When I took my trip to New York this past week, my intention was to blog my experience as well as my photos as each day went on. Unfortunately, as is life, plans change. On some of my New York nights, I was unable to put in a blog entry because I was just so tired walking around earlier on that respective day so as my visit was nearing it's end, one night I decided not to blog anymore and just blog a complete entry based on my experience in New York.
I was talking to a friend after I came back from my trip about New York and the differences and similarities between NY and LA are. I love Los Angeles. Los Angeles will always be my home. I love New York as well and now, New York will always be home also...if that makes any sense. When I first arrived, fresh off the plane, I had a jacket on because the morning I left LA was a cold one and the plan was a bit on the chilly side as well. I exited the Jet Blue terminal at JFK with my jacket on and the weather was really nice. Nice enough for a jacket...for about 5 minutes. It was then that the New York summer humidity hit me hard and I had to take off my jacket or else suffer.
The trip to my temporary home in Brooklyn/Prospect Park/Park Slope was surprisingly bad considering how close the two locations were. New York traffic is bad. I would argue that it's just as bad as LA traffic if not worse and the drivers? You think there are bad drivers in LA, wait till you experience NY drivers. There is no sense of courtesy in NY drivers. Not to say that LA drivers are courteous drivers but try changing lanes in NY traffic. Good luck with it if you're going to wait on someone giving you the space to change lanes. You really have to force that issue there. One thing that really tripped me out about NY is the rampant jay walking. Here in LA, you see a red stop light and you stay there on your side unless it turns green.
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| DeLancey St. Station |
As far as sightseeing goes, I didn't do much of that. I went on the metro into Manhattan and the surrounding burrows but I didn't do the "tourist" kind of sightseeing as I wanted to not convey that I was a tourist. Who wants to be? I skipped out on the Empire State building or the Chrysler building. I missed out on the Brooklyn bridge (which I'll save for the next trip) and the only real touristy thing I did was see One World Trade and that was by accident as I found myself getting lost and wound up there. One interesting detail is that when I ended up at OWT, I bumped into a Turkish protest that was going on at a near by park. I can't confirm the name of the park as I didn't catch it but I'm usually around the protests that happen here in LA so running into one in NY was a bit funny to me.
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| I'm with you Turkey! |
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Turkish protest near One World Trade
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The people of New York, as some may have said, may come off as rude, but I never really got to experience there. As far as I'm concerned, they're much like Angelenos, only they move at a faster pace so courtesy may not come right off the bat. Other than that, New Yorkers are really great people and I was able to speak with many of them while I was there, whether I was at the Double Windsor with the friend's I was staying with in Park Slope, or when I was out on my mini adventures on my off time. I will say one thing, New Yorkers know their style and I came across many a stylish folk while I was out there. It's a funny thing, I thought our Silverlake hipsters had something going on but these Williamsburg hipsters? They'll put our hipsters to shame on their BAD days. They are on some next level shit...
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Jay-Z got his own subway line here?!
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Some park that's next to (what may have been) City Hall
I will say this, New York has something going for them. As much as I wanted to soak up the entire city on my trip, I was unable to. There's just so much there and one would need a couple of months to adequately take in the city well. I only had one place I really wanted to see and that was the Hayden Planetarium at the Museum of Natural History. I did that. But I ran into a couple of beautiful things that weren't on my travel itinerary that made my trip all that much more better. New York is very park centric. I suppose the equivalent in LA is that we're either beach or shopping mall centric. A place where people come to congregate and hang out and such. I LOVE that New York is park centric! We don't have any parks here on the scale of what New York has to offer. EVERY park I saw and passed through, were literally crowded with people with lounging around or having their mid day lunch break. You NEVER see that in LA. Probably because we don't have any parks large enough, or nice enough to go do that type of thing. And I'm talking about a normal weekday and not a weekend thing. There was this park that I passed through on my last day of New York called High Line Park. Basically it's a stretch of park, located on the westside of Manhattan, founded by community residents that's built along an old railway. Before, it was just old historic, pretty much run down buildings and these guys thought about preserving the area by turning blight into a park. It's an amazing feat and the contrast between urban and this little gem of green goodness is just a wonderful experience to be had. Honestly, my words fail to better describe this gem, and I did take photos of the place, but they still have to be looked through and even then, I'd think the photos would do the place no justice. You have to literally be there to experience the place. I recommend it next time you're in Manhattan. I'll certainly be back there when I do go back.
I will leave this entry with another gem of my New York visit. Two nights before I left, I, along with the friends I was staying with, were invited to a party on a roof top somewhere in Bushwick I believe. An NY roof party if you will, one you would see in various commercials or movie scenes. Other than that, big whoop right? Other than that, I had a really good time but what made this night and this party special, was one of the bands that performed at this party. Hell, it wasn't even a band (in that the band didn't consist of established members...)! It was pretty much a jam band that consisted of 15 members or so that took turns after each other, after a certain amount of time and these guys ROCKED it. I mean literally, world turned upside down head explosion type of deal. I NEVER experienced such an experience...such a group of talented individuals performing together at any one point in time. They went of soul to funk and even went into some deep, DEEP house type sounds. And then! And then to destroy my notion of what I thought was a great experience, at that time, at some point during this long jam session, these two women walked up to one of the open mics and started singing little bits of hooks of Jill Scott and Badu etc. as the band kept jamming! I'm pretty sure these women, although they may have known some of the band members, weren't really part of it altogether. It was like "open mic?! Hell we'll sing!" type of a deal. Amazing, amazing stuff and it was the best way to cap off my trip to NY. You just had to be there. Luckily I have some video footage of that session...
It's been nearly a week since I left NY and arrived in LA and I've been having withdrawals. There was just so much I feel like I missed out on and my exit left me wanting more. Luckily, I'm scheduled to go back to NY for another gig in November! But until then, I'll be counting the days until I visit the big apple and take up as much of what I missed out on and get a better understanding and appreciation of the city.
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