Empire state of mind

“Sitting in a JFK Airport lounge, Elizabeth was feeling cheated. After six days in New York, she had yet to encounter a smart-mouthed waiter, a snobby or impatient shop assistant, a taxi driver who couldn’t speak English and drove like a maniac, or even anyone vaguely rude or hostile.”

OK, I am not a character from Sex and the City, but after watching countless reruns I sometimes hear a Carrie Bradshaw voiceover to my life. Perhaps it was because of a lifelong diet of TV shows where New York is not only the setting but practically a supporting cast member – think Night Court, Seinfeld and Friends – that I had formed definite opinions about life here. I wondered if perhaps I hadn’t visited the right areas. Had I not made the right choices? I pulled out my New York bucket list and thought back...

People and their pampered pets

First, a few perceptions and misperceptions. Some things in New York were as I had imagined – it is indeed incredibly loud, especially in Midtown. The constant sirens, traffic and the sounds of the subway made it very difficult to sleep. And while street sweepers constantly worked to clear up trash, it felt like there was a thin layer of grime over everything, from the buildings to my own skin. What I wasn’t expecting was to find the friendliest people I had ever met striking up conversations with me – a stranger – in any queue or any time I stood still for a few minutes. Also, gentrification – restoration of run-down areas – had completely changed the face of the city I was brought up to believe was dangerous.

I later realised that dogs on leads are almost as ubiquitous as the yellow taxi cab. New Yorkers love their dogs, even sharing taxis with them. In fact, that night while looking through the room-service menu at my hotel, I found there was an entire page devoted to pets. The list included gourmet cat and dog food ($10 or Dh36.70) or, if you really wanted to spoil your furry friend, an “8oz burger lightly cooked with Iam’s kibbles”($15). This was my kind of place!

Bright lights, great grid

I don’t know how anyone living in New York could ever feel down – they just need to head to Times Square where every night feels like New Year’s Eve. Despite jet lag and not having slept on the long flight, I headed there as soon as I arrived and found the enormous neon signs, flashing lights, colourful characters and energy from the crowds were the perfect antidote to exhaustion. Amazed that it stretched over five blocks, I wandered through throngs of tourists and the Goofies, Plutos, Elmos and Statues of Liberty who earn a living expecting a few dollars from everyone who has a photo taken with them. It must be a lucrative career as I found my initial excitement at spotting the famous Naked Cowboy was misplaced. The original character – a guy wearing a cowboy hat and boots with his briefs covered by a guitar so as to appear naked – has started a franchise and there are now quite a few Naked Cowboys wandering around.

I needn’t have rushed to the Square though, as I accidentally found myself there so often on my trip as it’s within walking distance of the likes of MoMa, the Empire State Building, Rockefeller Center and Grand Central Terminal. I soon found, too, that I needn’t have taken a taxi; Manhattan’s grid system was made for the directionally challenged like me. With the streets running east-west numbered and getting higher towards Uptown, and the city clearly divided into east and west by 5th Avenue, which runs north-south, it was impossible to get lost.

Seeking Strawberry Fields

As sad as it was to come all this way and miss out, I took my hotel concierge’s advice to take a hop-on, hop-off bus to see all the other sights on my list. You can’t imagine how excited I was when I got on the bus and looked at the Uptown loop’s route to find one of the first stops was Strawberry Fields.

Perhaps Yoko Ono doesn’t like Gary pointing out her exact apartment and whether she is home or not, but I was pleased with the confirmation that she was, as I had been convinced I had spotted her the previous day walking a small dog in a quieter section of the park. Whether it was her who saw me, and quickly pulled down a woollen cap and put on sunglasses, didn’t matter. It’s just nice to know I was in a place it could have happened – Imagine.

A view like no other

The big picture

Of course New York’s aesthetic appeal is not limited to its architecture. My visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art was just a continuation of the theme that underpinned my journey – underestimating the size of everything. On finding out it had almost two million works of art spanning more than 5,000 years, I realised yet again I should have done some advanced planning. Luckily the security guards knew their stuff and, after a few questions about my interests, they gave me directions to the modern art section, which didn’t disappoint with its collection of work from Picasso, Jackson Pollock and Andy Warhol.

I managed to take in three of the exhibitions in an afternoon, but by far the most memorable was a special show I stumbled upon, highlighting the vital role of fashion in the works of the Impressionists. Each room had glass cases with mannequins modelling genuine clothes from each era, reflected in the series of paintings on the wall by the likes of Manet, Monet, Renoir, Baudelaire, Mallarmé and Zola. I was in awe that they had managed to match the clothes and the paintings so perfectly.

This story first appeared on Aquarius in July 2013