Wednesday 27 December 2017

Go to New York in Winter


Here's what a resolution should be; romantic, life affriming and exciting - 'Going to New York in Winter'


New York in general, let alone at Christmas time, was nothing like how I expected and yet everything like it's on-screen persona. Glamorous, gritty, loud but also lonely, and the glitz I had come to expect from the festively tinselled streets of my more familiar capital London, are really only comparable to the gritty fog ridden scenes of a New York Christmas in Home Alone and other memorable 80/90s Christmas films. By this, I mean that the pigeon lady scenes in Home Alone really could happen! As could all the scenes from coming to America and I'd like to think all of those from Sex and the City (film and TV). It somehow embodies every atmosphere any place can muster, and in this it is everything.

And with this ability to embody and house all styles and possibilities the city seems to breed chaos and almost a sense of surrealism, and in my tepid British state I struggled to understand the bravado but also madness that can be seen in the ongoing struggle of some of it's less fortunate inhabitants, perhaps born from this state of upheaval. By this I mean the city has a lot of homeless people, everywhere. It also seemed to have a lot of people who just appeared to be struggling, distressed and maybe in need of a break in life as they muttered through the streets or clung to slightly muddied clothes.

In our short time, I was able to visit the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian design museum, the natural history museum and the national museum of the American Indian. All great but I have to say sparser than a London museum, yet grander in terms of architecture. Most of my time was spent wandering around exploring the beautiful high rise, the bo-bo streets of the meat-packing district, Soho and Greenwich Village and the more surprising China Town which beats any china town I've been to hands down in terms of cool things to see. We stayed in Brunswick and managed to also explore Williamsburg, a bit of Brunswick and Brooklyn; all of which have a tonne of stuff to unpack and delivered wonderful food (rainbow bagels and macrons - yum), street art, the cheapest vintage stores I have ever been to and of course amazing bridges!

'O Bagel Tree, O Bagel tree...'
New Years itself was perhaps my most eventful yet, and not necessarily in a good way. A piece of advice, if you decide to go abroad with your 20-year-old drama crazed brother please be aware that New Years will be messy. And it was.

But hey I got to go to New York!

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