The following entries detail my trip to New York and Boston between July 3-9. I will try a new format for these entries - a quick-entry style as opposed to the long-form entries I've been accustomed to over the last three years I've been doing this. With that said...
July 3, 2013
3:54pm. American Airlines Flight 20, bound for JFK.
New York City.
I dreamt about the city off and on throughout my life, as a child with dreams of media stardom, as an adolescent with dreams of music success, to adulthood with pure curiosity in my head. Just what is this place that I've dreamed about all of these years? I'm hearing a Billy Joel song looping in my head as I type this...
Is it the overcrowded, smoggy steel and cement forest that the media often portrays it to be? Is there, and where is there, the glamour, glitz, and grime all associated with Gotham? Is it the "mini-country" that it's sheer size nearly dictates? Is it really the City That Never Sleeps? So many questions - and only two and 1/2 days to experience what I can of it, in-between homework stints and writing in this here blog, before taking the Amtrak Northeast Regional from Penn Station to Boston.
So many questions to be answered. Therein lies the adventure...
July 4, 2013
3:09am PST. Hotel Pennsylvania room 905, NYC.
I made it.
After 45 years of dreaming, I'm finally in Gotham.
Since my plan was not to use a rental car for my stay and use mass transit, getting here from JFK turned into it's own unique experience. As soon as I got out from the jetway and into the gate area proper, I felt the humidity hitting me. As I took my first whiff of the New York City air, I could tell right away that something is different about this place. And we're actually on Long Island proper, not Manhattan itself.
I decided that I would try to save some cash by taking the Air Train to the E-train (the Subway), which would whisk me to Penn Station in a little over one hour. So I walked, and walked, and WALKED, diligently following the signs to the Air Train depot. Warning to those thinking of taking said Air Train - it isn't free (unlike a lot of other airports). It's $5, which you pay after you get to your destination. The machines are not unlike those you find in other subway or other mass-transit rail systems like BART - in goes your cash, out comes an MTA pass. I took the Air Train to it's terminus, Jamaica Station, from which I walked some more, down to the city's legendary Subway. $2.50 takes you anywhere.
Remember in my first posting, about my wondering about the grime here? Well, you see it at the subway terminals (though the interior of the car I was in was clean and graffiti-free.) As I stood at the station stop with many of my co-passengers, I noticed that the place had a certain smell. A combination of grease, humidity, and old building materials which one identifies with "railroad" - it's a unique smell that I have only experienced at places having anything to do with any kind of railroad. I looked at the tracks themselves, to notice certain furry rodents scavenging through the litter between the rails, all the while playing Russian Roulette with the electrified third rail. I looked up and saw the blackened ceiling, the side walls covered with soot, and the tile floor covered with OLD, blackened chewing gum and the dust and memories of the decades which this subway system, and this stop, have apparently witnessed. This station, along with many of the others I passed on my trip here, seemed like an old, wise man utterly lacking in pretense.
As I traveled along the E route, I noticed several other things which struck me as unique. First, much of the subway route is not enclosed in tube-like structures like BART. It's a more open system, where you can see the other tracks bringing subway trains in the other direction. Most of the stations have the same basic look - ceramic-tiled walls, with the names of the station embedded within using smaller tiles of different colors. In this case, the station walls were usually cream-colored, with the station stop names in light and dark tile. Various advertisements fill the sidewalls, as well - for the latest movie, government program, or the like, and the station stops were remarkably graffiti-free. I got off at 34th street, one street away from my hotel.
More later.
July 4, 2013
3:09am PST. Hotel Pennsylvania room 905, NYC.
I made it.
After 45 years of dreaming, I'm finally in Gotham.
Since my plan was not to use a rental car for my stay and use mass transit, getting here from JFK turned into it's own unique experience. As soon as I got out from the jetway and into the gate area proper, I felt the humidity hitting me. As I took my first whiff of the New York City air, I could tell right away that something is different about this place. And we're actually on Long Island proper, not Manhattan itself.
I decided that I would try to save some cash by taking the Air Train to the E-train (the Subway), which would whisk me to Penn Station in a little over one hour. So I walked, and walked, and WALKED, diligently following the signs to the Air Train depot. Warning to those thinking of taking said Air Train - it isn't free (unlike a lot of other airports). It's $5, which you pay after you get to your destination. The machines are not unlike those you find in other subway or other mass-transit rail systems like BART - in goes your cash, out comes an MTA pass. I took the Air Train to it's terminus, Jamaica Station, from which I walked some more, down to the city's legendary Subway. $2.50 takes you anywhere.
Remember in my first posting, about my wondering about the grime here? Well, you see it at the subway terminals (though the interior of the car I was in was clean and graffiti-free.) As I stood at the station stop with many of my co-passengers, I noticed that the place had a certain smell. A combination of grease, humidity, and old building materials which one identifies with "railroad" - it's a unique smell that I have only experienced at places having anything to do with any kind of railroad. I looked at the tracks themselves, to notice certain furry rodents scavenging through the litter between the rails, all the while playing Russian Roulette with the electrified third rail. I looked up and saw the blackened ceiling, the side walls covered with soot, and the tile floor covered with OLD, blackened chewing gum and the dust and memories of the decades which this subway system, and this stop, have apparently witnessed. This station, along with many of the others I passed on my trip here, seemed like an old, wise man utterly lacking in pretense.
As I traveled along the E route, I noticed several other things which struck me as unique. First, much of the subway route is not enclosed in tube-like structures like BART. It's a more open system, where you can see the other tracks bringing subway trains in the other direction. Most of the stations have the same basic look - ceramic-tiled walls, with the names of the station embedded within using smaller tiles of different colors. In this case, the station walls were usually cream-colored, with the station stop names in light and dark tile. Various advertisements fill the sidewalls, as well - for the latest movie, government program, or the like, and the station stops were remarkably graffiti-free. I got off at 34th street, one street away from my hotel.
More later.
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