Friday, December 24, 2010

It's a Wonderful Town.....

....the Bronx is up and the Battery's down. The people ride in a hole in the ground. New York, New York....

Yep, I was in the "Big Apple" earlier this month to visit "family" (my god daughter and bf) and conduct a little personal business. Having grown up nearby in Jersey (natives drop the New, as everyone assumes the "Garden State" and not the island in the English Channel), I spent a lot of my (some may say mal) formative years visiting "The City", as we called it, as in "Going into the city this weekend?" (An aside: How many disconnected clauses can 1 sentence have?) Everyone knew you meant New York, specifically Manhattan. Staten Island was "the island", Brooklyn and Queens were just that, and the Bronx was close enough to Manhattan to count as part of "the city", especially the zoo and Yankee Stadium (even though, as a Mets fan, the distinction between those two is minor.) There is so much to see and do there that I feel I only scratched the surface of its offerings in the years I lived nearby, and have not managed to visit there nearly as often as I would have liked.


Other towns, most notably Chicago, have their proponents. Sure, the "windy city" has the Loop, the museums. the "magnificent mile", Navy pier, theaters etc. But, to me, it is but a pale imitation of the "real deal." Where else in the U.S. could you be sitting at a table in a restaurant and be surrounded by people all speaking different languages, none of them English? And no, it was not an "ethnic" eatery, but rather "Junior's" on 45th just north of Times Square. Speaking of which, does Chicago have anything even remotely similar to the aforementioned location?



What a place that is, neon and led lighting covering almost every surface, stores and attractions uncountable and unique, and people everywhere. There you can find not only a 3 story M&Ms store, but also a Toys R Us with an indoor 30' ferris wheel. "Hidden" in all the glitz are treasures like the Times Square Visitors Center, showing the history of the area and its rejuvenation from the "depths" of the 70's.

A "short" walk from Times Square is Rockefeller Center, home of NBC ("30 Rock", get it?) The murals on the walls and ceilings are incredible and the prices in the "high end" shops are breathtaking in their own right. The best part is the Plaza, with the ice rink and what is possibly the world's most famous Christmas tree. The crowds, even by midtown Manhattan standards, are incredible, especially on the weekends. But everyone gets along, and everyone gets where they need to be with no fuss. And for me, getting there is half the fun.



Walking through midtown you get to see both the usual and the unusual, sometimes within steps of each other. These range from street vendors selling $10.00 "cashmere" scarfs and "designer" goods to performers break dancing to disco music on a sidewalk stage delineated by masking tape. Pop into the mix the occasional celebrity and what is possibly the largest concentration of Lincoln Town Cars (all black) in the universe, throw in tourists, some in pedi-cabs and more street vendors. It is a veritable cornucopia of sights, sounds and smells (were those roasted chestnuts - I must buy some!)



I could, (and will, given the opportunity), go on and on about the wonders of "The City" but I am sure that you, the reader, are sick of it. So at the risk of repitition, "It's a Wonderful Town!"