Days 35 & 36: Bites of the Big Apple

Despite my hangover, I woke at eight and went down for breakfast, reluctant to disappoint Zenobia by not showing up. I soldiered through my bagels and went back up to sleep a few more hours. Vaguely refreshed, I headed out with the intention of having a proper walk around Central Park and visiting the Museum of Natural History. I got off the train at 86^th Street and walked around the Upper West Side in search of something ludicrously American to take into Central Park for lunch in the sun.

For the first time in my life, I visited a Subway (‘sandwich’ restaurant), and couldn’t have been more vague. They kept asking me questions, thousands of questions about what kind of bread I wanted, what I wanted on my sandwich, what kind of sauce. I was in no mood for such grilling and made the mistake of saying, ‘Everything,’ ending up with a concoction of bread, meat and salad roughly the size of a fire hydrant.

I hauled it into Central Park and found a bench overlooking one of the main lawns. Most of my sandwich ended up on the ground, but what I did manage to get into my mouth was tangy, salty, sweet, sour and savoury all at the same time. Everyone walking past had either a baby or a dog, sometimes both, or multiples, and most of the dogs were baby-sized or smaller. The mood was calm, the sky was clear and the breeze was gentle. A great moment.

I had been prepared for a park of overwhelming size, and there’s no question that Central Park is big. David in Boston had remarked on the fact that New York had a forest at its centre, and others I knew who had visited all said how big the place was. To me, however, it didn’t feel so overwhelmingly big. The high-rise buildings on its perimeter serve as a constant reminder of the city, and I found I had crossed from west to east without even intending to. Its north-south length is certainly more remarkable, but I never felt, as David did, that I was lost in the woods. This is in no way a complaint. Circling the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir with the sun beaming down, strolling ever-so-leisurely by The Pool and its bright patches of crocuses and daffodils, and just being in something that felt like nature away from the fumes and bustle of the city were all experiences worth cherishing.

I took a long walk back to the Museum of Natural History, down Amsterdam Avenue, past corner deli after corner deli, just as school was finishing up for the day and kids were making their ways home. I reached the Museum around 4:30 and was told I could either pay $16 for the ticket or wait fifteen minutes and get in free, leaving me an hour to look around. Judging that fate was helping me avoid museum fatigue, I waited out the fifteen minutes in the lobby and took only an hour to look around.

Of greatest interest to me was an exhibition on the evolution of the human brain, which offered insights into the ways in which our ability to use language, music and art have evolved since caveman days. I had never really considered these human functions in an evolutionary context, having always associated them with ‘civilisation’. Hopefully now I know better.

At 5:30, an announcement told us we had fifteen minutes until closing time, so I started heading towards what I thought was the exit. Turned out you can’t go out the way you came in, and I had a hell of a time trying to find the actual exit, indulging for a few moments in the fantasy of being locked inside the Museum of Natural History for the night, with its brightly coloured, life-sized dioramas of taxidermied animals and cabinets full of vicious-looking primitive tools and weapons.

The problem was: every door seemed to have an ‘exit’ sign hanging above it. I went up lifts and down stairs, around corners and along corridors until I found someone who could actually tell me how to get out. I found comfort in the fact that there had been nothing in the exhibition that mentioned an evolutionary instinct for finding ways out of poorly signed museums.

I met Amir out the front and we decided against any further drinking, opting instead to try our luck at the movies. He was keen to see Tim Burton’s take on Alice in Wonderland, and I was running on an open-mind policy. We watched the film and I was bored stiff. I have now seen that film and Avatar in 3D and I cannot understand why anyone would bother with it. For me, it added nothing to the experience. I would be much more interested to see small-scale human dramas, such as Kramer Vs Kramer or Woody Allen’s Interiors, in 3D. At least then the characters might feel real, unlike Johnny Depp’s plainly irritating Mad Hatter.

Anyway, after the movie, we headed back to Union Square Station (a place to which I would soon find Amir had a natural gravity) and grabbed a pepperoni pizza at one of New York’s oldest pizzerias: Tony’s, where the walls are covered in strange murals and photos of celebrities who had dropped in, such as Ron Perlman. The pizza, dripping with oil, was extremely tasty and there were free refills on the Coke. I headed home for an early night.

Feeling vastly fresher and more energised the next day, I met Amir outside his gym in midtown Manhattan and we went for Japanese at a popular little place nearby. He had an itinerary in mind and I agreed to it unquestioningly.

First we took the train over to Long Island City in Queens and had a walk around the charming Socrates Sculpture Park, right on the East River. We were particularly taken by a tree which neither of us thought remarkable at first until we realised it was a piece of sculpture, crafted from steel, glue, vinyl and paint. The artist, Juniper Perlis, had shaped the tree to create a windblown effect and kept the ‘foliage’ deliberately sparse. Gimmicky, perhaps, but still a thing of beauty.

Its Zen stylings were a good warm-up for the delights of the Isamu Noguchi museum only a block or two away. A small, extremely quiet exhibition (we encountered only one other visitor), the Noguchi sets a handful of its works in a tranquil Japanese garden-style setting, while the remainder are housed in a stark re-purposed industrial building. It is apparently the only museum in the US to be founded by an artist during his lifetime and dedicated to his work. As with the Gardner museum in Boston, the gall of such a venture was not lost on me, but Noguchi’s monumental works in stone were worthy of it. I was particularly glad to be viewing them with Amir who, with his experience in sculpture, could impart to me a sense of the pain and tedium Noguchi must have endured to create them.

Never one to venture anywhere too close by, Amir then led me through two train trips down to Lower Manhattan, where we caught the Staten Island Ferry, just for the hell of it. Arguably one of New York’s best free attractions, the Ferry offers great views of Manhattan and Liberty Island (which was further out from Manhattan than I had envisaged). The wind was bracingly cold but the view across the water at sunset, underscored by the soothing hum of the engine and the lapping of waves against the hull, offered the kind of serene moment I hadn’t expected in that huge bustling town. It was easy to see how taking the Ferry could become a part of everyday life for the residents of (otherwise maligned) Staten Island. To celebrate, I ate an apple Amir had stolen from his gym. It wasn't big.

We walked around the Staten Island Terminal for a short while and then headed back to Manhattan, this time taking our vantage points at the very front of the Ferry. I told Amir I had heard about the relatively recent crash that had occurred with a docking ferry and he was gobsmacked. Not for the first time, he told me that I knew way too much about America, and I could see what he meant. This observation of his usually came with an imperative like, ‘Get a life.’

We took the very long train ride up through Manhattan to Harlem, where Sylvia’s Soul Food restaurant awaited us. Acting on a recommendation from my sister, Jen, a longtime lover of all things NYC, it was the first specific place I had requested to visit and Amir was more than happy to shepherd me.

As we were guided to our seats I felt decidedly spotlighted by my own skin, but on closer inspection saw that there were a number of other diners not of African heritage. Not that it bothered me; I had grown somewhat accustomed by that stage to being out of water.

The waiters were extremely friendly and attentive, which made me relax further. Jen had recommended the corn bread and candied yams, but I didn’t even have to order the corn bread; four sizeable blocks appeared on the table within a few moments of my arrival. I sensed I was not in for a light meal.

Keen to have the closest thing to an authentic experience I could muster, I ordered the fried half-chicken with collard greens and candied yams, and one of Sylvia’s signature cocktails called a ‘Waiting to Exhale.’ Amir asked the waiter if the cocktail had been named after the movie or vice versa, but he seemed unsure, and I, for once, hadn’t seen the movie, so was of no use on the matter. (Note: I still have no intention of seeing it.)

The meal was enormous and delicious. The chicken was extremely deep fried but not too greasy, and the collard greens offered welcome vegetable. The candied yams were a little too candied for my liking, smothered in a sickly sweet jelly that almost threatened to overpower the whole meal. But we left unmistakably satisfied. By this stage it was quite late, so I headed home.