Tag Archives: New York

Bexhill to Bexhill

The big apple – last stop New York

New York was all that was promised. A perfectly formed island of towering buildings overhead and neat straight sidewalks under foot, with everything in between a bundle of energy and life. Manhattan is just as it looks in the films. A home to the icons, The Chrysler Building; The Empire State Building; Staten Island; Grand Central; Bloomingdales; Tiffany’s; the Statue of Liberty, few places herald a greater list of famous inhabitants. Even the streets are ‘household names’ here, Wall Street; 42nd Street; Broadway; Fifth Avenue. It makes this new and unfamiliar city appear more familiar than it really is, leaving me with a peculiar sense of the uncanny. I expect to see Carrie Bradshaw or Gordon Gekko appear out of a building and jump into a yellow cab at any minute. I feel a little wrong footed and a teensy bit star struck with this city.

Bexhill to Bexhill

Manhattan streets, New York City (Louise Kenward, 2014)

A few days to explore on my own before I meet Sabrina, I walk for miles and miles. Just hopping out to catch an early evening walk gets me back at the YMCA for 10.30pm. I had no idea. Time disappears as everything seems so close, ‘it’s all in walking distance’ I am told. This is true. They tend to be very long walks. There is also much to distract. Visiting the Empire State Building gave a more honest sense of scale. Views spread across the whole city, creating a vision of 3-D Tetris. Reaching the edges of Manhattan and looking across from Central Park, you get a greater sense of the city. The Staten Island Ferry takes regular trips past the Statue of Liberty for the classic Manhattan skyline. 

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Manhattan skyline from Central Park, New York (Louise Kenward, 2014)

Bexhill to Bexhill

View of Manhattan from the Staten Island Ferry, Louise Kenward (2014)

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3-D Tetris – view from The Empire State Building, Louise Kenward (2014)

Another must see was the High Line Park. A converted rail track which was used to deliver supplies to the Meatpacking District. Now an oasis of calm and greenery it is a welcome contrast to the hectic streets below. The elevated walkway hovers 30 feet above the west side streets. Converted from a disused space, work began in 1999, with the first section opening ten years later. The park as it is today opened in 2011. A long narrow space, it is surprisingly easy to forget you are in the centre of such a built up city. Cast your gaze across and the skyline of concrete is always in sight. For me, this made it all the more special. You know you are in Manhattan, a few feet from West Chelsea, Hell’s Kitchen and the Meatpacking District. Yet surrounded by grasses, climbers and stretches of lawn, elevated above the ground, you feel as if you are in another place entirely. It is a little pocket within the city and outside of it.

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High Line Park, Manhattan (Louise Kenward, 2014)

Seeing my ‘old’ friend Sabrina (we met in Russia last October) it feels like I have almost come full circle (which I suppose I have). Arriving in the city a few days earlier, New York felt a little lonely. A familiar and friendly face, so happy to hear about my journey since we’d parted in Beijing, was a true tonic for the soul. Any travel weariness was quickly abandoned. It also meant I could enjoy reliving that early part of my journey with someone who had been there.

Bexhill to Bexhill

On our way to pizza at DUMBO – Brooklyn Bridge with Sabrina, Louise Kenward (2014)

We walked across the Brooklyn Bridge at sunset and had pizza at Grimaldi’s. We visited Queen’s to watch a baseball game and took a road trip to Philadelphia. Stopping at a diner on the way home for pancakes I wondered where Bruce Willis was and if Uma Thurman would soon emerge out of the loos. My own inner world, I would have been disappointed if they had appeared as they would not be in the characters I cast (on this occasion I am in Pulp Fiction). 

The baseball game was good fun. It really is like the movies, with ‘kiss cam’ (and some less than excited participants willed on by the crowd), burgers and milkshakes and loud pumping music gearing the players up. A great end to my time in New York and (at least temporarily) to my travels. This adventure is now returning full circle as my next destination is Bexhill, UK, where the project will continue…

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Mets vs Atlanta Braves, Louise Kenward (2014)

Bexhill to Bexhill: Louise Kenward - Montreal to New York by train

Taking the train from Montreal to New York

Before leaving for the big apple and heading to New York, I spent my last afternoon in Canada wandering the streets of Montreal feasting on samples of fine wines, chocolates and fois gras. Shown around by a local, Camilla was one of the lovely new friends I had made the previous week in Nova Scotia. We spend the sunny warm afternoon in one of my favourite ways – wandering aimlessly with no particular place to go. This was the third visit of my trip to this wonderful city, acting as the gateway to Quebec and Nova Scotia, as well as the US of A. A city of festivals, we managed to pause long enough on our eating and walking schedule to watch street performers and acrobats while listening to a number of musicians warming up for performances at the opening Jazz Festival. The two acrobats captivated me particularly, suspended from long red ribbons, winding themselves up and hurling themselves back down again. Incredibly graceful and fluid movements creating a passionate narrative of tryst and torment.

Montreal to New York, Bexhill to Bexhill - Louise Kenward (2014)

Montreal to New York, Louise Kenward (2014)

Another twelve hours on the train, from Montreal to New York would be the last train journey for me for a while. The journey takes me along great stretches of waterway through the Hudson Valley. The attendants are rather sterner than I have been used to (possibly since Russia!). There are a whole series of announcements about keeping the toilet clean, how it wont be cleaned before we reach New York, so the mess you make will not ‘go away’; of putting your rubbish in relevant receptacles, and in those in carriages not trash cans in toilets; of the consequences of putting rubbish in the toilets…not one you really want to test. And so on. I felt like a naughty teenager, reprimanded before even settling into my seat for the day. As it turned out, the refreshments were not as varied as I had hoped either, although I was relieved to discover that the nice man at the counter had been to replenish the tea bag supply personally. I feared I may be in for a rude awakening and it set the scene for New York leaving me slightly on edge.

Montreal to New York - Bexhill to Bexhill - Louise Kenward (2014)

Montreal to New York – view from a train, Louise Kenward (2014)

Arriving at night I launched myself at the subway system feeling a little jaded but adrenaline fuelled. I had no idea where ‘uptown’ ‘downtown’ or ‘midtown’ was I just had a name of a station and street address of my accommodation. Of course ‘uptown’ ‘midtown’ and ‘downtown’ now make complete sense and are entirely logical, but arriving at night after a day of travelling, having spent the previous weeks in one of the sleepiest, quietest, most peaceful places I’ve visited, I was not especially equipped.

After sitting at the wrong platform for about 20 minutes a guard came to my rescue and escorted me to the correct platform. I was eternally grateful and felt more than a little bit daft. It also served to shatter any illusions I had of the metropolis of Manhattan and the cut throat nature (figuratively and literally) with which it can be portrayed. I soon negotiated street numbers and learned to identify east from west, north from south, and arrived just in time to go to bed, excited about what I would see when the sun came up.

I think waking up in a new place is one of the most exciting things I have enjoyed. Whether it is on a train or arriving somewhere after dark and getting up the next morning to discover a whole new world. New York did not disappoint…