NEW
YORK CITY - a tourist's guide
JULY 2003
By Tim Bullard
Photos by Tim Bullard
Skulking behind me and my apricot poodle on its morning bathroom stroll
is the neighborhood kitty, "Bookie," who is wearing his expressionless
Kabuki fascade on our side of U.S. 701 in Conway, South Carolina.
On the other side is Carroll's
Convenience Store where pool cues crack on Saturday nights as dates
line up shots. Rotten stench rises from the wooden crate out front, an
odor from the trillions of future fish food insects scratch their legs
together, chirping and defecating to high heaven.
"WOW!" exclaim employees at
Carroll's Convenience Store.
Upon my return from New York City as a
visiting journalist, I had noticed at the store that the staff had
erected a large American flag, so I asked them if they would like to
have a copy of the photograph I took at Ground
Zero two weeks earlier. Hence their exclamation as I presented it
to them, a 8X12" Kodak paper enlargement of a 600 dpi scan on my HP
printer from 200 Fugi Superia.
Snap. You're standing on the World Trade Center site. There's only a
three- or four-inch hole to stick a lens on the ladder truck station
side of the property, and the opening is horizontal and low so one has
to squat to shoot the best shot of the entire hole. I'm gulping.
Actually I took two 24-frame
rolls while there July 23, 2003 to keep my mind off of this horrible
sight. Gulping, when my eyes focused and closed eye opened, I peeked
like one would at a sideshow where the werewolf or naked lady
bellydances. When I returned home that Saturday, everyone I met I would
share my experience with, and you want to know what 89 % of them asked?
"Have they put anything there yet?"
Sheer plastic doesn't shield
the batteries from view on the sunglasses of a guy I met at Ground Zero. Almost every day this guy
visits, dressed in red-white-and-blue garb and a set of these
electric-powered lenses which have windshield wipers. It's time to talk
to the natives. He's very expressive, and his accent peppers his body
language which is accented by waving and raised eyebrows.
I'm up here at a Catholic
Social Action Summer Institute sponsored by The Roundtable at St.
John's University in Jamaica, Queens, so I
applied for a press credential from the city's tourism arm, New York
& Company at www.nycvisit.com
on the Internet.
Everywhere one goes, one can't escape 9-11. Murals on walls of the
three firemen raising a flag; the millions of dollars worth of tourism
merchandising of the towers and fire department logo.
Reaching into the trashcan
outside the Douglas Fairbanks Theatre,
a man rummages around. Older couples are in line to get tickets to "Forbidden Broadway," a
funny musical that pokes fun at other shows. It's been updated through
the years with short sketches on different Broadway
shows like "Rent" or "The
Lion King."
A
firetruck had just dashed past this older theatre at 432 West 42nd
Street. After the show we saw a billboard flashing "BREAKING NEWS"
about a shooting at the Brooklyn City Hall.
"Deliriously funny!" writes
Associated Press. "It's fabulous!" wrote Michael Musto of Village Voice.
For group information call
212-840-5564 or Tele-Charge at 212-239-6200. You can visit www.forbiddenbroadway.com
for more information. Shows are Monday, Tuesday, Friday and Saturday at
8:15 p.m., Wednesday and Saturday at 2:30 p.m. and Sunday at 3:30 p.m.
and 7:30 p.m. This is the 20th anniversary of the show which has won
Best Musical Revue as a 2001 Drama Desk Award.
After the show we walkied from
store to store on crowded streets in Times
Square. It's not the same in Times
Square. Everywhere you went there were posters of "Jason Versus
Freddy" and mile-high billboards of
J-Fleck in "Gigli." Everyone on the street was friendly, and more than
a few were curious and amused by a Southern accent.
Thursday: Eating at a
restaurant in Chinatown, I walked across the street and bought some
incense at an herbal store where I found some Dolong tea. The owner was
assisting an elderly Eastern man with a purchase of a tea called made
from special snake parts. When I asked the older gentleman what it was
good for, he smiled, uttering something in a foreign language, and
pulled his forearm up with a fist into the air as I laughed with him.
What a guy!
On a nearby corner four folks were holding protest signs and shouting
something loud. The smell of fresh seafood drifted from an open air
sidewalk fish market filled with steaming ice. Across the street is
draped a sign that welcomes you, "Little Italy."
Sneering, a tall, glaring man stares at me with a scowling on Mulberry
Street, only blocks from a spot where I had struck the same stance 30
minutes earlier at Ground Zero.
Here in Little Italy Wednesday,
July 23 around 4 p.m. a group of Italians are exiting a bar as a NYC
fire inspector taps me on the shoulder. The man across the street
places his long arms around the shoulders of several young women as
another snaps a flash photograph in the street. A NYC cop is providing
security as the cast of HBO's "The Sopranos" takes a break - Johnny
Sacks exhaling hard the blue smoke from the cig he's sucking, Paulie
Walnuts on a monitor. James Gandolphi, ("Tony Soprano") walks to his
trailer, then hits the sidewalk, strolling with a crew member, waving
at restaurant patrons.
I ask the fire inspector if
Mafia members are really in this neighborhood, and his finger draws an
overhead circle as he nods.
Nearby at Ground Zero 30 minutes before this encounter and our lunch in
Chinatown, I stared into the deep pit, starting to shake with anger.
Bitter, buried sadness resurfaced as I snapped photos trying to keep
myself occupied. You need to go to this crime scene, the Mecca of blind
America.
Tony Soprano grows smaller in the distance. The ironworks cross at the
former World Trade Center site reminded me of the Mafia's post-attack
antics; vendors sell Mafia T-shirts in Little Italy.
Delicous white puffs of steamed hotdogs, a jet-skier mooning us on the Circle Line Cruise, The Blue Man Group guy
staring at me at the Astor Place Theatre, taking a picture of Joaquin Phoenix signing autorgraphs outside the
Ed Sullivan Theatre two hours after a
Brooklyn City Council member was shot to death, five-mile muggy
visibility on the Empire State Building, bootleg NYFD t-shirts, kidded
about my accent by a two female NYPD cops...it's a blur of sore feet
and constipation.
You need to visit Ground Zero. It will change your life,
shake the foundation of your brain-soul. Remember Kleenexes.
Order a CityPass, the ultimate New York attraction pass with a $91
value at just $45. You can visit several museums, the Empire State
Building and SkyRide, the American Museum of Natural History, the
Circle Line Harbor Cruise, the Intrepid Sea Air Space Museum, the
Guggenheim Museum, The Museum of Modern Art and other attractions.
There's a valuable coupon for Bloomingdale's.
CityPass is also available in
Southern California with Disneyland, the San Diego Zoo, SeaWorld,
Knott's Theme Park and other attractions, plus Hollywood with Universal
Studios, the Kodak Theatre, Starline Tours, the Autry Museum of Western
Heritage and the Hollywood Entertainment Museum. Other city's CityPass
locations are San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, Chicago and Philadelphia.
For more information visit www.citypass.com
on the Internet.
My second order of business on
my first tourism walking tour alone includes the subway from St. John's
University from Jamaica in Queens. I emerge from my subterranean zip
nearest to the Empire State Building, so I hike with my map, snapping
pictures everywhere I stop. I stop by Macy's and get a black rubber
tote bag. My last trip a few years ago I had picked the black rubber
knapsack which has been a helpful camera bag. Macy's is freezing
because I entered after a flash lightning storm of torrential rain.
Bustling streets suddenly morph into congregations of dripping
pedestrians who gather under storefront awnings, huddling like ants. A
guy near the subway was selling umbrellas - "Get your umbrellas! Two
dollars! Only two dollars!" he yelled, waving one in the air like a
cheerleader's baton.
At the Empire State Building I
tempt fate by stopping in the bustling crowd and aiming upward, staring
as far as the eye can see at what's showing of its peak. I've been here
before, so the path to the Observatory Deck is easier. The last time we
visited there had been a scaffolding that had fallen, killing an older
woman in her apartment and thus shutting down Times Square. The last
few floors of the Empire State Building had been closed that visit, and
the last few floors were hot, humid and hard to climb.
This time I hit it at a good
early morning time, around 10 a.m. and had plenty of time to reach the
top with no problem. On top I spent as much time as I needed, taking
pictures in the five-mile visibility. The usual visibility is 25 miles,
but it was smoggy, foggy and dense. Tourists from all over the world
strolled around up there until I heard a loud voice.
"Miss, please put down that
child! In the last two weeks we've had two babies almost fall, and I
must ask you to take that child down!" the security guard screamed. I
almost leaped off it scared me so bad. All I could think about was the
fake urban legend Photoshop photo some European nut created of a jet
approaching a skyscraper as a tourist posed for a photograph. I asked a
guy downstairs to take a picture of me with the Chrysler Building in
the background. I called my parents and my brother and left a
sophomoric cell phone message that I was on top of the Empire State
Building. No one was at home. It opens every day at 9:30 a.m., and the
last ticket is sold at 11:15 p.m., closing at midnight. Visit
www.esbnyc.com or call (877)-NYC-VIEW.
Two days earlier on Sunday, our
first day in the city, my wife and I spent on the Circle Line Harbor
Cruise, the best day I've ever spent in New York City. We chose the
three-hour tour. There's a two-hour tour too. Did you know the company
ferried 30,000 people Sept. 11, 2001 across the river? The narrarator
spun interesting tales of the Veranzanno
Bridge, Grant's Tomb, Greta Garbo's apartment
and other sites, weaving tales about the skyline and reciting "Give me
your poor" at the Statue of Liberty.
If you think that phrase is trite and corny, read this story of a fellow named Ernest Lion in
South Carolina who saw the statue once on his journey to America after
a terrible imprisonment in a concentration camp.
Near the statue we saw the Staten Island Ferry, Ellis Island and
Governor's Island which opened to the public a few days later for the
first time in 200 years. There's nothing like the view of Yankee Stadium from the water.
Visit www.circleline.com on the
Internet. Call (212)-563-3200.
The trick is to arrive early and pick a seat in the sun or in the shade near the back and
on the left side because you see more on that side. The three-hour
tour's vessel turns around once so you can get a view of Ground Zero
and the Statue of Liberty. Oh yeah. Grab
the $5 soda mug because refills are free. It was hot our day, so I
slurped about 52 refills, buzzing like a bee. While I was up getting a
beverage once, I missed the crown jewel of the cruise - a guy on a
waterski mooned the entire ship, dropping his drawers near a bridge
where homeless folks were living. You see Yankee Stadium. There's Trump Towers. The United Nations is cool and towering.
I have had a recurring dream
about me, my mother and my brother crossing the Brooklyn Bridge, and
finally saw it, passing under it on the cruise. It's massive and
inspiring, reminding me of the musical group ("The Worst That Could
Happen":) and junior high dances.
The
Intrepid is beside the Circle
Line Harbor Cruise,
and it is 900 feet long with prop planes and jets. Listen ot the
celebrity audio tour with eight languages or see the sub Growler with
its guided missles or the destroyer Edson. There is a McDonald's and a
look behind a flight deck. Call (212)-245-0072 or visit www.intrepidmuseum.org
on the Internet. It's open daily in the summer April through September
10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and it's open weekends and holidays 10 a.m. to 7
p.m. From October to March it's open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
