Giant snowflakes are floating down to Greenwich Street. J is in a taxi on the way to the airport for a Melbourne flight, and today marks the official end of our year of new country adventures.
We arrived in New York on 4 September. The air was warm and clingy. We went for a beer at a patio on the corner of Avenue A and E. 5th street, a couple of blocks from our East Village sublet. The waitress was super friendly. The beer was cold. Two small dogs on leashes scampered on the ground below us. The street was alive. We toasted our temporary home, so happy not only to be settled for a few months, but to be settled in New York.
During the time here we have gone to a wonderful wedding, walked up and down as many streets as our legs could carry us, felt the collective joy after the election of America’s new President, seen more art, theatre and music than one might see in a lifetime, eaten restaurant food right up to the last second, and spent many a day with family and friends who have come for a visit.
Countless people have written about this amazing city. I won’t try to add much. But given my proclivity for “best” lists, I’ll just jot down a few highlights:
1. The Energy: you can walk on the streets of this city at any time of day or night, and feel real life around you everywhere. People dressed to the nines and to the grime, taxis, shops, restaurants of every kind, street vendors, galleries, schoolyards, musicians, dogs, flyer-passers, deliverymen, movers, workmen, policemen, artists with their supplies, people carrying Christmas trees…The collective energy here makes you feel alive and wanting to be part of it all.
Favourite energetic place: The Shala where you can go for a break and be part of yourself. This yoga studio, with big windows and beautiful hardwood floors, has wonderful teachers – we particularly loved Jeremy, who has a magical way of making yoga and meditation (almost) easy.
2. The public spaces and architecture: From the brownstones to the cobblestones, the one-stories to the 100-stories, the baroque to the broke, the garish to the parish, art deco and art modern, the neoclassical and the Greek revival, late Modern to postmodern- New York has truly got it all.
Favourite - it’s not an original thought, but the Empire State Building is an architectural marvel, and you can rely on a sighting from almost anywhere in the city. You also have to love a building which lights up red for World AIDS Day, and from red and blue, to blue alone when Barack Obama was elected.
What do you get when you mix a 70s Canadian iconic folk duo, their extended family, the Godfather of Punk, an avant-garde performance artist, a drag queen, a country/folk legend, with Judy Garland and Edith Piaf impressionists ?