Letters From (North) America #2

After an all-too-brief stay of three nights and three days, we left New York last night on the Greyhound in the midst of a torrential downpour (the weather having finally broken), and arrived in Toronto this morning. This is where we'll be for the rest of our trip, pretty much. Instead of catching up on some sleep, I think it's high time to catch up on some more thoughts / observations on our North American adventure...

* Madison Square Park and other small parks like it (at crossroads and junctions) seem to have what amount to large fenced-off dog litter trays where owners and pooches congregate. Most of the latter are well-groomed yapping lapdogs easily swept up and stuck under the arm, so small they'd be petrified if confronted by a menacing-looking vole.

* Strand Bookstore proudly claims to have "18 miles of books" - and you can well believe it when attempting to navigate its narrow thoroughfares, new books laid out on tables and second-hand volumes hemming you in on all sides and from a great height. It's obviously the regular haunt of the city's serious literary types, those who eschew the more spacious and corporate environment of the countless Barnes & Noble outlets, preferring to risk being crushed under an avalanche of Pynchon and Roth in pursuit of that elusive must-have 1973 paperback edition. It's a loyalty reflected in the fact that Strand has its own range of branded apparel and goods.

* Unlike the lit-up figure at our pedestrian crossings - upright and with good posture - the Americans' has one shoulder dropped, making him resemble a fugitive. Perhaps this is deliberate - after all, given the widely erratic standard of driving, you do have to be prepared to run to avoid being mown down...

* I'm not quite sure what I expected to find at the former site of CBGBs at 315 Bowery - a heap of decaying floral tributes? a clutch of leather-jacketed tight-jeaned punks in mourning? - but what I didn't expect to find was nothing but an empty pavement and a small boarded-up building, the famous awning gone to leave only the skeletal remains of its metal supports, a stark contrast to the thriving Amato Opera two doors down. Having been at the very centre of New York's hugely influential punk scene in the 1970s, a home-from-home for The Ramones, Blondie, Talking Heads, Patti Smith and Television amongst many others, the legendary club closed its doors a year ago when an unresolved dispute over rent consigned it to history. Visionary founder Hilly Kristal died in August this year - of a broken heart as much as the complications arising from his lung cancer, one suspects. I paid my respects under the lamppost sign for Joey Ramone Place. Probably for the best that we didn't go to see what's become of Fillmore East on Second Avenue.

The cradle of New York punk and new wave

Joey Ramone Place

* Bowery may no longer be the place to go for cheap and dirty rock 'n' roll thrills, but certainly is the place to go if you run a restaurant. As you walk south, there's a cluster of shops selling nothing but kitchen / catering equipment, then another selling nothing but restaurant furniture, then another selling nothing but lighting. But what I want to know is where you can get those squeezy tomato ketchup bottles?

* It very quickly became apparent to us how manic a city New York is, so to describe Chinatown as probably its most manic part is really saying something. It's a headache-inducing melee of overstocked shops and narrow, crowded pavements - grubby, low-rent and neon-lit, it's Times Square's poor relation. On the plane on the way over, I listened to the installment of 'Ross Noble Goes Global' recording his trip to the Egyptian tourist resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, in which Noble described being infuriated by the repeated and insistent attempts of local shopkeepers to flog him cheap fake perfumes. In Chinatown, it's not just perfumes you'll be offered, but watches and handbags too - and, most curiously, often not the objects themselves but laminated pictures of them. Of course, it doesn't help when your skin is pasty white and you're clutching your 'Rough Guide' for dear life.

* After the insanity of Chinatown, the atmosphere in Tribeca is much calmer and more relaxed. Mocca seemed as good a place as any to unwind with a cocktail. Or two.

* Almost inevitably, our route southwards down Manhattan took us past Ground Zero. Somewhere for silent contemplation, the currently empty space amidst the glassy skyscrapers a conspicuous reminder of what was destroyed. Jenni took issue, though, with the labelling of each and every one of the victims as "heroes" because it has the effect of devaluing the genuine heroism of those who put the lives of others before their own. Turns out she's not the only one to have done so...

Ground Zero

The roll of honour for the 9/11 victims

* Might the Staten Island Ferry be the best value attraction in New York? Used by thousands of commuters each day as a quick and convenient way of getting to work, the ferry departs regularly from what seems to be a brand new terminal, is completely free and offers unobstructed views of downtown Manhattan (the financial district), the Statue of Liberty and Brooklyn. Night having fallen, this made for a spectacular trip.

Manhattan from the Staten Island Ferry

Some statue or other

More tomorrow.