I quite like reading about New York history, how areas have evolved over the decades and the personal stories that come with this. The Museum of the City of New York is a great place to indulge this and it, housed in its grand building on 5th Avenue way up on East 103rd Street, does this with great aplomb. I highly recommend a visit if you’re ever here. Reading the New York Times this weekend, I found a heart warming article in the Metropolitan section, which focused on one house in the little known area of Crown Heights, which is in Brooklyn. The article tracked the house move of the current owner (selling for $1.3 million) and recalled the past by digging through city records to see who had lived in this grand, turreted building. It was the best thing I read this weekend and well worth a look. It’s not all about Manhattan, it seems.
An all-perv ticket
Ah, what a great headline on the front page of this week’s New York Observer. ‘Dems brace for an all-perv ticket’. This is reference to two politicians here who have recently tried to resurrect their political careers after some rather dodgy behaviour in their recent pasts. Anthony Weiner is a former New York US Representative who resigned after he sent sexually explicit pictures of himself via Twitter to one of his followers. He is now, two years on, trying to get the democratic nomination to become Mayor of New York and giving Christine Quinn a run for her money. He is also interesting because he is married to Huma Abedin, who is a key aide to Hillary Clinton. There was an article in the New York Times Magazine earlier this year about them, which is worth a read, if you’re interested.
And just this week Eliot Spitzer, former Governor of New York, also put his hat into the ring for the race to become Comptroller of New York State (the chief fiscal officer of the state, responsible for pension funds and payroll amongst other things). His controversy stems from 2008 when he had to resign the Governorship after he was found to have a bit of call girl habit “costing him tens of thousands of dollars in legally questionable transfers” according to the New York Observer. I’m not entirely sure that’s a great CV for a finance post. The Huffington Post confirmed that he had got the required number of signatures to get on the ballot for the democratic primary in September, so someone obviously thinks he can do the job. It’s a hilarious part of this year’s elections and I’m sure will have plenty of food for the headline writers as we get closer to voting day.
1000 steps to Queens
That may be a slight exaggeration, but not much. I bravely ventured out with J and E to the New York Hall of Science. This rather grandly named attraction is based way out in the Flushing Meadows area of Queens. Practically at the end of the 7 train line, this is a world away from our part of Manhattan. And when you are doing this with a heavy toddler in a buggy in the hot, humid weather of NYC it’s hard work. Not one person helped with the steps all the way there and there are a lot.
The Hall of Science is based in a converted 1960s building that was originally built as a pavilion for the 1964 World’s Fair. It’s a great hands on space for young kids to learn about science and has an excellent playground, which is great for 7 year olds and hopeless for toddlers. Just hope they are asleep so they don’t get jealous.
Next door to the Hall of Science is Flushing Meadows Corona Park, an oasis of greenery and calm in the heart of Queens and home to the Queens Zoo, sister to its more famous sibling in Central Park. It’s lovely. Small, but lovely with a rather impressive elk with the biggest antlers I’ve ever seen. There’s an old fashioned carousel and a petting zoo with some very friendly goats who love to be stroked. And in the middle is the most peculiar building called Terrace on the Park.
I have just looked at the website for it and it appears to be much flasher in its Internet form than in real life. From the outside it looks really run down, a bit unloved and frankly a bit of a concrete monster. It completely dominates the park, looming over the zoo. Not sure I’d fancy getting married there, but I suppose the views must be good.
Oh, and on the way back I managed to look pathetic enough to get help with the buggy up all those blasted stairs all the way home. Just don’t be on the subway past 4.30 in the afternoon as it’s as packed as the London underground and deeply unpleasant.
Crazy world of the New York property market
When we left NW3 the property market was mad. House prices just kept going up and up and most flats in the area were going for well over 1,000 pounds per square foot. It was unaffordable to many but very attractive to a lot of foreign money, with many overseas buyers looking for havens for their spare cash. I still subscribe to a few estate agent websites and see the jaw dropping prices of flats near where we used to rent in NW3. It comes as no surprise then that New York is pretty much in the same position: little inventory, lots of demand. There was a front page article in the New York Times yesterday about this. Property selling works a bit differently here. The buyer has an agent and the seller has an agent. So often the buyer and the seller don’t even meet, it’s done through their representatives. Open houses are common, with the seller’s agent arranging viewings with the brokers representing the buyers. The New York Times article talks about 100 buyers crammed into open houses for one bed flats; with dozens of above asking prices offers; and the level of all cash buyers is stunning. It’s a crazy world. I’m so glad we aren’t buying here.
Not sure what to think
I follow lots of New York media via Twitter, it’s a great way to get a broad flavour of what’s happening in the city without trawling through websites or buying the papers every day. Yesterday I saw a tweet from the New York Post saying “Never pee on the third rail”. I was intrigued. The tweet took me to the full story on the New York Post website. I’d assumed that someone had been electrocuted whilst actually in the act of peeing, which can never be a good thing. But on closer inspection it was that he had got down onto the track to pee, stumbled when he’d heard a train coming, tried to get off the track and fell on the third electrified rail. It just shows that the 140 character limit of Twitter can create an impression that something has happened in order to send traffic to a website but it’s really not quite the truth when you get there. I see from the Post website today that the story had re-tweeted 47 times, but had appeared on other media Twitter feeds so there were many more re-tweets. More ghoulishly, 209 people ‘liked’ the story as it appeared on the Post website. I wonder if they really thought about that: the fact that this poor 30 year old man died in a freak accident and they ‘liked’ it. Maybe I’m just as bad, as I am blogging about it too.
Note to self
Don’t visit Washington DC when it’s really hot. When the thermometer outside a bank tells you it is 100 degrees Fahrenheit and you then attempt to walk from the Capitol building to the Lincoln Memorial with two small children you will fail. It is a very long way. I know that now.
No jacket required
My apologies for invoking the spirit of Phil Collins and his 1985 album in this post. He called his album by this name after an incident at The Pump Room in Chicago, where Collins was denied admittance to this establishment because of his attire. I think of it only because it is so incredibly humid here in NYC that to wear more than a t shirt on your upper body is a mistake. My British side sees rain and thinks, ‘yes, it is raining, I must wear my raincoat and perhaps some Wellington boots*’. But my newly adopted NYC self knows this is wrong. It is raining, but it is hot: it is counter intuitive. Don’t wear a rain coat as you will melt. In fact, wear as little as possible, but always carry an umbrella, that way you will be a true New Yorker.
*Oh, and by the way, if you say Wellington boots or ‘wellies’ here you will get a funny look as no one will know what you are talking about. They are rain boots.
Miss you, Tate
I was a friend of the Tate for many years in London. I went to pretty much every exhibition they did in both Tate Modern and in Tate Britain. I worked very close to Tate Modern in the last few years and wandered around at lunchtime, but not as often as I should. And now I’m here in NYC, living about the same distance from the Met. On Saturday I read the FT’s review of the new exhibition, “Lowry and the painting of modern life” at Tate Britain and I felt sad. Sad, not because it was a poor review, in fact the review was brimming with enthusiasm, signing off that it was “a revelatory, enjoyable, historically significant show”. Sad because I can’t go. I console myself with having been to the Lowry gallery in Salford, but it was a long time ago. If you’re in London before 20 October, go and see it and think of me, nyc-newbie.
A new type of dog
Introducing the Pretzel Dog, combining the salty bready taste of the New York pretzel with the equally salty frankfurter-style sausage. Note that every other item on this menu from a local park fast food van has the calorie content listed, with the cheese pretzel out on top with 510 calories. So if you add the calories of the hot dog at 320 plus the calories of the pretzel at 465 and take a bit off to compensate for the hot dog roll, it’s probably around 680 calories. Worth it? Knowing the calories certainly stops me from snacking in the park!
Looking forward to coming back
We have just returned from our first foray out of the US, across the border to Canada. Six days in a twilight world that’s not American and not British, but a pleasant hybrid of the two. I discovered Tim Horton’s – a crossbreed cafe somewhere between Dunkin’ Donuts and Greggs the Bakers. I ate the Boston Cream doughnut, a custardy, chocolate covered delight. I struggled with Canadian vowels, where ‘mud’ rhymes with ‘could’ which you discover you buy your toddler a Canadian board book, so you have to adapt when you read it. I scrutinised Canadian currency with its nod to Britain with the Queen’s image firmly ensconced on the coins. And the weather’s just like NW3, all wet, a bit warm but mostly boots and rain coat weather. Kind of comforting. I thought it was telling that I looked forward to returning to NYC with its 30 degree heat where it is warm enough in the evening to stroll around in a t shirt and shorts (not that I have unveiled my knees to NYC yet). I’ll tire of the heat and humidity soon, but for now, it’s good to be back.
nw3 to nyc 