This two day/night at New York for $250 has been a mission statement ever since I picked New York for my budget trip, to add variety to my U.S. holiday, otherwise combining package tours and free riding on relatives. NY somehow seemed familiar and a lot like Mumbai — a melting pot low on pretence, high on energy.
The mental pictures are vivid, of NY, its streets and skyscrapers, thanks to “Taxi Driver”, “Saturday Night Fever”, “The Godfather” and “Kramer Vs Kramer” in the 1970s, with later updates by “King Kong” and “Sex and the City”. The bankers in black suits, the late-sitting Madison Ave folks and the investigative journalists always in a tearing hurry — we already know them, don't we? I had booked twin bunk beds in a single room in Broadway Hotel and Hostel on Broadway — $ 117 for two nights, safeguarding my privacy and my budget.
Fire Alarm
Besides the cheerful staff, what defines Broadway Hotel and Hostel is its musty core dominated by the stair case winding around an elevator that arrives when it decides to, like a creaky geriatric bearer in some hill station club. The stuffy air has a proletariat body odour laced with a mix of vague perfumes. My room is on the seventh floor, the topmost. The minimum walls to enclose twin bunk beds and a washbasin make up my room — no table, shelf or even a nail on the wall to hang a towel. But the beds were clean and the white linen the softest I have ever known. As I finish my shower in the common washroom and enter my room, the PA system crackles and commands quick evacuation of rooms, even as the fire alarms go off.
I scramble for my passport, wallet and keys, put on what clothes come to hand and rush down the stairs, “Towering Inferno” playing in my mind. On the second floor landing, a technician yells, “Take it easy, this is only a fire drill”. Never have relief, anger and reassurance switched places as rapidly as they did in my mind! I walk to Central Park and at the nearby International Hostel, register for the next day's free ferry tour covering the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. There I also meet an Indian IT professional. Finding our interests and timelines matching, together we leave for Times Square.
Times Square Metro station opens on to the 42nd Street pavement —and suddenly, you are surrounded by Manhattan's skyscrapers, standing erect and arrogant against the blue sky. American cities and businesses have used skyscrapers as statements of assertion, explaining why the wounds from 9/12 run deep in America's psyche. Excitement and déjà vu chase each other in my mind. As the crowd thickens, NYPD is present in large numbers, some on horsebacks, some posing with families for photographs, but always alert.
I remember the failed bombing attempt a month ago, at this surreal setting. On time off from time, the Times Square crowd is a microcosm of humanity, relaxed and enjoying congenial company - fraternal, familial or romantic. The 100-odd chairs are all getting occupied. You grab a bite or ice- cream from the stalls around and return to find your chair gone — the give and take that follows is treated with the mirth of Musical Chairs. Suddenly, an attractive girl breaks into an operatic piece. Professionals or amateurs, everyone is welcome at the Times Square.
As daylight departs reluctantly (by 8.30 in summer), Times Square becomes a psychedelic bowl of dynamic lighting. The zonal mandate exhorts that all buildings be clad with illuminated display boards, higher the lumens, the better! Through this contrarian directive, NY wants to strengthen its brand differentiation. Everybody is perpetually clicking the kaleidoscopic images, creating a collective haze. The energy is contagious — so are the hugs and uninhibited kisses.
NY by night
We now head for Empire State building. Beware of the yellow cabs— they are the first exceptions to America's right-of- way-to- pedestrians rule. The place is crawling with people. As we stand perplexed, a ticket seller approaches us. Yes, the queue for the 84th floor observatory ($ 20) is half an hour long. However, if we want to see the Skywalk — a simulated helicopter ride over the city — then we can skip that queue with a $ 47 pass, a la VIP temple darshans. Lightening the long wait, all are treated to a film on the construction of the skyscraper. The statistics of metal and man-hours consumed are impressive but what lingers in one's mind are shots of workers perched on beams, and but for that tenuous link, floating in space, buffeted by powerful winds.
The Skywalk on the second floor draws repeated shrieks when the seats shake and shudder as the theatre seemingly hurtles towards high rise buildings and misses them by a whisker. If it gets you, focus on the side walls - see, they aren't moving. You are safe! On the 84th floor promenade, the draft threatens caps and cameras. NY in the night is magnetic.
The landmark buildings all around have changed their dignified daytime outfits, now showing off their naked profiles accentuated by lighting, in this midnight cabaret. By the time we are through with dinner at Times Square, I manage to talk to Jennifer, the Big Apple Greeter volunteer.
PS: Guided by Jennifer, the next day, I do a tour of Fifth Avenue, the world's priciest street and then Greenwich Village, authentic old England and frozen in time. I rush to International Hostel. Now the anticlimax: the cruise is cancelled! Crestfallen, I spend a couple of hours at Central Park's Metropolitan Museum of Art, to drown my disappointment in the timeless exhibits, before rounding off the day with a glass of wine and a fulfilling dinner at Texas Restaurant on Broadway, promising myself a rendezvous with NY. What I have seen on my brief encounter — and what I missed — are both reasons enough.
