The Big Applelicious

The moment I see the little welcome goose toy on the bed, I am in love with the Gansevoort Hotel. Its rooftop pool where I swim while gazing at the Empire State building doesn’t do any harm, either. This is going to be a fabulous New York City base.

I am gazing down from the 15th floor at the traffic-tooting hubbub in Park Avenue and, what are they doing in the rooms opposite? It is some sort of clothing design house. Fascinating. Where did you put the binoculars, Bruce?

Things we learn.

We are within a stone’s throw of New York’s Curry Hill - headquarters of magnificent modern Indian restaurants.

Instantly, we learn a lot about them, walking past and looking in, checking menus, NY Times reviews, Yelp recommendations… Oh, where to go? The bounty is overwhelming and I was ever a ditherer.

Finally, a choice. We ring to book. No problem.

It is not until we get there that we realise how lucky we are. It is the last table in a restaurant rocking with a very high class of foodies and regulars. Lots of Indians.

The menu is thrilling. I am in a delirium of delight which only grows when the food is tasted. Beetroot patties as starter, unlike anything ever tried. A beautiful coronation chicken dish. Its delicacy dances on the tongue. A masala dish which zings and sings and feels new and different. These are adventures in freshness and harmonies of spices which take our taste buds to new

frontiers. We gaze at each other sharing the intensity of foodie love. Oh, my. This is New York.

We learn our way around our corner of NYC. We find our local supermarket, quite a hoof away, actually. It looks like a cake shop from the street but down an escalator is an expansive and very interesting food store. Of course, it also sells shower heads. Just in case. Don’t all groceries? The cut fruit is a boon for us. We occasionally buy salad packs. We stock up on seltzer drinks, my favourite black cherry, red grapefruit, mandarin, vanilla. These are unsweetened sparkling water drinks. Polar is the favourite label.

Sometimes it is hard to find places. Four days had passed before we recognised the fabulous breakfast joint around the corner. It was in dark shadow, its signage obscured by heavy scaffolding. Scaffolding masks a lot of buildings. A LOT of buildings. The city’s architecture is swathed in scaffolds of all varieties. At first, we are impressed. What a massive amount of building and renovation is going on, we say. But isn’t it annoying to have so many

wonderful buildings obscured! Are they scaffolded for window-cleaners to land their trays? We start becoming obsessed by the scaffolds. It is weird. This beautiful, towering city has vandalised its aesthetic with all these poles and platforms and rigs. Where is the work going on upon them? Where are the workmen? Where are the signs of the improvements?

The new uglification of New York City has a sad explanation.

Following the death of a woman from something falling from a highrise facade some 30 years ago, it was ruled that facades must be checked every five years on all buildings over five storeys tall - almost all of NYC. Throughout inspection,

pedestrians must be protected from falling debris. Scaffolding. Putting up and taking down scaffolding every five years is a massive job. So they leave them there for next time. Now proud and elegant old New York buildings have solid scaffolding aprons. They facilitate regular inspections, protect pedestrians and entirely destroy the famous canyon aesthetic of NYC.

Over the days, we have quite a range of weather conditions, including plenty of electrical storms and torrential rains. We scuttle about with umbrellas. On one day, the heat is so extreme, we simply hide in the hotel. This is no hardship.

The persistence of the heat in the cement jungle is tiresome, however. The media is full of

warnings about how dangerous the heat levels are.

On the day we go to Times Square it is drenchingly hot and humid. This has discouraged no one. The world jostles there en masse. Every language is spoken. Cameras relentlessly capture a massive minutiae of memories and moments. Selfie sticks rampant!

The great walls of neons and moving images roll and dazzle all around. Street entertainers spruik and busk and try to lure dollars from passers-by. Body-painted nude girls gyrate provocatively.

People in Batman, Minnie Mouse, and Minion costumes pose for pictures with kids. The crowds move in close currents in both directions. People sit

on bleachers watching other people.

It is just a colossal cram of people looking for the spirit of the Big Apple. It is the spirit of the Big Apple. It is impossible not to flow with this throng and love its great crush of happiness.

We find a decent meal against the odds of the crowds. Reuben sandwiches three inches deep in corned beef.

We get fabulous D-row seats to a Broadway show in the Booth Theater - An Act of God with Sean Hayes, a skilful, no-holds-barred satire on Christianity. Brilliantly written. Vivid. Expert. Slick. Snazzy. Incisive. Desperately funny. We love every second of it and become instant Hayes fans.

We also get fabulous seats to an Off Broadway show - Cagney. The theatre reminds us of the Odeon. It’s an older crowd. Youngies have no idea who James Cagney was and why he merits a bio musical. It is a very long show, well constructed, beautifully executed. The live orchestra is up there tucked at the back of the small stage - which also takes some big song and dance numbers and spectacular tap routines. Most satisfying nostalgic theatre. A perfect showcase of New York talent.

On one day, we shelter under a restaurant awning watching a storm become so torrential that we go no further for dinner - and discover one of the most wonderful Italian restaurants in the city.

We discover another marvellous old Italian restaurant by design, following Yelp and Tripadvisor reviews. I respect these sources and contribute my own reviews to them when I can find the time. Thus we find a very old and very trad Italian restaurant, its decor classic, albeit with an overkill of gladioli, and its menu, well, very quirky. The written menu was just medium in size but the specials rattled off by the very formal young waiter just go on and on and on and

on… Ironically, in the end he brings me two dishes which are off the menu - a buffalo mozzarella and tomato starter and a pasta vongole. Both beautiful. The kitchen door swings to and fro. Service is remarkably swift. People come and go. Interesting people. Much Italian is spoken. Much familiarity, jocularity.

An immensely fat man sits in the corner eating alone. A loud and brash fellow joins a couple dining at the next table and stridently goes into elaborate details about the greed and infamy of his ex-wife and the treachery of an accountant who has bankrupted him. Talk about live entertainment.

We don’t do everything we planned to do in NYC. The heat wave knocks us around a bit.

We do manage our afternoon at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It is swarming with people and yet it is a comfortable experience, marvelling over some of the world’s great art. It is nice to share it with so many others who also are relishing seeing the real thing after lifetimes of looking at prints. Such a diversity of people gather in this common thrill.

No one knew there was a Museum of Mathematics so we have to go. It is full of kids. It is very interactive. It pleases Bruce. Innumerate me? It sells nice tote bags.

It is not walking weather but we are walkers and we crave immersion in the life and scale of the city. We stroll Madison Avenue, Madison Park, the old Flatiron Building. We are complete rubber-neckers, shameless out-of-towners. We look at New Yorkers doing their things. A lot of them are walking dogs. Oh, my, there are a lot of dogs in this city. They are trotting along the pavements, being pushed in little dog carts... They are on bikes zig-zagging through the wild ad noisy traffic. There are special dog parks within the parks allowing dogs to socialise. We watch for a while but are a bit deterred by the pong.

Ah, but there is a lot of pong in NYC. Especially in this heat wave. Whiffs of rotten drain arise reminding one of the old days in Kuala Lumpur. How ironic. This great first world city has a third world aroma.

My friends Mia and Ella take us out for a magnificent treat of a lunch at the gorgeous Loeb Boat House in Central Park. It is just lovely, olde worlde picturesque with people drifting about in rowboats on the pea green water outside. Mia has secured the best window table in the house and VIP treatment for her Aussie pal. She, in her wheelchair with service dog Zeus beside her, regales us with stories of life, the universe and everything. Ella adds grace and backup. They’re a rare team and they have gone the extra nine yards to make our experience special. I feel blessed.

I don’t feel blessed on the day we go to visit my friend Blanca in a rehab town at the far end of the city. The heat is at its most malevolent. The pavements sear. And, because it is so far, we are travelling by underground. It ain’t cooler down there. No, siree. It is Lucifer’s own inferno. Gusting hot, gritty winds whip along with the trains. The tunnels are dank and dirty and they stink. People are hot and depressed. A lot of them are downright weird. Some are not too clean. There is a lot of coughing. To say I am uncomfortable is an understatement. I am appalled. This is my idea of utter nightmare.

If an airport transit lounge is purgatory, as my father always said, these subways are hell itself. It is crowded. When I get a seat it is beside a woman bent over her knees, sweating and looking decidedly unwell. When we disembark at our destination, there is worse to come. There is a massive squalid tunnel along which we have to walk to get to the daylight. It is wet and foul. Even Bruce is disgusted. We try to hasten. But we are so hot.

Once in the fresher air, we have to find our way to the rehab home and this requires a very long walk - up hill. By the time we reach our destination, we are sodden with sweat.

And that is how my friend Blanka gets to meet me in the flesh for the first time, my hair drenched in dripping strings… Not that she cares. She is thrilled to get the visit. I think she knows who I am. The stroke has destroyed her communication skills as well as her mobility. She was such a vivid, clever, funny, erudite and accomplished soul. A holocaust survivor into the bargain. This is no life for her.

Heartbreaking.

She takes a shine to Bruce and gazes at him almost lustfully. It makes him uncomfortable. All the things I had planned to tell her go out the window when she indicates that she can’t really remember or doesn’t want to hear about the outside world. She wolfs down the chocolates I have brought. She holds my hand, strokes my cheek, smooths my wet hair… I try to understand her. When the hospital brings ice cream, it is our cue to go. It is clear she wants to concentrate on the ice cream.

It is still meltingly hot outside but the walk back to the subway is at least now downhill. The evil tunnel is still there. The filthy trains are still filthy but a little less crowded to begin with. The tattooed person who sits beside me seems quite normal until he starts the scratching.

Our beautiful, Gansevoort Hotel is a delicious sanctuary.

Oh, the bed. I fall in love with it. I fall into it. I fall asleep in it. And I connect with the city through our immense, dirty windows - watching the sky and the rooftops, the life in the windows of the buildings across the road, the man playing guitar over there, the couple having a little friction over there, the students drinking wine in that room, the fashion house workers across the road, the window-cleaners dangling in their trays over there… The honking and hooting of the traffic, Even at 3 am, horns tooting. Sirens, horns, sounds of New York. It’s a noisy city all night long. And down there on the street directly below, at his little sidewalk food stall selling yiros, the worker comes out, spreads a prayer mat on the footpath beside the stall, removes shoes, and prostrates himself in age-old Islamic tradition. A massive African American man sitting on a building ledge eating a falafel idly watches him as he chews.

Ah, the cultural soup of New York.

This is my sixth visit to New York - and yet I have never seen the Statue of Liberty. This is a “must” on this trip so we take an old-fashioned city tour. Of course it is hot. Very hot. The bus is air-conditioned. Oh, bless. Bernice is our colourful tour guide and Floyd is the driver. It is a good way to get a potted view of the city complete with facts and anecdotes. We go walkabout at a few places, most significantly at the

9/11 memorial. I am blown away by it. There, beside the super high rise of sheeny blue Peace Tower, it is one of those creations which defy description. The great chasms with their walls of falling water and the great hole in the centre which lets the water fall yet further into what seems to be a bottomless pit. This is a profound and magnificent piece of design. And there are the details, the names of all the lost lives, the identification of the rescue workers, the little flags marking birthdays… The crowds are dense. They are respectful. Sad. Awed.

There is a lot of security.

It is a water taxi we take to the Statue of Liberty. Oh, my, it is hot out there. The water taxi is

crowded. Everyone is coughing. All of New York has been coughing. We choose to ride on the top in the blazing sun. The water taxi bumps through the waters. We all take photos of the fabulous skylines. Oh, that is New Jersey over there. Do you know the best thing about New Jersey? You can see the New York skyline from there. hahaha.

We stop at the statue and there is an orgy of photography. I’m in the middle of it.

Everyone is gasping and exclaiming about the heat. But we are happy. We all wanted to see this very lovely national icon. She is grand, indeed.

Oddly, in all our time in NYC, one thing we have not done is the ritual retail thing. Our shopping has been exclusively at the supermarket which we know very well by the end of our stay. But, if only to honour my late mother, one of the great and expert Fifth Avenue shoppers of the world, I insist on at least popping in on Saks.

So we do. But it is so hot. I am so hot. I am wet hair drowned rat all over again. Inside Saks I behold sleek matrons and Arab princesses with servile entourages. I am letting Mother down. She was ever strutting in high heels, a designer collection from head to toe. Shop assistants would rush to pay attention to her. I slink around trying to be invisible.

I’m sorry, Mum. I’m still your BoHo daughter.

This five-star retail game is not my scene.

My scene is the Gansevoort Hotel and that luscious rooftop swimming pool.

Ah, yes. My beautiful New York is right up there on the skyline itself.