Live (barely) From New York, It's-a Me!

If you've never been to New York (like me, as of a week ago), you can at least imagine what it's like. It's probably the most filmed and recreated city in the whole of human history. In fact, having experienced Sesame Street, Ghostbusters, Spider-Man, Friends, Kimmy Schmidt, the Lego Marvel game, and 60% of rom-coms I felt like I'd accurately pieced together the bulk of what life was like there.

But my wife had been once before, and she really wanted to go back. And take me (Everybody: "Awww", in delight or disgust as you see fit). Now I've been in big cities before; Atlanta, Nashville, Seattle, and the Salvador Dali-esque streets of New Orleans, and I understood that while they mostly look the same from a distance they each tend to develop their own personality and quirks. So you can't really lean into 'if you've been to one city you've been to them all'.

At the same time though, I grew up in Louisiana around people who would not shut up about New York. The people! The shopping! The sites! The musicals! And I'd stand there, staring at them the way I'd later stare at fanboys who'd try to convince me that The Matrix was deep. So going into this three night stay at The Benjamin, I had legitimate doubts that I was going to feel the connection that had been over-over-hyped. But I was determined to answer one question as it pertained to people who were at least a little less cynical than me: What was the big damn deal with New York?

Here's what I learned.

Initial impressions

Our flight from Charlotte to Newark was delayed (side note: I believe it's Mayor Vi Lyles who does the welcome announcement in Charlotte's airport, and she could totally be a professional voice actress) and so we arrived in New Jersey around 10:30 at night. We got a cab from the airport's dispatcher, who really did not seem like she wanted to deal with us, and headed across what could easily have been a bridge to Gotham City.

Two things happened here. One, "New York, New York" from On the Town entered my head and stayed there for two days. Two, I turned into Hilary Duff as Lane Daniels trying to see through the cab window from every possible angle.

We arrived at The Benjamin, and still didn't know where The Benjamin was. There was a sign directly above us which we never saw because we were looking everywhere except directly above us, and even Siri had to draw in an exasperated breath before informing us that we were literally fifty feet away from the check-in desk.

We got our keys, a couple of bottled soft drinks on our daily ten dollar credit, and hopped into the fastest elevator I've ever been in that didn't have a lap bar; cheerfully oblivious to the $39 'hotel facilities' fee we were going to be charged each of the next three days. Now we needed to find dinner from somewhere, since COVID had shut down the hotel's kitchen.

Pizza -New York pizza. I'm happy to say that the famous New York oven baked pizza that I've heard so much about is even nicer in person. Some pizza parlors close at six, some at eleven, some at four in the morning; I can't tell you what the rhyme or reason behind any of it is. I'm just grateful that we were able to find something at almost midnight.

The oddest thing though was how comfortable I felt roaming the streets of New York by myself so late at night. I didn't feel like anybody was going to bother me. And interestingly enough there were a few points where I saw a woman walking by herself as well without the body language of someone on alert. It would take me a few more street strolls to fully understand the concept but simply put, New Yorkers mind their own business. This southern-born introvert has waited his whole life for this environment.

What We Saw on the Trip

1. The Central Park Zoo. Central Park is freaking huge and we only covered the south end of it. And they have a zoo. It's not a big zoo but it somehow still feels complete. Imagine going to a regular zoo and then taking just the highlights and editing out everything else. An aviary, snow leopards, a bear, some monkeys, a seal feeding, and a petting zoo (no elephants, damn it). At fourteen bucks, it was a good ticket; totally worth skipping the 4D Ice Age short.

2. The New York Public Library. Oh man, the architecture of this thing was beautiful. This was the old school library where everyone is quiet, librarians have to retrieve your books for you, and there are lion statues on the front steps (I never thought about it before, why do lions care about books?). I, jocundly, don't work in that kind of library, but I always love spending a few moment inside one whenever the chance arises.

3. The Hard Rock Cafe. It's kind of a tradition, whenever my wife and I are in a city with an HRC we have dinner there. This one felt like it was built from the ground to be a Hard Rock Cafe, as opposed to moving into a pre-existing space. I suppose even though it was a chain, the steak was officially New York steak, so I can check that off as well. Quick question, would any streaming service consider letting you just tap into their channel that plays music videos? They only seem to pick visually good ones.

4. The Rockefeller Center/Radio City Music Hall. Being August, and...you know...the middle of an ongoing pandemic I don't think we got the full effect. But we got the gist. FAO Schwarz was big, even if I didn't find anything I wanted to make room for in my backpack. I was a little disappointed in NBC's gift shop. During the past decade Saturday Night Live has changed. In addition to being the funniest it's been in years, the most recent cast has been surprisingly vulnerable. I would have bought just about anything with Cecily Strong's face on it, but all their merchandise was "More Cowbell", Stefon (a character I just never got), and generic things with 'Saturday Night Live' on them. It's always something.

5. Trash & Vaudeville. My wife loves fashion, so by proxy I've picked up on a handful of talking points. Ultimately it's not my thing, but if I had the money I'll be damned if this store wouldn't get me into it. There's an energy here where you can just feel the connection to Debbie Harry and My Shopping Addiction. I'm probably due for a midlife crisis; maybe I'll start dressing like an aging rock star.

6. Times Square. This was the heart of it all. I can't imagine what New Year's Eve is like here, but August 17th had the kind of party atmosphere I always expected, and never got, from Mardi Gras. Street dancers, music busses, a couple of mostly naked women, Batman and Deadpool posing together, and a short walk to flip off the Scientology center. I even got attacked by a homeless man who took offense to my COVID mask (a tidbit I'm peculiarly proud of), and adamantly defended by strangers. New Yorkers don't want you to interact with them, but they're really proactive when someone needs help.

What We Didn't See

1. The Statue of Liberty. It would have been nice but not worth the Lyft money, because she just wasn't on our way to anything we were looking to do.

2. A Broadway show. And I'll be honest, I'm not broken up about it. I love doing theater, but I've never been all that passionate about watching it.

3. Many kids or elderly people. Let's face it, New York is for people who don't mind walking. You've got to have stamina to survive there.

4. The subway. We just never had a reason to go underground; leaving me with the unanswered question, how does a city install a subway system? Do you assume you're going to need one before you add in the skyscrapers, or do you start digging and hope they're not as heavy as they look?

5. Individualism. All of my T-shirts have Nintendo logos or Disney characters on them, which probably identified me as a tourist since 99% of the New Yorkers I saw did not wear anything other than plain shirts or business outfits (with the occasional yoga wear). One single woman had her hair dyed an anime color. But aside from that, everyone seems to naturally want to blend in with everyone else.

6. Giant apes climbing buildings. Dude, what the hell?

What We Took Away

I'm a writer (amateur, yes, but shut up), so naturally I'm drawn to character. From my three days spent in what's esoterically known as the Big Apple, this is what I believe I understand. New York is a clock. It's the Big Ben of the United States. When New York decides it's time to fawn over Hamilton, the nation fawns over Hamilton. And everything in the city is in motion, and every wheel cog demands every other wheel cog respect that motion. It's the first city I've been to that had signs saying "No Standing Any Time".

It's a place for people who like to be on the go, grabbing hot dogs along the way and treating 'Don't Walk' as a caution light. You're a part of the city almost immediately; and you have to be or you're going to get run over. New York doesn't welcome you like Orlando, it just gets you moving.

But as quickly as New York makes you one of its own, I can't help but wonder how rare it is to succeed at whatever motive led you there in the first place. Did you want to be a fashion designer? A Broadway star? A CEO? I don't get the impression that the city cares if you make it, or how you feel about failing. I imagine you could be the best chef ever between two intersections and instantly become nobody when your card stops working at the bagel stand.

So I guess to close out without resorting to the cliché about visiting but not living there, I have to say that the city itself is a living, breathing titan that legitimately inspires awe. And for a brief time, it was a joy to be a single blood cell injected into its circulatory system going on the ride; killing my feet, getting my neck scratched, and becoming simultaneously wiser and poorer. But I don't think I would ever want to get to the point where that novelty becomes mundane.

Everybody's got the rhythm that works for them. For me, I can honestly say I love New York. But in small doses.