New York City: Like visiting a new friend

The Empire State Building dominates the view from 34th Street even on a cloudy day. Photo by David W. Shelton.

When I told a friend of mine that I was going to visit New York City, he poked at me a bit: “Oh, there’s nothing there but socialists and liberals.” I smiled and said, “Then it’ll be a refreshing change.”

All kidding aside, there’s plenty to say about visiting our country’s most populated city. Its history is replete with everything that makes for great movies — including making movies. New York was Hollywood before Hollywood. The country’s comic book industry began there. Skyscrapers became the norm in NYC as early as the 1920s, and they hit their heyday in the early 1930s, when the Chrysler Building and the legendary Empire State Building went up.

Sure, I knew all this before we arrived in Manhattan. But no matter how much I thought I knew about the Big Apple, I could never have been fully prepared for the staggering reality that it would present.

Legendary Empire

The main lobby of the Empire State Building in March of 2008.

We only had a few days to see the City that Never Sleeps. My time was even more limited, since I had to attend a seminar while in town. I didn’t complain a whole lot, since the class was held inside the Empire State Building.

I admit, I was a bit nostalgic the entire time. One of my favorite books is Michael Chabon’s Pulitzer-Prize winner, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. It’s a story of two Jewish boys, living in 1930s New York City. They create their own comic book that is eventually published by Empire Comics, with an office in — you guessed it — the Empire State Building. (If you’re even half the comic book nerd I was as a kid, you’ll not be able to put this book down.)

My best friend of 30 years called while I was in the elevator, the very same friend who suggested  — no, demanded — that I read Kavalier. He asked what I was doing. “Oh, I’m getting off an elevator in the Empire State Building.” His response was immediate.

“You suck!” he said. I knew he had been to New York before, but he never made it to the Empire. We talked a little about the book, and he reiterated just how much he hated me at that moment. I never felt better. (By the way, there’s a comic book store right across from the ESB on 33rd Street, called “Empire Comics.” I resisted the temptation to go into that store; my bank account can only take so much!)

The Elephant in the Room

My seminar was in itself an experience, as it was a class called “Train the Trainer.” Part of my profession is to conduct training classes in Photoshop and other Adobe products, so this is a step toward the needed certifications. The class itself was small, with seven other training professionals (including the instructor), all from New York. Once they knew I was from out of town – a Southerner, even – they went out of their way to welcome me. I enjoyed telling them about my home state as much as they enjoyed telling me about all their favorite eateries and hangouts.

The conversation migrated to the events of September 11, a topic I really didn’t want to broach. After all, those atrocities happened right there in New York City. I felt a ping in my spine the first time I saw the skyline from the George Washington bridge, a skyline without the twin towers of the World Trade Center.

A man named Obinna Nwoke, whose family hailed from Nigeria, told with teary eyes how he went to work mere days after the 11th. “The smell from the buildings, it was horrible,” he said. “It lasted for months.” He told of how he had to go through several checkpoints in order to get to his job at the time, which happened to be in Lower Manhattan. “I just wanted to go to work,” Nwoke said, “but we were scared every time we went into a building.”

I finally began to grasp what that line in Rent means: “I’m a New Yorker. Fear is my life.” I couldn’t imagine what these people went through during that horribly dark time. The people I got to know in that room all had their own story to tell. Ultimately, they were stories of overcoming. They overcame their fear, their anxieties, and found a renewed strength and passion to do their jobs — terrorism be damned. I felt a sense of pride as an American as I heard their stories.

There was a sense of even greater urgency as we discussed these events in another of the city’s tallest buildings, which had itself been hit by a plane once. When I left the Empire later that afternoon, I did so not as a visitor but as someone who had been welcomed as a fellow New Yorker, even if it was to be just for a few days.

Subway – Which Way?

Aside from big buildings, New York has one major challenge for all visitors from out of town: public transportation. The city boasts one of the world’s best public transportation systems, and arguably the most taxis per capita I’ve ever seen. Whether you want to take a bus or the subway, you’re sure to get around town very quickly – that is, once you figure out where the hell you want to go. Central Park? Downtown? Crosstown? Whew! Thank heaven the NYPD officers are so helpful (and patient) with visitors’ questions.

The subway has a mystique of its own, and it presented me with a new experience: the subway preacher. One afternoon, I took a train headed toward Columbus Circle. An African-American man entered the car with a huge duffel bag and began his inspiring message by asking for donations to help his church feed the homeless. After a few “God bless yous,” he began talking about how he was once a crackhead but now is filled with the Holy Spirit, changed by the power of God. He spoke with passion and power. Interestingly, the entire car largely ignored the man. They listened to their iPods, they read their copies of the New York Post. To me, the preacher was fascinating; to everyone else, he was just part of another day on the subway.

Times Square is possibly the world's most famous intersection. Even sunlight doesn't dim the lights of this magnificent scene.

Lights, Camera, M&Ms!

If any particular place in New York is overwhelming to this Southern boy, it’s Times Square. We’ve all seen films that feature this legendary intersection, as well as the annual New Year’s Eve events. But there’s seeing it on TV, and then there’s actually seeing it. The lights are as dazzling as they are breathtaking; they move, they dance. There are 40-foot video screens. The Coca-Cola sign, in its latest incarnation, is a computerized gizmo that has dozens of smaller screens making up the whole.

In short, the experience of Times Square for me was “Bambi, meet headlights.” I’ll freely admit it: I gawked the entire time. No matter how mentally prepared I was, the dazzle of the Times Square lights was enough to give me a sense of being incredibly small.

I don’t know what came over me: I was instantly on a beeline to some place special, irresistibly drawn to the M&M World store. Call it curiosity or just call me a “sucker,” but I couldn’t help myself. I just had to see that store. My sister had told me of it, so I knew it was going to be an unique experience. Boy, was it ever! The place features a myriad of M&M-themed items. Along two inner walls are vast, transparent columns, each filled with M&Ms of a different color. Combined, they form a confection spectrum that draws dozens of people at a time, each filling a bag with their favorite color M&Ms. I created a red, white, and-blue bag for myself, while my partner chose purple and teal candies.

Now, the big question is whether we want to eat them. I suspect that if I bring the M&Ms to the office, my fellow artists will devour them in just a few minutes

The Big Apple in the Big Apple

The view of the famous Apple Store cube on 5th Avenue in New York City highlights the glass staircase.

I admit it: I’m an Apple nerd. I’ve turned over a new leaf. This former Windoze-only guy has now been converted into a Mac evangelist! Want to play? Windoze is fine. But if you want to get real work done, get a Mac, and you can be cool like the rest of us. But I digress.

I’ll introduce you, dear reader, to why an Apple store is so important. When you have a Mac, you get misty-eyed every time you walk into an Apple store. It’s like a kind of temple that has every sacred element of your computing life. There’s a sense of belonging. You’re surrounded by Mac nerds in every corner. And that’s just any Apple store.

There are Apple stores, and then there’s THE Apple store —  the flagship store —located on 5th Avenue near Central Park. It’s heralded by a giant glass cube with a simple apple logo hovering in the middle of it. A friend of ours offered to meet us at this store on Wednesday before we went to dinner, and we quickly agreed.

The 5th Avenue Apple Store is wall-to-wall with Macs and people. This store is one of the highest-grossing retail stores per square foot in the world.

We deliberately arrived an hour early so we could drool over all the new Macs, especially that nifty little new (at the time) MacBook Air. It’s small, it’s sleek, it’s incredibly light — but no optical drive. Oh, well. I’ll stick with my two-week-old MacBook Pro.

There I was, a Mac nerd in a store full of fellow Mac nerds. It was Mac heaven. I actually felt a little depressed that I was already content in my Mac ownership and didn’t even need to get that mini-DVI-to-VGA adapter.

Everything is Rent

One simply cannot visit New York without taking in one of the many Broadway shows. I found out that Rent, the popular musical that opened in 1996 to rave reviews, was due to close late last year (our visit was in March of 2008). The show has become a cultural phenomenon, creating a whole new class of theater attendees called “RentHeads.” These people wait outside the theater in the hope of getting a chance to sit in the first two rows for only $20 a ticket. After all, what good is a story about Bohemia if bohemians can’t see it?

This adaptation of La Bohéme tells the tale of a group of friends who endure the impact of HIV and AIDS in the late 1980s. What makes the story so universal in its appeal is that, while there are indeed some gay subplots, they are merely part of the overall story.

Rent was written by the late Jonathan Larson, who died of an aortic aneurysm the night before the first performance of the musical downtown at the New York Theater Workshop. His death cast a huge, dark shadow over the entire production, but it also became part of the mythos of this great show and helped focus attention on it, as if Larson were giving it a boost from beyond. Rent moved to Broadway’s Nederlander Theater shortly after its run downtown, and it had been playing there ever since.

If you’ve seen the movie or heard the music, you know that there’s a scene in which Maureen encourages the audience to “moo” with her. Yes, we mooed. It was the icing on a very rich cake of entertainment.

An Unexpected Pleasure

Tucked away on 6th Avenue is this small diner, which welcomes patrons with a warm ambiance and hot coffee.

One of the most unanticipated delights of the trip was an impromptu visit to a diner located just across from an ornate French restaurant that looked too expensive for me to bother to read the menu. (Maybe that’s why I don’t remember the name of the restaurant.) This quaint little diner has a classic 1950s décor that offered relief from the cold and rain.

I ordered a cup of hot tea, with milk instead of lemon, and a Greek salad. I didn’t realize it came with anchovies, but I figured “What the hell?” and tasted one. My dad loves them, so why not? My taste buds apparently haven’t changed very much since the last time I tasted anchovies when I was a child. They’re revolting. Not wanting to be an unwelcome guest, I simply moved the rest of them off my plate. Yuck! No more anchovies for David.

The diner itself looked a little out of place in modern New York City, but that was part of its charm. Anchovies aside (literally), there’s nothing like a cup of hot tea on a cold evening, especially after miles of walking in this storied city.

Oh, the walking. How could I forget? I remembered how much I felt the “burn” after walking through the Sequoia National Forest last year, but that paled in comparison. We walked so much in the city that even my rear end hurt. I had forgotten there are muscles back there!

A Day at the Museum

In all, the trip was entirely too short. We visited the Museum of Natural History, only to be chased out after a couple of hours since it was near closing time. I chuckled at the sight of an ad for the Ben Stiller film Night at the Museum, which was set here. The planetarium featured a film titled Cosmic Collisions, narrated by Robert Redford, and a short film about the Big Bang, narrated by Maya Angelou.

On the other side of the museum were large dioramas and life-size replicas of animals that populate the globe. One room had a full-size model of a blue whale. Another exhibit featured a cutting from a giant Sequoia. It stretched from floor to ceiling — over 14 feet in diameter — a small one. “Been there,” I thought to myself.

We took the subway back to the parking garage and began our gridlocked trip out of town. I’m really glad we weren’t in a hurry, since it was plainly evident that we were going nowhere fast. I started to understand why there’s so much advertising plastered all over the walls in New York. What else are drivers going to look at while stuck in traffic while dodging taxis?

This high-tech sphere inside the world-famous Museum of Natural History contains a planetarium, theatre, and a Big Bang exhibit.

The Exclamation Point

We left town via the Holland Tunnel, located on the south side of town. It’s a mile-long tunnel under the mighty Hudson River. We emerged on the New Jersey side and began the journey to our next destination. When we crested a hill a couple of miles later, we saw her: Lady Liberty. Sure, she was a good mile or two away, but there she was in all her glory. The sun had begun to set by then, and the statue’s lights had been turned on, so she appeared to glow over the horizon.

My breath was completely taken away. Nothing in New York was as amazing as seeing the Statue of Liberty. I didn’t even think I’d be able to, but there she was. I can only imagine the gasps that  immigrants to the city in the early years of the 20th century must have released upon seeing her for the first time after a long sea voyage.

This trip was one experience in delight after another. To see Lady Liberty at its closure was as fitting an exclamation point as I could imagine. Leaving New York City was like leaving a new friend. I don’t think I’ll ever want to live there, but I sure want to go back.

Editor’s note: This article previously appeared on Clarksville Online.