New York

I spent eight exhausting days in New York. During my stay I did lots of gazing at skyscrapers, browsing through record shops and visiting art museums, bars and clubs. I also did lots and lots of walking around the various neighbourhoods such as East Village, Greenwich Village, Chelsea, Upper West Side, and the Downtown area.

I had heard many scare-stories about former no-go areas like Lower East Side, but I did not ever feel unsafe. Rather, I felt that a lot of the grit, which sometimes can bring an exciting edge, had been cleaned up. Dirty, low-rent concrete jungles often provide fertile ground for an amazing flora of street art and counterculture. I don’t enjoy walking around with fear of getting stabbed, but gentrification too often comes at a price where the heart and soul of urban life is sacrificed for big business, tourist shops and Starbucks coffee.

Anyone visiting New York on the cheap should probably consider pre-booking their accomodation much in advance. I had the discomfort of having to move from hostel to hostel, and I met several others who were in the same position. One day I got so tired of ringing round to hostels that I decided to make a trip to Harlem. Although the area is probably a lot safer than some decades ago, many people still consider it a no-go area. I figured that it could be easier and cheaper to find a spare room up there. Well, sure it was, but perhaps not the kind that I had expected. The hotels that I visited all rented out their rooms by the hour, one of the owners wanted to know if I smoked crack, and one would keep a 15 dollar deposit for “soiled sheets”.

My housing situation was eventually resolved by bumping into Mariam, a friend from London, who was willing to share a downtown hotel room with me to keep both of our costs down (and spare me from the experience of staying in a bug-infested semi-brothel).

Some of the other people I met during my stay in New York were Madi from Germany, who I went to see a rock concert with at a venue called the “Cake Shop”. New York has a mythical place in music history through legendary, now defunct, venues like CBGBs and Max´s Kansas City, but this place felt like any East London dive back home. I was more impressed by the Harlem jazz club that I visited together with Tuomas, a Finnish friend who works as a chef in New York.

One night I also met a German guy who took me along to see the musical “Hair” in Central Park. I wasn’t too enthusiastic about this sing-a-long performance but my new-found German friend was almost in tears with joy, saying how it ‘reminded him of his puberty’. Another day I also hung out in Central Park with a Scottish guy called Rich. He plays bass in the Swellbellys, a punk band that I was familiar with from the years that I lived in Edinburgh.

During my time in the Big Apple I also had time to visit the MET art museum, attend an independent film-makers conference, visit the Empire State Building, Ground Zero and Wall Street, take the ferry to Staten Island, see the graffitied walls across the Brooklyn bridge and make a long night-time journey out into the Bronx to find a ska concert (I never found it).

Due to some consecutive long nights and early mornings I spent the last day relaxing on the sunny beaches of Long Island.

New York was a great place, but too often I woke up with lack of sleep, and the trouble I had with finding a hostel was a downside. As with my hometown London, I sometimes felt that it was slightly too big and dirty. Rats will scurry away beside you on the sidewalks and subway platforms, and the place can sometimes feel quite claustrophobic. It’s a nice place to visit but I am not sure I would want to live here

written by  niklasbergstrand on January 16, 2009 from New York, United States
from the travel blog: Niklas in America
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