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New York is a densely packed mass of humanity and all this living on top of one another makes the New Yorker a rare species! It's hard to put a finger on what makes the place buzz so hard, but the city's hyperactive rush keeps drawing people to it. They don't come any bigger than the Big Apple –"King of the Hill", as Frank Sinatra's song goes-"Top of the heap, New York - New York!". It's got its fair share of poor, but it also has world-class museums, big statues, even bigger buildings, all an outrageous excess! New York doesn't go to sleep! You can go out for a pizza, or sushi, or Italian food, at almost any hour of the day or night! The funny thing is that I slept like a baby once it came to 11pm almost every night! The city's traffic runs all night, and people are out and about as if it was the middle of the day.
New York is packed with famous places and on almost every street you find yourself saying, "Hey, look, it's the CNN Studios! It's Broadway! It's the David Letterman Show! It's the Empire State Building!" "It's Times Square!" - and this goes on and on and on. Even when you are trying to avoid being a tourist! It is hard to know where to start your own tour!
We decided to visit the most famous building in New York, if not the world, the Empire State Building, which offers breathtaking views. From there you can experience 360-degree views of Manhattan, the other four New York City boroughs and four states it is said! New york is a place which fully understands what it is to have a disability The Empire State Building is very wheelchair friendly. It is advisable to visit this building in a wheelchair as you skip every queue and avoid wasting time waiting for elevators! Waiting time for elevators for the able-bodied varies from 5 minutes to 2 hours! I was soon to find out that all New York was like that! Unfortunately for us it rained the whole time we were on the top of it! It is said that you can live in New York all your life, but until you see it from the top of the Empire State Building, you haven't seen the city! It was a fantastic view even through the rain! I can tell you that this is a great place to bring the family - and an especially amazing place to witness the wonder in a child's eyes the first time as they gaze from horizon to horizon taking in this metropolis of eight million people. The 86th floor Observatory, 1,050 feet (320 metres),which is reached by high speed, automatic elevators, has both a glass-enclosed area, which is heated in winter and cooled in summer, and spacious outdoor promenades on all four sides of the Building. Binoculars are available on the promenades for the convenience of visitors at a dollar a go. Souvenir counters are also located in the 86th floor observatory. It is very expensive. An ashtray cost us $11! The 86th floor observatory is also wheelchair accessible.
Next up on our agenda was a visit to Central Park. It is one of the main ways, I think, that New Yorkers stay sane in that they had the wisdom to preserve a large green space in the middle of a large city! Central Park is huge. Central Park is an 843-acre green oasis in the centre of Manhattan. It is New York's most well known park, and perhaps the most famous urban park in the world. Its history began in 1856 with the acquisition of land, for the purpose of building a grand open space, designed specifically for public use. Today the park averages over 20 million visitors per year. Since its construction, Central Park has evolved from a place of beautiful landscape to a combination of natural beauty, recreational facilities and outdoor arenas. There are skating rinks, a pet zoo, memorials and statues, gardens, walkways, ponds, lakes, horse drawn carriages, bicycle drawn carriages, and food carts. There are green lawns to sit on. People wander about taking photos, walking tiny dogs, and playing the saxophone. Street performers set up and crowds gather. There are big, old trees, and winding paths with joggers, rollerbladers, and taxis rushing to get across the city. There are 21 playgrounds in the park. It was a pleasure to go around on an electric scooter, even if it had seen much better and healthier days! I rented it from a company in New York, which shall remain nameless because of the physical standard of the machine( its last use must have been by a guy who liked crashing into walls!), and the lousy, rotten, sloppy after service they gave. I will not name them for fear of legal implications but they are losing out on the publicity at least! Losers!
My next port of call was a visit Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. We decided to go by public bus to the ferry that would take us to Ellis Island. It proved to be an inspired decision. The entire bus fleet in New York is wheelchair accessible to the disabled, by using lifts on the high floor models, and fold-out ramps on low floor models. The disabled person and their carer travel free! I must say that the eeriest part of the journey was when we passed Ground Zero which is a prominent reminder of the scale of the disaster that engulfed New York on September 11th 2001.
A tour of Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty go hand in hand. Ellis Island is a symbol of America's immigrant heritage. I had often wondered how all those immigrants had felt, especially some of my own relations. Between 1892 and 1954, approximately 12 million steerage and third class steamship passengers, who entered the United States through the port of New York, were legally and medically inspected at Ellis Island. It is estimated that more than 100 million Americans are directly related to immigrants who passed through Ellis Island during its term as an immigration station.
When we arrived at the ferry for Ellis Island there were queues of up to 2 1/2 hours. I could visualise tempers rising with my kids in a short period of time. It did not come to that as a member of the National Park Service noticed us in the queue and invited us to bypass the long line! If that happened in Ireland there would be a riot! Time passes are needed to enter the Statue of Liberty monument. Normally a limited number of time passes are available at the ferry ticket offices for walk-ins on a first-come, first-served basis or reserved in advance by calling the ferry company. However, when you know my first cousin Richie all is resolved! Richie, who was with us, happened to know the guy and we got passes inside the statue! Both the Statue and Ellis Island were the highlight of the trip for me. It took me back in time to another era and made me feel like an immigrant for a day. If you visit New York and do not come here the trip will have been a waste of time in my opinion. It is best if you come in wheels! It saves a lot of time!!
Madame Tussaud's New York has been entertaining guests since 2000. It has almost 200 lifelike wax figures. My children were very interested in a visit there. Located on 42nd Street in Times Square, between 7th and 8th Avenues, Madame Tussaud's New York offers visitors a chance to see life-like wax figures of their favourite stars and historical figures, as well as a variety of interactive experiences. From Tony Bennett and Shakira to Nicholas Cage and Frank Sinatra! It gives you an opportunity to rub shoulders with the famous as you mingle and pose for photographs with your favourite entertainers, sports figures, world leaders, and historical and social personalities. I have photos with Robin Williams, Ernest Hemingway and Fidel Castro! Guests are encouraged to touch, pose with and even talk to the various celebrities and historical figures throughout Madame Tussauds. There are some interactive experiences available also such as making music with Usher, whispering in Jennifer Lopez's ear and making her blush, taking part in American Idol or riding a bike beside Lance Armstrong in a Tour de France time trial. It is a good choice for families with children, as well as celebrity fanatics. Madame Tussaud's is open year round from 10 a.m. - 10 p.m. in Times Square. The place was very accessible in a wheelchair but I had visited MT previously in London which was better. It was expensive and really not worth the price of admission, which was about $130 for a family of five.
In the company of my first cousin Patricia, her husband Jeff, my wife Joan, their children and mine, we embarked on a trip to Coney Island. Disney World it isn't ! However it is a refreshing alternative to corporate-owned amusement parks. Coney Island is a peninsula located in southernmost Brooklyn, New York City, USA, with a famous beach lying on the Atlantic Ocean. The area was formerly a major resort and is home of amusement parks. Astroland and Deno's Wonder Wheel Park are Coney Island's two major amusement areas. It reached its peak in popularity in the early 20th century but declined after World War II. In recent years, the area has been revitalised by Russian immigrants. Over the years, Coney Island has been referred to as a poor man's paradise. Coney offers an abundance of sun, sand and surf and a lovely boardwalk, which is three miles long. The beach is free, wide, and well looked after.
What was most enjoyable about Coney Island was the Aquarium, which is dedicated to sea life conservation. The aquarium features 10,000 living specimens including Beluga Whales, who have given birth at the aquarium, fish from the far corners of the world, Dolphins, seals, octopuses, penguins, electric eels, Walruses and Sharks. It is really worth the visit and is considered to be one the top marine facilities in the USA.
For decades the streets of Greenwich Village beat as the counterculture heart of American life. From Bob Dylan to Dylan Thomas, this was the heartbeat of bohemian America. As a dabbler in poetry I just had to visit it. I did so with a good guide Richie, my cousin and my son Paul. It is sadly no longer a place for poor poets in squalor, struggling artists and wannabe actors. It is a place for the rich. Neighbourhood coffee shops have become Starbucks, local diners have become chic restaurants booked up weeks in advance or have been turned into a McDonald's.
The roll-call of famous names who once made their homes in the neighbourhood spans poetry, music and literature. They include Bob Dylan, Edward Albee, Henry James, Allen Ginsberg, Norman Mailer, Woody Allen, Edgar Allan Poe and Dylan Thomas. The Village played host to literary greats, alternative newspapers, modern art, the Beat poets, radical plays, underground jazz and the folk revolution of the 1960's. Its coffee shops, bars and theatres have helped to change the world.
I decided to call to the White Horse, a bar frequented by Dylan Thomas and a relic of the past. In the bar hangs a huge painting of Thomas and other memorabilia, but it is now far from a seedy literary boozer. It is I believe now popular with lawyers, financial workers and wealthy students. It is certainly not a smoky haunt - as, in all of New York, smoking is now banned like in Ireland. Richie told me that many other once-famous cafes, bars and theatres have closed their doors. The bohemian pulse has faded. Greenwich Village is starting to look more Wall Street than hippy beat Street! A sign of the times shows there are now Ralph Lauren outlets in the Village! Sadly what has happened in the Village has been mirrored elsewhere in New York as once urban neighbourhoods have grown wealthy. The Village is now primarily as a tourist destination and nightspot for tourists and out-of-towners. It plays host to a Sex and the City bus tour which brings in hundreds each day to look at sights made famous by the racy and trashy TV series, not the neighbourhood's glorious cultural past. Even Washington Square, where folk singers once rioted after being banned from jamming in the park, is facing a redevelopment scheme, complete with iron fences to keep people off the grass! The Village is not known for protests any more. From being a place where folk singers, gay rights activists and Vietnam protesters have all fought the police, it is now a middle-class enclave like any other. There were no protests about Iraq on the streets during my visit!
But it was still nice to imagine what it would have been like in the in bygone times if I could have put the clock back. Nostalgia pure nostalgia! Richie also pointed out some of the places Bob Dylan and Richie Havens had gigs.
A trip to the USA and New York would have been a poor one without a visit to a ball game. Saul Steinberg (1914-1999) was one of America's most beloved artists, renowned for the covers and drawings that appeared in The New Yorker for nearly six decades and for the drawings, paintings, prints, collages, and sculptures exhibited internationally in galleries and museums. He described Baseball as " an allegorical play about America, a poetic, complex, and subtle play of courage, fear, good luck, mistakes, patience about fate, and sober self-esteem." I suppose any other definition to that one would be a poor one. Simply put, to the uninformed, it is a game played with a bat and ball by two opposing teams of nine players, each team playing in turn in the field and at bat, the players at bat having to run a course of four bases laid out in a diamond pattern in order to score.
"Take me up to the ball game!" My cousin Patricia got the tickets and kindly took me, my son Paul and daughter Martina to a game between the New York Mets and the Brewers of Milwaukee at Shea Stadium in Flushing(Queens), New York. It is the long-time home of the New York Mets and the historic site of the world's first stadium concert (which featured the Beatles on August 15, 1965). Before the game, the teams honoured Jackie Robinson, who broke baseball's colour barrier on April 15, 1947. His widow, Rachel Robinson, walked the pitch as part of the tribute. I got a very good view of the match at eye level in an area reserved for disabled people as the Mets proceeded to be dire on the day and lost 8-2! I must have been a jinx for them however as they won six in a row before I watched them and have kept on winning since losing to the Brewers! Juan Franco of the Mets became the oldest player in major league baseball history to hit a home run when he connected for a two-run, pinch-hit shot in the eighth inning on the following Thursday night to help the New York Mets rally for a 7-2 win over the San Diego Padres! As the sign in the stadium goes "Let's go Mets!". I will continue to follow their fortunes as I am beginning to feel hooked!
I would say New York is hard on the feet. But brilliant in wheels! Especially in my own non-motorized wheelchair! There are inclines on every street. There are few places to sit, and lots of places to stand or walk should you be able to do so. New Yorkers come in all flavours, race, size or shape! On the streets you'll see people reading Russian newspapers, Japanese books, or speaking Spanish. You'll see anything from actors learning their theatre lines on the streets to musicians on the streets busking. Couples of every description old and young walked hand in hand. Couples of every sexual orientation - lesbian and gay couples seemed pretty much at ease.
Times Square is filled with tourists and is the bubbliest part of New York. Hundreds of thousands of people walking around, looking for things to buy. It has the MTV studios! The toy shop "Toys R Us'' has a Ferris Wheel in the lobby! Food is ever-present. Restaurants for anything your heart and stomach desire on every street. I ate everything excluding Chinese from Greek to El Salvador food. If you ate Chinese you could get that too at a very cheap price! The restaurants are tiny, often packed with people, and efficient - getting people in and out as fast as possible.
But my main goal of this visit was to rekindle some friendship with my American cousins, some of whom I had not met in the preceding decade. I could not have received a warmer and kinder welcome. They just could not do enough for me. Whether it was their Irish blood or New York souls I cannot tell! They made my family's stay and mine an extremely pleasant one. I will always have fond memories of Brooklyn and New Jersey.
There are more than a million and a half people in New York City who are living "below the poverty line," according to official statistics. New York's Coalition for the Homeless' seventh annual State of Homelessness report calls 2006 the middle year of the decade's worst homeless condition since the Great Depression (1930s.) A recent report stated that the number of homeless families and children has doubled in New York City, with twice the number of children living on the street than what was the case one decade ago. Yet at the same time recent data suggests that the number of families earning more than $200,000 per year rose 20 percent in two years ending in 2004 in Manhattan. Makes you wonder a bit about life and its justice! The poor seem to exist on another level entirely. You see some of them asleep on doorsteps late at night, or living in the subways . They are ignored for the most part, and seem to ignore everyone else themselves.
Our hotel was very expensive. The rooms were relatively bare and did not even have a fridge or microwave in them! However, there was a coffee maker ! Our bill for 2 rooms for 10 days came to $5,870! None of it included food! Breakfast came to between $40 and $50 a day. Not a good deal but the staff at the Holiday Inn, Midtown, Manhattan were extremely nice and very obliging.
I sincerely hope I make it back some day as I have unfinished business and places to see!
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