Letters From (North) America #3

Picking up where I left off yesterday...

* If there isn't one already, then there certainly should be a tour of the city's key music sites - one of which being Murray Street, home to Sonic Youth's studio, which we stumbled across on our way back north from the ferry terminal. Photo opportunity? I think so...

A Sonic Youth obsessive paying homage

* For pizzas the size of your head - if your head happens to be the size of Elton John's on an ego trip - it makes sense to make for Little Italy. A visit to Lombardi's - which lays claim to being the oldest pizzeria in New York, having been licensed in 1905 - saw us served up with 18" of pure pizza pleasure on an enormous silver platter and pedestal. Spoilt for choice in terms of toppings, we plumped for sweet Italian sausage, coal oven roasted red peppers, wild mushrooms and meatballs - the latter no doubt just the way mama used to make 'em. The restaurant was full to capacity when we arrived, but we ended up being the last people there, and even then we didn't quite finish our pizza - two slices accompanied us home, making for an excellent breakfast treat.

18 inches of pure meaty pleasure

* Is it wrong to wander through Times Square at 1am and be disappointed not to see the Naked Cowboy? Probably. We did however come across an elderly gent posed statuesque next to a sign saying "Money makes me dance". When a coin was put in the slot, so to speak, he came alive - though his arthritic efforts and creaking joints were enough to make spectators wince in sympathy.

Some square or other

Times Square - where even the police station has a neon sign

* With the wealth of museums and galleries in New York and only three days to explore the city, how exactly does one go about choosing one to focus on? With difficulty. We opted for the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) narrowly ahead of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Frick Collection, and followed the crowds up to the 5th level for the exhibition of Post-Impressionist painting and sculpture which features (amongst many others) Cezanne's 'The Bather', Van Gogh's 'The Starry Night' and Monet's 'Water Lilies'. The latter had a particularly curious effect on visitors, reducing one to tears of joy and inducing another, intrigued about the length of the three canvasses put together, to measure it out toe to heel in clogged feet. So, what did I learn? I like Magritte, Leger and the Pointillist style of Signac; I dislike Matisse and Kandinsky, and soon find Mondrian's work tedious. Before we knew it the best part of three hours had passed, and so, feeling like philistines but desperate for something in the form of lunch, we rushed past famous works by Warhol, Dali, Rauschenberg, Pollock and Duchamp on the floor below, pondering how galling it must be to be French or Spanish and to have to come to America to see key works by some of your most famous artists.

Leger's 'Three Women'

Signac's 'Setting Sun. Sardine Fishing. Adagio. Opus 221'

Duchamp's first 'Readymades'

Magritte's 'The Lovers'

Wyeth's 'Christina's World'

Jackson Pollock made a lovely mess

Bridget Riley made my eyes go funny

Andy Warhol liked soup

* It's October, it's pushing 30 degrees and the ice rink in front of the Rockefeller Center is open. And we think our weather's bizarre.



* The construction of St Patrick's Cathedral on Fifth Avenue, a focal point for yesterday's Polish parade, only began in the 19th century, but it looks as though it could have been airlifted bit by bit from 14th century France (had airlifts been possible in them days), its elaborate twin neo-Gothic spires forming an impressive contrast to the flat glass and steel faces which surround them.

St Patrick's Cathedral from Fifth Avenue

Inside the Cathedral

* The lobby of the Waldorf Astoria, which just seems to keep on going back and is home to a number of small boutiques, is both impressive and oppressive in its opulent but dated decor, like a plusher version of the Overlook Hotel. How we avoided being frogmarched out by security I'll never know.

The Chrysler Building

* Shit Upper Crust baguettes - usually over four quid a pop - will taste infinitely worse now, having witnessed the quality of the food outlets at Grand Central Station, which is home to what amounts to a large delicatessen stocking everything from common-or-garden fruit and veg to seafood sausages and what looks like a very meaty variant of arctic roll.

Some train station or other

"Upper Crust, AMT Coffee, Pumpkin Cafe - your boys took one hell of a beating..."

* We couldn't have many complaints about our hotel, On The Ave - the bed was smaller than anticipated, water seemed to evaporate out of the cafetiere and upon checking out there was a slightly unsavoury incident concerning films we hadn't bought - but with hindsight we probably should have opted to stay at The Library on Madison Avenue. Over to the 'Rough Guide' to explain why: "each floor is devoted to one of the ten major categories of the Dewey Decimal System, and the artwork and books in each room reflect a different pursuit within that group". You don't have to be a guest to go up to Bookmarks, the rooftop bar, which proved to be an ideal place to sit with a Corona and complimentary bowl of nibbles as the sun set. Could have done without the Phil Collins piped through the speakers, though.

And, with the unpleasantness of 'Sussudio' replaying itself in my head, I'm off again.