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I heart NYC
by Tom Southam | 04/05/10
“So do you like it?” This must have been a rhetorical question, asked as it was by a man who could clearly see that my mind was in a diving pool of joy and the smile on my perennially unshaven face must also have been a large clue as to my state of mind on my second night in New York.
“Yeah, I mean, its my first time, America is amazing” was my eventual reply. A response that was met by some knowing guffaws by the folk around me. The Rapharati of NYC are clearly some pretty highflying gentlemen, and they also clearly live in the highest of highflying cities, and know it too. The response was simple and telling, “this isn’t America, this is New York”.
New York, New Amsterdam, the five points; it is it’s own world entirely and my word have I ever fallen for that world. My mind at that dinner table in New York wasn’t just swimming with excitement, it was doing backstroke, butterfly and I’m pretty sure I saw it walking on water too.
The Bresling restaurant was the setting that night for the Rapha soiree, I always find it bazaar that people really take such an interest in a bunch of idiots who ride bikes, but this time I wasn’t complaining. I was counting my lucky stars, all fifty-two of them.
We were of course in the restaurant attached to my new favourite hotel/drinking spot in the known universe the Ace Hotel. I’m sorry Wine Bank, you were great, I’m sorry Melbourne Supper Club – lets stay in touch eh, but I have a new love: The Ace Hotel, New York.
The lobby and bar was the first place I walked into in the City and although the Ace chain hails from the (I am told extremely cool) city of Portland, Oregon, it seemed to take in everything I ever dreamed New York could be.
Outside the front door: Manhattan. 29th & Broadway, walk to the end of the street look right one Empirical building, look left and the Flatiron building. There are a lot of places on this earth where you cannot see the Manhattan skyline, but this was the best of all those places, simply because you couldn’t see it because you were in it.
There were shops and bars and iron fire escapes up the sides of buildings and yellow taxis and I wanted to sit in the back of everyone, climb onto every rooftop and buy bagels and enormous soft drinks in each and every single one.
And inside, under the largest stars and stripes flag I have ever laid eyes on the lobby was packed, filled with more Macbooks than I have ever seen and people just seemingly doing. Doing what, I don’t know, maybe there should be a verb for doing an unknown task via the internet while looking very, very cool.
In the city they say you are invisible when you come from a small town. Man I just disappeared when we walked into the front door of the Ace, not because I was lost, but because New York probably would have to gets it’s atlas and a magnifying glass out to find out where Penzance is. But because there was so much there, and I felt so at ease with being unshaven, tattooed and wearing a trilby that I became part of a crowd of individuals, from whom there radiated the most amazing energy I have ever experienced in my life. I literally felt carried by it, crest of a wave style around the city.
I know its early days to be writing such gushing prose about a place I still really don’t even know the veneer of but my god it felt good. Each and every detail of everything was exactly how I wanted it. From the Italian Americans on the Long Island Rail Road who actually called someone a ‘Douche bag’, to the hot dog stand vendors, to the steam rising up through the streets, to the packed noisy bars with baseball on all the TV’s, to the hamburgers that dripped blood and must have contained 8kg of flesh, to the forty one year old New York lady who tried chatting JT and I up by insulting us rapid fire for a half hour.
We had of course been lucky enough to take in most of the sights of Manhattan that bright fresh morning on our bikes – the best way to see anywhere. Riding through Times Square at five thirty am, around Central Park at day break, past ground zero and over the Brooklyn Bridge just as the workers started to rush in to their world changing jobs. Through Little Italy while bins were being emptied and past China Town as deliveries were being finished off.
But while I love these big things, these bold strokes and architectural marvels, I always find it’s in the little details I have my most valuable experiences. For me my most amazing moment came as I walked home in the wee hours of the morning or much much later that night, as taxi drivers started to turn their lights off and people started to appear by the 24h fruit stalls. I arrived back at the Ace.
Walking into the lobby a song I really like was playing and stood in the front porch by the flower stand were the barman and one of the waitresses from the restaurant. They were just stood there listening, swaying slightly and enjoying the flowers. I stopped with them and threw in my six pence ‘they are beautiful aren’t they’. I don’t know if these two do this every night but they smiled and agreed, we stood there an eternity, I didn’t know where they were from, and they didn’t know where I was from either, but it worked. I wondered to myself if this is the only moments peace any New Yorkers get, a quick pause to smell the roses after a twenty hour shift. I said goodnight and I walked into the lobby. People were still there, still doing, still reading, still alive, still not stopping.
New York, as I soon discovered on our further travels into America while the cloud of volcanic ash decided which way it wanted to settle, is not America. But my oh my it is somewhere I have fallen for, over my head, my heart, my feet. New York, you were wonderful. I’ll be back soon.
pictures by Kristian House
