It happened a few years ago while I was still in medical school in Lahore. I read this quote from an American poet and novelist John Updike:”The true New Yorker secretly believes that people living anywhere else have to be, in some sense, kidding.” I asked a few New Yorker friends if they thought it was true and they all unanimously endorsed that quote. Now I was intrigued, and I wanted to know how it feels to live in New York. Was it a modern day Rome or just an over-hyped large city? I had explored some of the more common renowned metropolises of the world: London, Rome, Paris, Dubai and Toronto. How different could New York be? I got my chance to know the answer this summer when I spent two months working in Long Island.
At first sight, New York is overwhelming. The Manhattan skyline looks like an artist’s dream on a canvas, a distant utopia coming to life, a postcard too big. Across the Hudson from New Jersey, it looks like a cauldron of energy and yet it has an air of calm. In a flash, your mind trails back to various movies, cartoons, books, actors, singers, and songs you grew up with that share New York as their origin. So many stories, some good, some tragic, some disappointing and others thought provoking are affiliated with this city. You can automatically connect yourself as every juncture of your life has some association with New York. A long look at the brilliant skyline from across the river gives you a sense of endearing excitement and a feeling that the city has opened its doors to the world.
As poised as Manhattan looks from a distance, it is anything but calm once you enter. Busy and electric up close, sometimes claustrophobic on a warm summer day in Times Square, you’ll rarely find so many tourists in one place. To understand the city, you have to stand aside and watch. Whether it’s on the Red Stairs, overlooking the glorious Times Square with thousands of people, or in a bagel shop at Penn Station, the urgency and the organized conformity of thousands of legs moving in unison in every direction gives you a sense of what keeps this city breathing: its people. Despite their frantic pace, they will still stop to hear a solo guitarist playing mesmerizing riffs, a teenage pianist playing a Beethoven symphony or a group of jazz players’ ensemble making one dig for change in your pocket. This is New York’s artistic evolution reveling in its own glory and sharing with the world a fantastic expression of freedom and love, all running parallel with the white and blue collars trying to run with time.
Needless to say, to truly get a sense of the Big Apple, you should be ready to walk a fair bit. Every corner turned will offer something worthwhile and when the distance is too great, you can always hop on the budget friendly subways.
New Yorker’s rely on the subways to get them around town. They are conveniently located all over the city --and quite affordable too. Not as easy to understand as the Underground in London, it takes a while to get familiarized. Despite the amazing concrete jungle, the city is home to brilliant parks filled with people seeking much needed down time. Very few places in the world have one of the most expensive real estate reserved as a park.
Central Park provides a welcome refuge to New Yorkers looking to escape the city life, without going too far from Manhattan. The park offers a wide range of recreational activities, free concerts and nature exploration possibilities. The best way to scout this huge park is to hop on an affordable rental bicycle. For $20 a day or less, you can spend the day exploring the green side of Manhattan.
Another one of my favorite outdoor places to relax in the city is the Highline, this one-mile linear park built on an abandoned elevated New York City Railway line, which stretches through the upscale neighborhoods of Chelsea to the West Side yard. The High Line provides an artistic relief from the city life but also gives an exceptional pleasure to nature lovers. Its trail meanders through lively self-seeded flora that grew 25 years after the trains stopped running. Well maintained shrubs, trees and perennials native to the tracks are intermixed with smartly designed art pieces and benches to sit back and relax on a warm summer night.
If you are looking for a livelier atmosphere, you need to go no further than Union Square. Resting in midtown Manhattan, the square is bustling with good spirits. Artists, musicians, skateboarders, dancers, chess players, protesters, jugglers and hipsters, all seem to congregate in this area. A fascinating melting pot of acts and music in perfect harmony with the surrounding gives you a real feeling of what it’s like to live in New York. A stone’s throw away is Washington Square Park, with the New York University campus in its immediate vicinity; this place gives a vibrant atmosphere for people of all ages. A few feet away is Greenwich Village, home to lively bars and cafes, including the famous “Café Wah?”, the original stomping ground for artists like Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen.
The city is home to some of the best tasting food in the world. Needless to say, you won’t taste better pizza anywhere else. While every New Yorker has a personal opinion of where to find the best pizza, I tried a few of the famous places and found Grimaldi’s Pizzeria under the Brooklyn Bridge to be a class apart. There is usually a long line up to get into this place but the Margherita style pizza baked in a coal-oven will not make you regret the long wait. You also can not leave the city without trying its famous cart food, the famous Halal Guys, chicken and rice cart at 53rd and 6th is a New York special that has to be tried by everyone. The special white-sauce really does have some magic sprinkled in it. Whether you buy a plate after a long night out, or if you are running on a tight budget, for $6 you will be more than satisfied.
It is often a less acknowledged fact but New Yorker’s are very friendly people. In my experience, people have gone out of their way to help me whenever I have needed it, whether it was while I was lost in the subways or on the streets. No matter whom you ask, help is courteously to extend it to you. Like all big cities, you will hear a constant rain of annoying honks on the roads but overall the experience of driving in New York is not so bad either, unless it’s rush hour.
With numerous Broadway shows to choose from, art galleries exhibiting Pablo Picasso and Van Gogh finest pieces, museums, monuments, boat excursions and a night life like no other, it’s impossible to take up all of New York’s offerings in a few weeks. An afternoon game at the Yankee’s stadium in Bronx is also mandatory to absorb the intensity of New York’s sports fans and experiencing live, the most American of all sports.
The five boroughs of New York offer their unique cultural experiences and exploration possibilities. I feel, in my two months in New York, I tried to take in as much of the city as possible and still barely scraped the surface, and in writing this piece, I have left out so much. But then again, to expect anything else from the Big Apple would be unjust. The city with its 8 million accounted for inhabitants are a source of aspiration for the rest of the world. The tolerance various cultures and religions share in this city is exemplary to the rest of the world. In all of its splendor and it’s never ending ability to mesmerize, the city leaves you breathless. And so I must admit, if you are living anywhere else in the world, you must be, in some sense, kidding.
