Random Observations From The Streets of New York City
2007/10/24
True: About half of the cars in Manhattan are taxis.
False: New Yorkers are generally bad tempered.
Not even cops on foot care to stop at red traffic lights.
Probably the most impressive way to arrive at New York is by driving towards
the city on the highway on a foggy day, and suddenly seeing the massive but elegant
Empire State Building peeling out of the fog. This is an experience to stay with you
for a lifetime.
A firehouse listed the names of firefighters from that engine who died in 9/11,
painted on the front door.
You can in fact spend a 9/11 in New York without encountering any special memorial
stuff. Unless you decide to go to the several official ceremonies that is. Lower
Manhattan is probably the only place that's loaded to the top of the skyscrapers
with patriotic stuff on 9/11. In general, people seem to look ahead and not back
to the attacks.
There are restaurants and Mc Donald's where you order a coke and just get an empty
cup. You then get your drink from a self-service station. I've never encountered
this before and I was slightly baffled when I encountered it for the first time.
Ironically, I've seen this type of self-service twice in German Mc Donald's AFTER
I came back from NY.
Some say that after the revitalisation of Times Square in the 90's, the place
has become a boring family entertainment district. But it's sure fun and mindblowing,
though really crowded especially on weekends.
The metrocard (subway ticket) is convenient. One price to go anywhere in NY. No
tariff zones, no early-morning tickets. Just buy an unlimited ride card and you're
set. A drawback though is that after you activated a gate with it, the card cannot
be used again for some 15 minutes or so. This really sucks if you're as dumb as
me and use it on an out-of-order gate, which strangely is in order anyway. Then,
you're left to either wait or walk for to destination.
It's fun to watch stations and people fly past the windows of an express train.
What's not so fun is watching your station slide past when you accidentally took
an express instead of a local. Nevertheless, express trains are plain awesome,
because they cut down travel times significantly.
The frequent change in temperature outside vs. inside can become a real threat
to your health. Outside it may be 25-30°C (I was really lucky with the weather),
but in the subway and most buildings (apart from the two buildings that I frequently
visited, which was the Empire State and my resicence which both had no AC), air condition
is set to what felt like about 15 degrees. By the end of my trip, I had acquired
a slight cold.
Your commute really starts to heat up though when the AC is broken in a subway
car. Just a few stations and you can see sweat run down people's faces, and feel
sweat drops roll down your own face as well. This is especially fun on a rush
hour train that's packed from front to back. Luckily I only encountered it once.
9/11 is a great date for a fire drill in the Empire State Building.
