I’m not sure how well used this phrase is in the UK and probably not at all here in the US. Property porn refers to the free glossy magazines that come through the letterbox showing all the amazing houses and flats that are completely unaffordable to normal people but I can’t help looking. I loved Fabric, a North London property magazine, with its lifestyle pieces, bought in articles with film stars and ridiculously priced property. I loved the Ham & High’s property supplement on a Thursday. My guilty pleasure at breakfast, leafing through the glossy pages, spotting properties I recognised in NW3 and choking on my tea as I saw the crazy prices. A mere £15 million for a house nearby, in its own one acre plot with a recommendation from the estate agent to knock it down and build your own – for that much money!? Anyhow, my replacement for this void in my life since moving to New York is the Real Estate section of the New York Times on a Sunday. It’s not glossy but it does a good line in what it calls “Big Ticket Sales’. Today’s is a mere $24.75 million (£15.3 million). A bargain as it was originally on the market at $32.75 million (£20 million) in 2008. Blimey. It is accompanied by a “Warmly renovated in homage to blue” – a stately six-story Upper East Side town house for a snip at $29.99 million (£18.6 million). I love the quote from the agent at the end of the article. “All the triple mint house have been sold out. There is not much inventory. That’s we can basically name a price”. But compared with the soon to be marketed penthouse on East 79th Street, which will offered at $50 million (£31 million), it’s a bargain and at least you get a whole house.
Double Divas
I have discovered my new favourite TV show. It’s called Double Divas. Two women from Atlanta have a lingerie shop called Lili Rae and they make all their own merchandise. It’s a cross between Anne Summers and Agent Provocateur. They are huge characters and care deeply about the women they fit – think Trinnie and Suzanna with southern US accents. The series highlight so far is the fitting of Norma Stits, who cannot find a bra to fit her enormous breasts. She leaves happy and elevated. Other customers include the rapping cowboy looking for something for his girl and the completely misjudged batchelorette (hen) party full of ladies who lunch, horrified at the lingerie party put on by Molly and Cynthia. It’s incredibly entertaining and if it’s not in the UK yet, it should be.
Subway salon
I don’t use the subway much, but have started to work out the best place to stand on the platform, the right time of day to be there with a buggy and the best place to sit in the carriage. I do this much aplomb today. I am sitting opposite J, who is wide awake. He and I exchange smiles then I read, he stares. Then the guy opposite me says, ‘oh my Lord, I thought that woman sat next to me (next to J) left without her baby!’ Realising the baby is mine, he looks noticeably relieved as I explain it is better for me to see him this way, than sat next to him. J is getting a lot of attention today. One woman catches his eye, he smiles coyly and to his right another woman goes out of her way to wave at him but he’s too busy with the first lady. We speed on down town and I hear a clipping noise. A man is standing nearby clipping his nails, getting the dirt out with the blade and snipping the rest. Yuck. We are out of range for the clippings but I am not the only one to look on in mild disgust. And towards the end of ride, two older ladies sit beside me and opposite J and proceed to play peekaboo with him the rest of the journey. He is in heaven, in his very own salon.
Plastic puppies again
For those who read my earlier post and thought ‘hey, that’s kind of odd, plastic surgery for dogs’. It’s actually an advert for a comedy programme called the Kroll Show. Funny thing is, you could really think this was true here in New York.
Central Park sojourn
It is absolutely beautiful in New York today. It is cold and crisp and apart from a slight haze in the far distance, it is clear and bright. I walked across Central Park from west to east at lunchtime and whilst there’s no leaves on the trees and much of the park is cordoned off with signs saying ‘closed for the season’ to let the grass rest and grow back for the Spring, it’s a real pleasure to be walking through it. Despite the size of Central Park, you always know you’re in a city because wherever you look you see the border of buildings running down the East and West side and when you look north and south you see the buildings cluttered and close together. As usual there are dogs everywhere, every shape and size. Women with buggies, older couples and one man basking in the sunshine. And for the first time in my life I see a man taking a bird for a walk in a cage. Is that normal here?
Plastic puppies
An advert seen on a subway train earlier today:
“Is your dog a total dog? When push comes to shove I wouldn’t trust my dog’s plastic surgery to anyone but Dr Armond.”
Advert for puppylift.com
New York lexicon part 1
So far I have learnt that coriander is called cilantro and rocket is called arugula – very Star Trek. Paracetamol is known as acetaminophen, so when we were looking for a Calpol equivalent, we originally thought that paracetamol didn’t exist here. Double cream is known as heavy cream, which makes sense. There are a few words I already knew, but now have to use them without remarking on them, such as stroller (buggy), diaper (nappy) and mom (mum). There are no lifts, only elevators; no shops, but stores and no queues in those stores as you are ‘on line’. I am learning to drop the ‘t’ from words, such as water and eighty. Instead I now try to say wa-der and ei-dey, with an emphasis on the second syllable. And I have also learnt from a recent visit to a beer shop that a container which holds 2 pints of beer is called a growler!
American Wife
Not me, but the title of a book I have just finished. American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld was published in 2008 to great critical acclaim. Reading it in our New York apartment, it seems a good book to start our time here. The story of a fictional (but loosely based on Laura Bush) First Lady, who looks back on her life and how she got to the White House from her humble Wisconsin beginnings. I enjoyed it, it’s got a nice tone to it and although I was a bit surprised that the rise of Charlie Blackwell to State Governor and then President was covered in a few pages of the 600 page book – you’d think it was a fairly important plot line. I compare the experience of Alice Blackwell, fictional First Lady to the current First Lady, Michelle Obama. She is a hugely impressive woman: she went to Princeton (as does the fictional President in the American Wife) and Harvard Law School and had a very successful legal career before entering the White House in 2008. The First Lady in American Wife was a librarian who gave up her job when she got married – how life has changed for women now, not that I’m knocking being a librarian, of course. Last Sunday’s New York Times got its priorities right and dissected the First Lady’s wardrobe, extolling her preference for sleeveless dresses (well, she has the arms, no bingo wings there) and a fondness of Michael Kors (no longer on Project Runway’s judging panel, for anyone interested, but now proud owner of massive store on London’s Regent Street). Good to see the US press is as obsessed with high profile women’s wardrobes as they are in the UK – I think of Kate Middleton in particular (let’s see what her pregnancy wardrobe brings us). Samantha Cameron by way of contrast, as the UK’s First Lady, gets nowhere near as much attention as the First Lady in the US and she’s more stylish than all of them.
“Roseville Michigan is under siege by bathroom bandits. One or more crapper crooks have been breaking into restrooms at gas stations and fast-food joints and stealing plumbing fixtures from defenceless potties. The thieves steal all of the toilets’ flush handles and water pipes, leaving locals high and dry.” New York Post, January 2, 2013. (Made me laugh, anyway.)
Ben beats ball
The first hint that it is New Year’s Eve comes when walking up the avenues in New York. Out of nowhere new street hawkers have appeared to sell plastic tat – glasses in the shape of 2013 that light up, sparkly hats and noisy whistles. It makes a change from the usual sellers of woolly hats, unsafe children’s toys and a bizarre line in fake ivory ornaments. Lots of local restaurants and bars invite you to come to their party with no ‘cover charge’. Lots of shops shut early. It’s cold but clear, so a good night for fireworks. We have a good high up view, so we looked for some and were disappointed to see very few in the distance. We surfed the channels looking for New Year’s with Ryan Seacrest (ABC, I think). In London we would watch either BBC or ITV to see the enormous crowds along the north side of the Thames, opposite the London Eye, waiting for midnight. It’s near Big Ben, so it tells the crowds when midnight has arrived. The fireworks are spectacular on the Eye, on the Thames and on the South Bank. Here in NYC crowds gather from midday at Time Square and surrounding avenues – you can’t get on to 7th Avenue at 5pm without a ticket, so a long way round to get the subway home for R. On TV it looks impressive, masses of people, lots of excitement. Although the ad breaks every five minutes or so and the constant Weightwatchers references (I presume they sponsor it) is incredibly distracting. You kind of have to watch it live, so trusty Tivo and the time lapse are no good here. And what are they waiting for? The ball to drop. Yep, it’s a ball on Times Square, high up and it’s lit up and at midnight it drops. That’s it. Give me Big Ben any day.
nw3 to nyc 