DAY 12 GLOVERSVILLE TO NEW YORK.
We didn’t get up particularly early, but were ready to leave by about 10.00am after packing and saying our goodbyes to Ruthie, Ippany and, of course, Kiki. Then it was off to see Duncan, Mylen and family for more goodbyes, but sadly they were out, and weren’t answering the phone. We set off south. The first stage of the journey took about three minutes. Duncan called – they were in after all and so we did a U-turn and spent a few minutes with them all before setting off again.
.The journey was pretty uneventful. At one of the service stations where we stopped for a brief break there was a sort of mini “farmers market” in a large gazebo affair. There was the expected fruit and vegetables, fresh flowers, a wide variety of decorations revolving around dried corn cobs and a lot of pumpkins. We bought some snacks – I chose dried apple – sort of apple crisps, wafer thin slices of apple that had been either dried, or more probably fried as you would potato crisps (of course crisps are chips in the States, and chips are fries although they are nothing like chips of the nature that commonly accompanies fish). The “apple crisps” were a nice refreshing change from potato crisps, although slightly sweet for my taste. They will never replace Pringles, which is probably a bad sign for the health of the nation.
We arrived in New York by mid-afternoon, and managed to find our hotel, despite the web site having no precise address, just the name of the adjacent highway. A number of Trip Advisor reviews had commented that it was difficult to locate, but with a combination of SatNav, map and a good sense of direction (I wasn’t involved in the sense of direction bit) we found the hotel with our first attempt.
Two nights previously I had booked the hotel on line. On some of our previous trips we have booked 2 star hotels in an “It’s-cheap-and-after-all-we-are-only-using-it-to-sleep-in” sort of way. We have never had a disaster, but there have been occasions when I have thought a minimum standard of 3 stars would be appropriate. In Rome our “hotel” turned out to be a room in a back street apartment, with a bathroom shared with one other rented room, and a third room used by the owner as an office. “Breakfast included” was a voucher for coffee and pastry at nearby corner café. The other rented room was empty for the first night, but on the second night we returned late to find a bewildered looking young couple at the locked entrance gate to the block. We smiled “hello” at them as we unlocked and entered, and then decided to offer assistance. They were non-English speaking Spanish, we were non-Spanish speaking English. But from a printed e-mail that they were clutching it was clear that they were to be our co-residents. When we had booked the room we opted for a “taxi” from the airport, which turned out to be a lift by a friend of the owner, who managed to explain, in broken English, the somewhat strange hotel arrangements. We did our best for this Spanish couple, but with the language difficulty we were onto a bit of a loser. I think that they decided that they had entered some sort of world of Italian Swingers. We were up quite early the next day – they had gone, and the bed hadn’t been slept in.
Anyway, back to New York. On line at Leslie’s, after perusing the rooms available, and balancing the substantial premium charged for the convenience of being close to the City centre, against the bargains offered by those with a 2-hour rail trip to the centre, I selected a couple of hotels close to Newark airport. The disadvantage of being a few miles from the city centre was easily offset by a free airport bus, and an excellent rail link between the airport and city, total travel time about 40 minutes. I summonsed Chantal and Leslie for their opinions as potential guest and local(ish) resident respectively.
They both decided that much more economical accommodation was available, and sure enough a quick search revealed a delightful 2 star hotel at a very reasonable room rate. After all “it’s cheap and we are only using it to sleep in”. My only comment is Thank you Trip Advisor. Thank You So Much Trip Advisor. We perused the reviews to find that it was in a somewhat challenging area, and it was better to be back at the hotel before dark. The receptionist resides behind a bullet proof screen. One resident felt sufficiently insecure to feel the need to sleep with a large knife under his bed.
We chose the delightful 3 star Marriott which was perfect. The room was big and comfortable with a “living area”, and the staff were friendly and helpful. The only disadvantage was that evening meals were not available (although were at an adjacent hotel), but this was not a problem – we would either eat in town, or make use of the “kitchenette area” (i.e. microwave) in the room. Cutlery and plates were available, and ready meals and snacks were sold in the lobby.
After a fond farewell with Leslie, we caught the airport bus, the first stage of our commute into Manhattan. We were new guests, the Latino driver had poor English, and as a consequence we dropped at the wrong terminal for the railway station. No worries – there was a monorail “Air Train” between terminals. However, there was only one link was operating and we had to find and catch an airport bus. Thanks to the problem with the monorail there was a lot of red coated “helpers” around, some more helpful than others, and eventually we caught the train that would deposit us at Penn Station close to the centre of Manhattan. Even this straightforward rail trip had a complication. There are two Penn stations, between Newarke Airport and Manhattan, about 20 minutes apart. Alight from the train too soon, and you end up in Newarke Penn station, located in the challenging area where Chantal and Leslie had deemed we should stay. Stay on board and you arrive at New York Penn Station, Manhattan. Penn is, in each case, an abbreviation of Pennsylvania. Neither station is located anywhere near Pennsylvania.
Penn Station (New York) was very crowded and felt like one of the more interesting parts of the London Underground. It was somewhat tired and grubby, gloomy, noisy and huge – big enough to be confusing. To us poor English country dwellers it didn’t feel particularly safe, and we were glad to emerge onto the even more crowded and noisy street. It was difficult to travel consistently in any direction, which didn’t really matter as weren’t entirely sure which direction to consistently head in. Initially we were like a couple of nervous rabbits caught in headlights and not entirely sure which way to turn and run.
Chantal quickly spotted one of the items on her “to do” list. Macy’s department store. We managed to fight our way across the road and into the relative calm of the large store, which is bigger than Harrods, although not by much. Chantal didn’t have a shopping list; she didn’t really even want to browse. She just wanted to explore, which we did. We ended up in the Christmas department which I have to say was quite, well, Christmassy. There were huge displays of decorations, trees, and lights. Chantal chose a bauble, partly as a souvenir, and partly, I suspect, so that she had a Macy’s carrier bag.
We headed back outside and battled through the crowds to Time Square, a couple of blocks away. By now it was dark, and we could see the illuminated advertisements further along the road as soon as we left Macy’s. They were certainly spectacular, some of them practically short films, and almost every façade along the streets leading into Time Square as well as in the square itself was almost completely covered with illuminations. For an alternative perspective (for photographic reasons, obviously) we climbed the tiered staging used when the daily “Good Morning America” show is filmed in the square to get an elevated view of the illuminations.
It was getting late, and so we headed back towards the station and stopped at Macy’s for a snack, before catching the train back to the hotel. The journey was a little less confusing now that we knew the route, and at Newarke Airport we discovered that the terminal where we could catch the hotel bus was not only one monorail link from the rail station, but that this was the link that was operating normally – no buses.
DAY 13 ELLIS ISLAND AND GROUND ZERO
Our morning journey into Manhattan was smooth – we knew what we doing and where we were going. The train arrived promptly – intriguingly all trains are equipped with a clanging bell that rings as the train approached a station, just as a bell clanged at the front of the wide funnelled “iron horses”, the large steam engines of western films. One assumes that the modern bell is electronically generated, rather than being swung from side to side by a piece of string that emerges from the sophisticated controls of a modern locomotive. We were joined on the train by devils, ghouls, ghosts, and witches – apparently a good natured student Halloween party that seemed to be out and about remarkably early for a Sunday morning, joining the Hassidic Jews, Muslims, and church goers that joined the tourists on the trip into New York.
At Penn (Manhattan!) station we located the Subway, and purchased tickets for a journey down to Battery Park at the southern tip of Manhattan, where we planned to catch the Staten Island Ferry. The Subway fare is $2 per journey, irrespective of the length of the journey, and so at the ticket booth I requested four trips – returns for each of us. I got just one ticket with four journeys on it. At the turnstile whichever of us was in front had to turn and pass the ticket back for the follower to use. We managed this, although later in the day when Chantal passed the ticket back to me, I passed through the turnstile ticket machine, but the turnstile remained locked. I tried again, there was still no indication to me that I could pass though, but I clearly missed something, since both Chantal and another lady were shouting animatedly at me to push through quickly before the gate locked again –since this was the last journey on the card I would have to leave Chantal on the platform side of the turnstile while I went back to the entrance foyer to buy another journey. I got through in time.
We emerged in Battery Park, and found the ticket office for the ferry. We were advised that there was at least an hours queue for the ferry, although obviously were not told this until we had purchased the ticket. The queue ran back from the ferry pier along the harbour front, across Battery Park, onto the sidewalk and round a corner, where we eventually found the end. I am not a good queuer. I hate queuing. I grumped and suggested that maybe today was a lovely day to see Central Park, and maybe we should come back tomorrow when I was sure that the queue would be shorter, in fact I would pop back to the harbour front to see one of the queue management chaps and check that our ticket would still be valid. I did so, and was told that we could certainly return tomorrow, and that the best way to be near the front of the queue would be to arrive an hour and half before the first ferry, which seemed a bit pointless in queue avoidance terms.
I returned to the back of the queue to find Chantal. She had gone. She had been replaced by strangers. She had, of course, moved forward with the queue, and in the time that I had been away, had got almost as far as Battery Park – at least the queue was noticeably moving.
And so we queued, gradually shuffling forwards, amusing ourselves by taking photos of the grey sea under a grey sky, with and without seagulls. An hour later, as we got closer to the ferry pier there were signs advising that bags etc. would be x-rayed, and we would be scanned. After a further 30 minutes we entered the tented area which resembled a rather scruffy airport security area, with wooden trestle tables for loading personal possessions into trays for the x-ray machine. I had an ominous feeling about this – I had my beloved Swiss Army Knife in my pocket. It went into my bag, which was placed in a tray for x-raying. I was summoned by a security bloke, and quizzed. I admitted to the presence of my little pen-knife, which was confiscated, to be destroyed. To say that I was fed up about this would be an understatement. Chantal’s Swiss Aunt had presented it to me 18 months previously as a thank you for driving her and her friend around when they visited the UK.
To be fair, the Security bloke did present an option to me that would allow me to keep my knife. All I had to do was catch a train back to my hotel, deposit the knife, return to the harbour, and re-join the back of the queue. I mumbled something about the terrorists having clearly won, since the average U.S. Citizen is now terrified of Swiss Army Knives, and handed my precious knife over. No doubt it is now part of some American gas guzzling automobile.
On the ferry I eventually cheered up as the sun came out, and we got fantastic views across Manhattan as we headed for Liberty Island. We chatted to an American couple who were full of praise of the BBC coverage of the Olympics. They had downloaded some software that allowed them to view it over the internet, and were exceedingly impressed both with the coverage and the opening closing ceremonies. They felt that no U.S. channel could have equalled this. As we chatted the man told us that he worked for the Fox Network, and I told him that we had been watching some of the Fox News coverage of the US elections. His comment was that viewers of Fox News live in a parallel universe….
We stayed on board as the ferry docked at Liberty Island. Since 9/11 no-one can climb the Statue of Liberty to view Manhattan from the raised torch, and visitors to the Island are restricted to circumnavigating the base of the statue. We felt that our time would be better spent on Ellis Island, the next stop. Ellis Island was the “gateway” to America for most immigrants until the 1950s and is now a museum. We had visited the Island during a previous trip, but on that occasion only had a couple of hours before our departure flight – almost a full day is needed to appreciate the experience.
We enjoyed a snack on a sunny patio overlooking the Bay, with the backdrop of Manhattan’s skyscrapers, before going inside to collect the handsets for the audio tour. We followed the route of the immigrant families as they arrived in the land of freedom from all over the world, although mostly from Europe. Immigrants were ushered off of the boat and into a huge reception hall, crowded with people of all nationalities, most not speaking English, and one by one they were called to desks at the far end of the hall to be questioned. Who paid for the voyage? Where were they going to live? What work did they have? How much money did they have? A prospective job wasn’t important – there were plenty of work opportunities. Cash was essential – each immigrant had to have $25 minimum, enough to survive on for two weeks, by which time individuals should have found a job. Having relatives in the U.S was a bonus. Having a waiting job, with an employer who had paid for the voyage, was a reason for rejection – the U.S. Government did not want immigrants who started in debt.
Those who passed the first interrogation progressed to a medical examination, and were either accepted as fit and healthy, rejected as unhealthy, or had a condition that should clear up with treatment, in which case they had to stay on the Island until declared healthy.
At each stage of the process rejects were put straight back on a boat back to their homeland – the shipping company had to pay for the return trip. Those accepted generally could not afford a return trip, and the inevitable result was that families were separated. There were many stories of individuals promising to return home and fetch rejected family members once they had established themselves in the U.S. – in practice few families separated in the immigration process ever saw each other again. It was not quite the gamble it seems –since shipping companies paid the return trip of those rejected, all potential immigrants were carefully screened before being sold a ticket. Incidentally, first class passengers went through a less vigorous process on board the ship, and if accepted were allowed to disembark before the ship docked at Ellis Island.
We caught a mid-afternoon ferry back to Manhattan and headed for Ground Zero. We had decided not to book a ticket for the Ground Zero memorial, which at present consists of plaques each naming one of the victims, more for the relatives of those lost on 9/11. From the outside the site is basically a building site, with part completed tower blocks at the perimeter of an area that will eventually be a memorial garden around the museum.
The couple that we chatted to on the outward bound Staten Ferry had recommended a visit to St Pauls Church. This church, adjacent to the World Trade Centre, survived undamaged and became a refuge for the rescue workers and relatives of victims. It was a very moving experience. There were items of equipment of rescue workers who had not survived the Towers’ collapse, along with messages from those who had. Most poignant of all were details of the workers killed in the Twin Towers, provided by relatives, with messages left at a time when there was hope that loved ones just may have survived. Most victims were young, and left behind young families.
A letter from a remote call centre worker told how a colleague working in one of the Towers, was unable to use mobiles or other outside line, and so called the contact centre to leave a final message for her family to tell them how much she loved them. The Tower collapsed before she gave her name. The call centre employee wrote this open letter with this message for all bereaved families. We were both moved to tears as we walked around the church, which made a news item, by now almost history, personal.
It was early evening, and we had to catch the subway back to Penn Station as a matter of urgency, since Chantal was nervous, having read that tourists should only use the subway in rush hour. We were quite a way from the station at Battery Park, near the ferry, and had some trouble finding another station on the same line, to avoid an underground detour. We eventually did so, emerging into the dusk at Penn Station.
We decided to ascend the Empire State Building, which we had done previously in daylight, but never after dark. Once again we queued, were scanned/x-rayed (where I would have lost my Swiss Army Knife, if I had one) and joined the queue for the lifts. The open air viewing platform was busy, cold, windy, but with spectacular views across the lights of Manhattan, where many of the towering blocks were illuminated by coloured lighting effects. We took a lot of photos. As I reached over the parapet with my camera, I suddenly felt my legs go weak, my stomach lurch, and felt light headed. I had a touch of vertigo, which I have never had before, not even when being hauled up a rock face in my youth. I think it was the thought of reaching out over a void. Fortunately it was only a passing sensation. On the subject of cameras, there seems to be a trend to use i-pads as cameras. Cameras have been getting smaller and smaller, and now suddenly they are almost a foot square again, and, apparently, need to be held at face level with elbows held at everyone else’s face level.
Tired after a long day, we descended, and headed back to Penn Station to catch the next train back to our hotel.
DAY 14 CENTRAL PARK AND HOME
Another day, another rail and subway trip, this time north to Central Park. At the subway station we had a brief discussion about which platform was the right one, and a man standing close to us advised me to “Listen to your lady, she’s right”. That’s the story of my life. He sat next to us in the carriage, and asked us where we were planning to go, and so we told him we planned to get off the Subway at the northern end of Central Park, and walk the length of it,. His advice was to alight half way up Central Park, since there isn’t much to see in the northern half, and in any case the park is bisected by a reservoir that means any north to south route involves a detour to the edge of the park, in addition to detours to avoid roads through the Park. He was very helpful, very friendly, and I think that we were both a bit worried that he might get off with us to keep us company. We needn’t have worried – we got off where he recommended, thanking him as he continued his journey on the Subway.
Our Subway friend had directed us to head up hill as we left the station, but the roads ran up hill in two directions, and so we relied on my sense of direction. Five minutes later we realised that not only was this definitely not a tourist area, but also that we were off the edge of the map in the guidebook. We retraced our steps, guidebook in hand, and were accosted by another friendly man, this time on a bicycle. He pointed us in the right direction, and we soon found ourselves at the perimeter of the Park, at the edge of the central reservoir.
We enjoyed a relaxed day, exploring footpaths in the sunshine, sometimes through semi-formal gardens, sometimes through woodlands, always with tall buildings overlooking the park visible above the trees. We said hello to a Police Horse (and the accompanying Police Officer), and climbed the turrets of the small but picturesque Belvedere Castle. We walked around the originally named “The Lake” and came across a film crew filming for a drama or Sitcom – we asked the name of the programme, but were none the wiser. We found “Strawberry Fields” the area of the Park dedicated to John Lennon, 2.5 acres of gardens with a central mosaic with the word “Imagine”. Maybe it wasn’t the best time of the year to see it, but I wasn’t particularly impressed with the gardens, nor with the dedicated youngsters around the mosaic trying to sing “Imagine” to their own guitar accompaniment.
Sadly it was time to leave New York, and not long before we had to leave the States. We caught the subway back to Penn Station, where we tried to find a train to Newark Airport. We thought we knew which platform to head for, but apparently this only applied to evening trains. There was a large departures board with the next train listed, but the unhelpfully platform numbers were not displayed until a few minutes before departure of each train. The number of the platform came up, and we headed for the escalators leading down to it, but were stopped by officials as we approached. I showed our tickets, and one of the officials just said “Talk to him” pointing behind me. I turned to see a very large armed Police Officer. I explained that I wanted the train to Newark Airport. He explained that we had to look for the appropriate symbol on the board. I started to explain that the Departure board had displayed the Newark Airport symbol against this platform for the next train, but then decided that it was probably best not to argue. In any case it dawned on me that we were at an Amtrak platform, when what we needed was a New Jersey Transit platform. All very confusing.
We stood below the departures board for a second time, until the platform number for the next Newark Airport bound train was displayed. There seemed to be no indication as to whether this was an Amtrak or New Jersey Transit platform, but we headed for it anyway. From the direction signs it seemed to be on the far side of the station and on a different level, but just as we thought we were getting close, the directions signs stopped directing us. By this time we had somehow picked up an equally confused young Japanese couple, also heading for the Airport, who confidently (and possibly misguidedly) followed us. Somehow we located the platform with a couple of minutes to spare, and got on the train, although Chantal wasn’t happy until she recognised landmarks that showed we were heading in the right direction.
And that was it! We caught the monorail and then the hotel bus to collect our luggage, and then the hotel bus and mono-rail to our departure terminal, where, 2 hours later, we took off for Birmingham Airport. I want to “do” the Rockies next time. Chantal says our next trip should be to New Zealand. I’d better pop out and buy a Lottery ticket.
Technically we live in Oaktree House, but sadly the tree had to go.
We now have a thriving Oakstump at the front of the house.
