modern poetry one instant, and drunk at 5am carving his name into a Subway platform the next.

Skyscrapers. New York, New York.

***

The reasoning for my lack of enthusiasm pre-New York can probably be surmised as thus: I often don’t feel like I’m a big city person.

I spent the first five years of my life on a farm, the next thirteen in a large town, and the following five in a city that whilst not enormous in geography or population, undoubtedly contained the trappings of a major cultural centre.

But the truth is that none of those locations felt entirely natural, each lacking some sort of life fulfilment, be it intellectualised culture or uncomplicated serenity. Which I’m sure is not unique to me—paradise is anywhere but here and city slickers seem to vacation at the beach, while small-towners love hitting the nearest metropolis for a weekend of shopping.

And in perception, a place like New York seems—along with other western epicentres like London, Paris and Tokyo, I suppose—the extreme of everything city.

Toronto might be sprawling, but it’s never bustling. Never intimidating. And it’s hard not to fall back on those old ‘80s representations of New York as some sort of dark, dangerous and dodgy Gotham.

View of New Jersey (left) and Manhetten (right) from the Staten Island Ferry. New York, New York.

But times have changed (the town got cleaned up real nice-like in the ‘90s) and stereotypes are often inaccurate. New York is a clean and safe metropolis, oozing cosmopolitan culture and pop iconography at every turn.

I hit most of the sightseeing standards—Times Square, Grand Central Terminal, the Statue, Ground Zero—plus Ben’s neighborhood of Harlem, a great night out in the hipsterville of Williamsburg Brooklyn, a Wu-Tang Clan show and a collection of locales made famous by films, sitcoms and Ramones songs.

And ultimately, people are just people. And New York is merely a place with lots of them, nurturing a distinct cultural and architectural character.

You also tend to look up a lot.

Posted by Jonathan

Tags: New York City