NY? yes we can! 5

Tuesday

Koons, me and a Central Park skyline

I stayed the night very comfortably in New Jersey and then it was back to Manhattan for a bit of a cultural tour. I had a wander round Chinatown and the Bowery, getting some great pictures of the fire escapes. This area was once way down there at the bottom of the heap, but there are signs of change, just like all over Manhattan. As with Hong Kong when I visited after a similar gap, everything seems to be on the up and up. Reflecting on what I’ve seen so far, there are some areas (like around Times Square) that are barely recognizable compared with my first visit 25 years ago. I suppose if I had been away from London for 7 years I would experience the same thing. Lots more green, no litter, no graffiti, and generally more prosperity – at least at this end of the island. And lots more beautiful people – the derelicts and the obese have given way to the well heeled and the well toned in this wealth and health obsessed age.
I found the New Museum for contemporary arts, a wickedly wilful and contemporary building but with a fairly uninteresting exhibit (as they say here).
Met up again with Joel for lunch (kept him waiting having got confused with the time shift – or just another senior moment?) and he took me to another NY institution, Keen’s Chop House, on W 36 St near Times Square. It has an 18th C atmosphere and claims descent from that time, with more dark oak and hundreds of clay pipes hanging from the ceiling – no doubt it was a terrible fug in here before the smoking ban – and I had a very pleasant steak and of course more lively conversation from my host.
Next up, MOMA, another Rockefeller foundation. It’s on the site of their old town house and has expanded a number of times – the latest providing some spectacular white spaces that will need some filling. There was also an outdoors exhibition of factory built homes, exploring what could be done to provide quick help to victims of disasters such as Katrina (something of a rebuke by implication to the current administration).
More food with Joel (and with Paula and Kenny). This time it’s Italian – Tony’s di Napoli, an old school family all-you-can-eat place where the pasta just keeps coming! Very tasty but I’m starting to feel like I will burst. A third Broadway show now – I took J+P to see Gypsy with Patty LuPone (another NY institution apparently!) She was born to play the lead role in this, belting out Everything’s coming up Rose’s until the roof came off to the inevitable standing ovation. It seems a little old fashioned now but still a great evening and maybe good to get a feeling of Broadway in its heyday.
After all that I managed to keep awake until 2am in a bar, Therapy, with Lincoln and a colleague of his (of ambivalent sexuality!) It’s in Hell’s Kitchen, at W52 St between 8 and 9 Ave, now the latest trendy area, which no doubt I would have been scared to visit all those years ago. Now it’s full of expensively, tastefully designed bars like this. Almost empty though on a Tuesday, and you are aware that the bar culture here is very different from London. No popping in after work for a drink in the week – everyone is down the gym. No-one seems to drink much any more in fact. And so, back for a well deserved sleep – my roomie Chester is getting used to me but I think disapproves of my night on the tiles.