nw3 to nyc

Observations on moving my family across the Atlantic


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Learning a bit about Korea

A glorious sunny day and I take J to Battery Park. This is the park at the very tip of Manhattan, the place where everyone goes to get their boat out to see the Statue of Liberty. It is rammed with tourists but poor old Battery Park is still looking worse for wear many months after the devastation of Hurricane Sandy. Much of the park is cordoned off but there’s lots of activity going on to reconstruct it back to its former glory.

The park is host to many statues and at least two war memorials. The memorial to those who died in the Korean War (1950-53) is relatively new, having been erected in 1991 and is impressively modern. We were there for some time and very few people wandered over to this corner of the park, which was a shame, because it’s very thought provoking and a close look at the flags at the base of the memorial reveals some intricate mosaics.

I was so impressed I wanted to share it here. The first photo is the actual memorial, which is huge, you can tell from the size of the surrounding trees. Then below I have photographed three of the many paving slabs which come out from the memorial, like rays of a sun, to show how many countries were involved and how many men died, were wounded and those who were missing. The numbers for the US and for Korea are way in excess of anything I would have guessed.

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There’s a macaw up that tree!

Yes, a green macaw, just hanging out in a tree in our local park. I ignore the protestations of E and her friend, when I humour them that ‘yes, dear, now off you go’, in a bid to continue an conversation without small children. Later, intrigued, we wander across the grassy part of the park and yes, there it is. A macaw, Chilling out on a deck chair next to a 60 something lady. ‘You bring him here everyday, do you?’, I ask, in an attempt to hide my bemusement at seeing someone in the park with a macaw. ‘Only on the weekends’ she replies. The bird goes nuts when a toddler gets too close and the owners say ‘he bites, get him away!’ Apparently he likes small girls, so he is happy when E is cooing over him and he’s saying ‘hello’ and other greetings. I ask them how they get him to the park, as I can see no cage or similar device. He sits on her shoulder and she walks to the park wih him. They talk like it’s the most normal thing in the world. NO IT’S NOT! Well, maybe it is in NYC but not in NW3, that’s for sure.


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Medieval Manhattan

Ah, I hear you say, but America wasn’t really around in medieval times. Sure, that’s true, but it doesn’t stop NYC from importing treasures from Europe and displaying them in a made up castle in the far reaches of north Manhattan. I kept seeing reference to the Cloisters in tourist blurb and at the Metropolitan Museum but couldn’t quite imagine what it meant. So on a hot and sunny day earlier this week J and I ventured up the A line all the way to 190th Street, which is a very long way away. And naturally it also involved a ridiculous amount of stairs, curses to you stairs, but I think my arms are rather more sculpted than they used to be, so I shouldn’t complain, really.

John D. Rockefeller Jr funded the Cloisters that emerged from the grounds of Fort Tryon Park in the 1930s. An architect called Charles Collens designed the building to look a bit like a medieval monastery and actually included relics into the construction and I think he did a pretty good job. It’s the home of the medieval collection of the Metropolitan Museum. The cloisters themselves are tranquil and beautifully landscaped and great fun to tootle round if you are 20 months old but hopeless if you are the mother of the 20 month old trying to keep him off the plants, climbing the walls and stopping him from falling into the gardens 20 feet below. But besides that the interior is great if you like looking at really old stuff, medieval stuff isn’t really my thing, but we did get to see the 1930s bowels of the building as we got special dispensation to use the original staff lift to go back up to the entrance – too many stairs. Again.

Fort Tryon Park is a revelation. Snuggled next to the Hudson River, which is very wide at this point, it is an almost tropical haven from the density of the rest of Manhattan. It was hard to believe we were still on the island at all. I doubt many tourists get this far, but on a sunny, hot day, it’s well worth the trip.


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In the land of the coupon

So, my take on coupon sites is that the company or organisation selling their wares at a discounted price want to drive new traffic to their business. Treat your new customer with their discount like a king (or queen) and you may get a loyal new customer who returns time after time without a discount. I think I may be being a bit naive here. My experience of the NYC coupon scene is varied, verging on poor and if you read Yelp reviews, I have to wonder why anyone bothers at all.

I’ve taken my $20 for $10 from Amazon Local to a deli to buy lovely smoked fish, bagels etc and been treated like I was trying to rob them and treated appallingly – I’ve not been back, but I did just find another discount there on another site, so I’ll try again, as the food was pretty good. Perhaps they were having a bad day?

I’ve been to the Science Museum out in Queens with my coupon and been treated beautifully, it made no difference to them. I forget I had this one and Amazon helpfully told me it was about to expire, so I could only use half of it in time – beware expiry dates.

I’ve been to my local pizza place, had to walk there and collect (yes, no delivery on this coupon, that was a mistake) and found my coupon code was not on their rag eared list so I had to rely on their largesse. I love their pizza anyway, so it was just a bit of a bonus – no need to get my loyalty, it’s already there Two Boots!

I would buy a coupon for a cheap massage or pedicure but quite frankly I wouldn’t dare. I don’t fancy being treated like crap because the staff think you are a cheapskate, not an experimental customer who may become a loyal customer, and given a terrible experience when such things should be an absolute pleasure. Check out Yelp to see what I mean.

I’ve just bought a Groupon (probably the most well known discount coupon site) to experiment at a vegan (yes, vegan) restaurant nearby that I’ve been curious about for some time but will never get R to visit.  I will lure him with cheap food and allow him to be as insulting as he likes about the lack of meat afterwards. Who knows, maybe we will become loyal customers and give up meat! Fat chance.


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All the way to the end of the Q line

Hot dog! Yes, it is possible to eat 69 hot dogs in 10 minutes. Every year, Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July Hot Dog Eating Contest takes place on Coney Island. Sadly we missed the competition itself, but we did visit Coney Island to admire the results.

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So excited are Nathan’s that they have a digital countdown going until the next competition in July 2014.  Joey “Jaws” Chestnut won this year and is a serial winner of this competition. I only found out about it because when I bought frankfurters in my lovely local butchers they said “they’re the best, Coney Island Franks”. They then proceeded to tell me, with great glee and pride, about the annual hot dog eating competition held on Coney Island and how I should go. I tried to persuade R, but he was having none of it. But today we got here, R queued for 20 minutes to watch inefficient service eventually give him three ‘franks’ and a pretzel dog! Yes, a pretzel dog – it tastes good, just looks like a slightly loose pastry jacket twirled around a pink sausage.

Coney Island is of course not just about scoffing hot dogs. It’s home to a huge fun fair called Luna Park that’s well worth a day out from the closely packed streets of Manhattan. Set off from the board walk it’s a mix of new and old rides, it could be a UK seaside resort but without the fish and chips and not a seagull in sight.

Oh, and the end of the Q line is a very long way from our part of Manhattan, especially on the local line, best bring a snack, but not too much as you’ll not want your hot dog.


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What is he up to now?

Blimey. I thought old Anthony Weiner had got over his leacherous ways, but apparently not. The press here has been all over the confessions of his sometime ‘sexting’ partner, Suzie Leathers – what a great name, it has to be made up. Seems that he created an alias for himself – Carlos Danger (!) so that he could carry on his pervy ways. I’m not sure whether the UK press would have done what the New York Post did here. Through their Twitter account they published the text ‘conversation’ between Carlos and Suzy. They blacked out the rude words, but you didn’t need to think very much to know what they were. It was soft porn for the masses. Apparently he has a thing about high heels. Naturally there has been intense speculation as to whether he can continue in the race to get the Democrats to nominate him as their candidate for the election for Mayor of New York. So far he is still in, but his campaign manager has legged it, but he’s only 31, so I’m sure he’ll be just fine. It’s hardly comforting when your main man clears off a few weeks for the all important primary election on 10 September. I am quite addicted to following Mr Weiner now, shame I can’t vote.


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ok, ok, I’ll say something about the royal baby

It would be remiss not to, not that I’m any kind of royalist, but you can’t fail but be a bit interested in the birth of a future king. I bought today’s papers here in New York to see what New Yorkers had to say.

First, the New York Times. Blink and you’d have missed it. They put a small photo on the front page, a second one, as they normally only carry one rather boring picture on the top left on a normal day. It shows a policeman outside Buckingham Palace and the crowds near the gold trimmed board that officially announced the birth. ‘An heir is born’ it says, followed by ‘Crowds at Buckingham Palace after the Duchess of Cambridge gave birth to a boy.’ And in true New York Times fashion it refers you to another page. They then deign to provide half a page on a rather snidey, yet bemused overview of the day’s events. They get Lionel Shriver, author of ‘We need to talk about Kevin’, who is US born but now lives in the UK, to do a piece on the baby later in the paper. You get the feeling she’s not keen when she says ‘the firstborn of the Duchess of Cambridge (that’s Kate Middleton to you) being third in line for the throne is of no more import than my being third in line at my local London Tesco’. You kind of wonder why they bothered.

Then the Daily News, a good old fashioned tabloid, sells for 75 cents and really isn’t worth buying normally. Its headline  shouts ‘Let’s heir it for the boy!’ and follows with ‘Wills and Kate baby joy’. It then refers you to pages 6-7 and a double page spread shows a very glum looking Queen and a town crier, looking ridiculous. I thought they’d be pretty into the baby thing, but half of page 6 is devoted to a really anti royalty piece called ‘No thrill among moms who feel royally shafted’. Denis Hamill, their columnist, goes on to say ‘the world media fawn over the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, who live on public assistance in public housing in Great Britain, where they welcomed another royal layabout son’. Not keen then? It’s a shame it was quite so rude about the royals, as it does actually make some solid points about the poverty many New Yorkers live in and yes, it’s incredibly hard and expensive to raise a child.

And my favourite. The New York Post. The entire front page is devoted to a random baby in nappy, waving whilst wearing a gold crown and holding a silver spoon, next to the headline ‘Crown Jewels. Kate delivers a baby king’. Fabulous. The New York Post loved their front page so much, they tweeted a picture of it and asked readers what they thought. Not quite in the same league as the UK’s Sun tabloid newspaper that renamed itself for the day ‘Son’. Classic.

Now can we obsess about something new, please.


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Searching for Alice

In the New York Public Library, “The ABC of it: why children’s books matter“. What a fabulous new exhibition on the history of children’s literature. From an original water colour done by Beatrix Potter and given to the NYPL Children’s Librarian of the time to the ever expanding neck of Alice in Wonderland, this is a wonderfully curated gem in the heart of the 42nd Street library. If you are less than 4 feet tall you too can fall down the rabbit hole – or keep going in and out, as J did repeatedly. Or you can snuggle up to the furry Gruffalo and be grateful he’s only there in outline. And I was pleased to see that Winnie and friends had been let out of the their rather sad home in the Children’s Library, to be propped up in much nicer surroundings at the heart of the exhibition. Free and on until March 2014, catch it, if you can.

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Some observations on summer

Here are my thoughts on how to survive the summer so far:

  1. Don’t wear very much
  2. Wear a colour that doesn’t show up sweat, because you will, a lot
  3. When crossing avenues or streets, lurk in the shadow of the nearest building and don’t boil in the sun waiting for the crossing
  4. Like iced drinks, tea or coffee, everyone is clutching one
  5. Don’t be in a hurry
  6. Carry a lot of water or a lot of dollars in order to top up at the many kiosks and carts selling water – most expensive so  far has been $3
  7. Visit museums, galleries and other tourist attractions for the air conditioning – but be prepared to elbow your way through the crowds of people doing exactly the same thing
  8. Be grateful you don’t live in the UK where a heat wave is greeted with mild panic and with little air conditioning, it will be awful
  9. Be thankful you live in a city that knows that every year for around 4 months it will be very, very hot, so it’s geared up for it
  10. And don’t breathe through your nose: NYC really smells in the heat


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What is a cronut?

At the suggestion of R, I introduce you to the cronut, half croissant, half doughnut with an injection of cream to really up the calorie count. This is a pastry developed by a chef called Dominique Ansel here in New York City. Unleashed on the world on May 10, 2013, I am slightly behind the curve on this one and I suspect R only found out about it because someone mentioned it on Reddit, his favourite website. Anyway, I have researched the artery hardening lovely and found that you have to get to Spring Street, to their bakery, which is way down town in Manhattan. You have to be there around 6am in order to have a chance of getting one, as you have to join the incredibly long queue of pastry diehards. The bakery opens at 8am, they only make 300 and only sell you 2 at a time. So you do the maths to know where in the queue you need to be to be successful.

Whilst I like croissants (I had one from Dean and Deluca only earlier today) and I like doughnuts, I don’t think my dedication stretches this far. I could order 6 by phoning up after 11 on a Monday in the hope of getting them in the next two weeks, but I just can’t be arsed. Check out the Dominique Ansel website to see if you would make the effort.