New York: Where Anything Can Happen

02/13/2015 - 17h01

In a special feature for Serafina magazine published in November 2014, "New York Times" columnist David Carr, who died this Thursday (12), tells of meetings with strangers and experiences that can only happen in and around Manhattan.

*

I still have an immigrant's love of New York, having come here in 2000. I grew up in a smaller city in the middle of the country and was always taken by the scale of the place, its ambitions as embodied in the giant buildings here.

True story: The second day that after I moved to New York, I was riding a bike on Broadway and rode into a construction fence because I was staring at the tall buildings.

As big as it is, as a city New York has a beginning, middle and end. You can't get to the end of its charms - there are five boroughs to explore, after all - but you can be here a few days and very much begin to get the feel of the place, unlike, ahem, certain giant cities in Brazil. (We're looking at you, Sao Paulo).

New York begets staring, but it is what is at the bottom of those giant buildings that you have come to know that make it such a remarkable place.

This is a city that is meant to be explored on foot, but now that there is a municipal bike program, you can do some of it on two wheels as well.

(The bike trail that goes up the Hudson on the Westside is an easy, lazy glory. Flat as a pancake and adjacent to many neighborhoods that are worth getting of the bike for.)

There is a tendency to view a trip to New York as a version of the Stations of the Cross. On Monday, we will see the Statute of Liberty, Tuesday, we need to be in line for the Empire State, on Wednesday we will be in Times Square, etc, until, finally exhausted, people leave and go home.

Forget all that. Yes, you can up the crack of dawn and go see the Statue of Liberty, but why not spend the morning having a leisurely breakfast at Maialino or Pastis and then take the Staten Island Ferry, which goes right by the Statue a cost of exactly nothing?

Yes, taking one of those paid boat tours around New York so you can go under the Brooklyn Bridge, but why not spend time walking across the Brooklyn Bridge and finish by getting a slice at Grimaldi's afterwards under the bridge?

The point of coming to New York is to bathe yourself in experiences, not knock off some tourist checklist.

Speaking of tourists, you should be one long enough to walk the Highline, New York's latest claim to fame and a remarkable expanse of suspended parkway that makes you feel like a voyeur, staring into the bedrooms and back alleys of New York.

And the other new destination hat has to be taken in is the National September 11 Memorial and Museum.

The project was born out of human misery, was conceived in controversy, but the designers managed to pull experiences and edifices into a coherent narrative about an event that makes no sense. It will take an emotional toll, so best not to schedule a big social event afterward.

Other musts for me?

The Roosevelt Island tram at sunset, the Modern Art Museum right when it opens up 10:30 before the crowds come, Chinatown, the one that is out in Queens, not downtown, and a drink outside on the benches at The Ear Inn, the oldest pub in the city and one that didn't even admit women until a few decades ago. Now everyone is welcome.

In terms of only in New York experiences, that begins and ends with the people who choose to fight their way here for a place to stand. Do not believe it when people tell you that New Yorkers are unfriendly.

They are unfriendly when you try and catch them while they are walking or on the subway, but once at rest, New Yorkers love to talk with people from everywhere. Why else would you choose to live here?

Almost any restaurant worth eating at requires a wait and that means you are going to be in the bar, cheek to jowl with all manner of strangers.

If you want to meet and talk to people, go to the pubs and bars of the Village, the Lower East Side and Chelsea. The dance clubs are fun, but you will never talk to anyone over that roar.

You can't come to New York anymore and not go to Brooklyn. It's where New York is storing much of its energy these days, and some of the best restaurants are now in Williamsburg and the surrounding neighborhoods. The Brooklyn Flea Market is a set right next to the river and is worth your time as well.

Don't spend enormous amounts on a hotel in New York. The rooms are small here for a reason. People who come here are expected to not sleep much, go out a lot, face plant when they get back to the room and then do it again.

Most of all, be open to the random in New York. Don't decide that you have to see a certain play on Broadway or eat at the latest hot restaurant. Be open to going to a small show downtown, or eating off a food truck, or drinking a can of beer by the Gowanus canal.

The New York that I love is the one that people actually live in, not the one that you see in the movies.