“It’s always such fight to enter or leave New York.” – Old Sean
Ferry Land
After leaving DC and Wilmington, I felt fairly confident regarding the trajectory of my journey.
The next stage of the trip, however, I needed to psych myself up for.
I was due to drive into New York. As always, I like parking at Staten Island and taking the St. George Ferry (which is free) into the southern portion of Manhattan. It’s an easy tour of the bay, including a few looks at the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, and it prevents me from having to drive through the absolute jumble that is NYC. Even better, it means I can avoid shelling out upwards of fifty dollars for two days of parking.
For the first time during my trip, I became acutely grateful that my Chevy Spark was such a tiny vehicle. The roads continually narrowed as I grew closer to the denser New England area. By the time of arrival, streets were nearly the exact width of a relatively small pickup truck with half shoulders only providing the slightest of respites.
I hopped on the ferry in the early morning and began chugging into Manhattan. As always, I bought a metro-card prior to entering the city and placed enough on it for a few subway rides.
The cards, amusingly enough, state “Surf the train and this ride could be your last. Always ride inside.” That’s not something I need to be told on an underground, high-speed railroad, but if it bares printing then there’s a segment of the population who doesn’t agree.
Concrete Wanders
I had an unfortunate first half hour in NYC looking around for an available bathroom. Usually when I enter the city with an urgent need to pee, there’s always a Starbucks available, but even the open ones have their lavatories closed.
New York is one of the hardest hit locations in the entire country, and as a result, the release from COVID restrictions has been slow. Where most of the country I’ve visited barely provides a passing note to the pandemic situation, New York still has signs plastered about and curfews somewhat enforced. (People are still allowed outside, naturally, but almost all businesses are required to close at a certain hour.)
Once I found an open little shop, I wandered over to Brooklyn to meet with a friend of mine.
Brooklyn
Now, I have a fair number of friends who don’t really like New York. And that’s understandable if a person simply doesn’t like cities in general.
However, New York is kind of like it’s own little country. There are certain areas that are painfully or sharply distinct from other areas of the city. For myself, I’m not terribly partial to Manhattan. But Queens and Brooklyn always treat me right.
On that note, I spent a considerable amount of time wandering around Brooklyn. The art on the walls is grungier than ever and the music blaring out from studio apartments on the second stories was likewise entertaining.
The train rumbling around the second story of the city and I spent considerable time chatting with a few people in Maria Hernandez Park. They brought me to a tiny Hispanic restaurant which served boiled and cheesed corn on a stick, which was surprisingly phenomenal.
Reconnection
Afterwards, I made my way to Santa Salsa to meet Chad. The last time we had spoken face to face was in Tokyo, Japan, where Chad was working for a Japanese-American architecture firm. When I had seen him there, he was a gaunt figure, completely burnt out from a horrendous demand of over eighty hours a week.
In Brooklyn, he looked like a man reborn. His eyes weren’t hooded and his smile was no longer brittle. His hair had grown out thick and easy and a thin beard decorated his chin. He still seems overworked to me, but healthy, happy and grand to talk to.
Manhattan Part II
I had a couple of drinks with Chad and walked him to the grocery store before I left back for Manhattan to meet my friend Ella and her roommate, Rowan. We ended up getting dinner at a nearby bar called Heights Bar and Grill with an open-air balcony before wandering around Rowan’s university, Columbia. New York tourism wandering over and enjoyed, we had a few drinks back at the apartment for one last hurrah.
My time in NYC was finally over once more. I only ever visit for short trips and the city is an endless rise and fall of a dozen new things every time I arrive. It’s always a nice visit, though I remain unimpressed with the city overll.
I took the ferry back the following morning to see the skyline rise up in front of me, a steely range of human mountains, familiar as my hometown thanks to legions of movies and films fixated on it.
I’m off to humbler (and for me happier) locations next. Until then,
Best regards and excellent trails,
Old Sean
Written May 17th 2021
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The GoPro Hero Black is my go to Action camera. I’m not comfortable bringing my cell phone to many wet and rugged locations, so the GoPro does most of my photographic heavy-lifting. The only things I bring in my GoPro kit are the camera, a spare battery and the forehead mount. I upgrade my GoPro once every two years. It was particularly excellent to have during my aquatic tour of Belize.
