The time spent in New York City mostly descended into a massive bender. Three nights out on the trot, all of which didn’t end till around 5am. It was fantastic to go to a club night that didn’t shut down at 2, as they all do in Canada, but having been doing that for last 6 or 7 months I am distinctly out of practice and the marathon typically got the best of me. This was exacerbated by the fact that the last night spent in Philly was a sleepless one. Regardless, all the nights were good fun. Although, sadly we didn’t get to go to Morrissey on the first night, a party (as they like to refer to them in NY) that only plays music by The Smiths or his solo venture. I’m not sure how this would have paned out over the course of many hours with some songs being played 3 or 4 times, but it’s got to be better than terrible dance music. It’ll have to remain a mystery as Rich’s otherwise perfect passport forgery was undermined by a secret ‘89’ in the gibberish that runs along the bottom. A swift return to Photoshop to metamorphose the ‘9’ into an ‘8’ and we’re good to go on the subsequent nights. This missing out on the Morrissey party was made up for with one of the coolest clubs I’ve experienced – a former ‘erotic’ massage parlor called Happy Ending (awesome name) that had the relics of its previous function in the form of sauna rooms, shower heads and tiling as part of the club. This meant the place had an unusually sleazy vibe, and not in an Oceana wet t-shirt competition kind of way. Plus we did get to sing Supergrass in exceptionally loud and obnoxious British accents, which is always fun.
The nighttime antics in NY meant that the daytimes were almost completely written off until around 2 or 3 in the afternoon. As such, I didn’t catch a whole lot of the city. We had an explore around Williamsburg in Brooklyn, which is a pretty sweet place. Lots of quaint book shops and clothing shops as well as pretty cool ‘hipster’ eateries. One in particular was called Boneshakers, which was a pretty cheap vegetarian, biking themed café which treated us to sweet food, attractive staff and a soundtrack that consisted of the likes of Rumbleseat and Desmond Dekker. The Knuckle Sandwich menu even had a vegan BLT sandwich called The Kevin Bacon. What more could you want? We also went to Kelis’ milkshake bar (the one that brings all the boys to the yard). It’s a surprisingly unimposing place that didn’t even have a name. The shake itself (vanilla, obviously) was pretty nice, but expensive. But if it’s good enough for Kelis, then I guess it better be good enough for me. My main gripe with the place was that this beeping sound kept going off that sounded exactly like my alarm from secondary school. Every time I hear a beep at the pitch of my alarm it gives me a big quiver and makes my vision go slightly blurry for a split second. When that is occurring every couple of minutes it only serves to grind one’s gears.
Rich and I spent a few hours walking around southern Manhattan on the day that we left for Boston, going to the Empire State Building, Macy’s, Brooklyn Bridge, Ground Zero, Grand Central Station, among other places. Sadly, it was a miserable, overcast and cold day which meant that going up the Empire State Building would have been futile exercise. Macy’s was a horrible place, a huge maze of over-priced flashy clothes, a glorified version of John Lewis. Shopping in department stores is never a pleasant experience. Grand Central certainly shits on London Victoria, too. For some reason, they like to make train stations really impressive in North America. The Union station in Toronto is of similar grandeur.
New York City, in general, is such an enormous place, and I didn’t even see a fraction of it. Not only does the size make for an alienating experience, but it’s a pain having to get the subway constantly and makes for it to be quite unfriendly and intimidating. Especially at the point when I first arrived. I think I’d definitely like to spend a few months or a year there if I could, if only to take it all in and see everything that New York has to offer. There’s certainly an exciting aura surrounding the place and I look forward to going back there en-route to Philadelphia.
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