“New York, concrete jungle where dreams are made of”, sings Alicia Keys in Empire State of Mind.
New York is the American Dream!
At the time of my first trip to New York, I doubt I would have used that title to write about it. Then things happen that change your outlook, the way you see the city. In my case, it was the story of Valeria.
She’s not famous, not a star fashion designer or a singer. She’s just one of us, maybe with a little something extra. As a young European, an Italian, she came here together with her boyfriend, bringing her hopes, her dark eyes that sparkle when something excites her.
New York had always been her dream, from back when she avidly followed the New York adventures of Serena and Blair on Gossip Girl.
She came here with the certainty of a job but the uncertainty of what the future held.
Before moving to the “City that Never Sleeps”, she lived and worked in Rome. She grappled with her finances and bills, keeping track of what she spent as the days passed by in her office job.
As is normal in Italy, she almost never managed to get home before 10 pm. In Italy you could say that it’s the workers who never sleep!
In New York she had to face the difficulties that every foreigner, throughout the world, has to deal with on a daily basis, starting with the differences in both the language and the mentality, the need to find a place to live and to understand exactly where you are, to say nothing of the sky-high price of everything. What you pay for a babysitter, for example, is roughly what a government official would make in Italy.
Dreaming New York
Today Valeria is happily married and the mother of a pair of wonderful twins. She works full-time in an office in Times Square, and also writes a blog. She speaks to me on the phone as she hurries along the river on a bicycle to get to work. She’s in a rush because she had to get the kids ready, then tidy up the house and prepare herself for the day ahead, only she missed her bus, and so she’s riding on a bike-share. As she peddles along, she exclaims, “This is a wonderful city!”, because even after all the years she’s been here, New York still manages to surprise her.
Her dream has become realty, just like the dreams of her close friends, her colleagues, everybody else who has made New York their home.
That’s what New York does! New York is the place where dreams become realty, where there’s nothing you can’t do, just like the Alicia Keys song.
It may be one of the most inclusive places in the world.
Dreaming New York, The Big Apple
I chose to fly into the Newark Airport, definitely the most economical option, compared to the metropolitan area’s two other airports, JFK and La Guardia. Then again, there’s bound to be a reason for that! I landed in New Jersey, of which I knew absolutely nothing, apart from the fact that Buddy Valastro, the renowned “Cake Boss” of Carlo’s Bakery, lives there.
As we were about to touch down on the runway, I dropped my Ipod. When I bent over to retrieve it, I spotted an American coin, and my eye focussed on the word ‘Liberty’. I lifted my eyes back up and saw a sign saying “Liberty International Airport”. I realized that it was destiny, that I’d been meant to land here.
The border agent checking passports and entry authorisations gave me a broad smile and said: “Welcome to the United States of America. Welcome home”. All my worries melted away. I felt like I could walk on water, on top of the clouds.
I had read on internet that, unless I wanted to hand over half a month’s pay to a taxi driver, I was better off taking the Air Train to Penn Station, in midtown Manhattan, also the site of the world-renowned Madison Square Garden. And of course I’m referring to that mecca of entertainment where so many titans of music have performed.
As soon as you set foot in Manhattan, you realise what a role American films and TV series have played in your life. You feel as if you’d already been there, in the heart of the “cement jungle”.
As everyone knows, Manhattan is one big grid of numbered streets and avenues, meaning that you tell friends to meet you at the corner of 34th Street and 5th Avenue, the way you would say “In front of the Sant’Eustachio Caffè” in Rome, or “At the Galleria” in Milan.
I had read on internet that, unless I wanted to hand over half a month’s pay to a taxi driver, I was better off taking the Air Train to Penn Station, in midtown Manhattan, also the site of the world-renowned Madison Square Garden. And of course I’m referring to that mecca of entertainment where so many titans of music have performed.
As soon as you set foot in Manhattan, you realise what a role American films and TV series have played in your life. You feel as if you’d already been there, in the heart of the “cement jungle”.
As everyone knows, Manhattan is one big grid of numbered streets and avenues, meaning that you tell friends to meet you at the corner of 34th Street and 5th Avenue, the way you would say “In front of the Sant’Eustachio Caffè” in Rome, or “At the Galleria” in Milan.
My second transportation experience was with an iconic symbol of the city: the yellow taxi. I thought back to Martin Scorsese’s iconic film Taxi Driver, starring Robert De Niro, but I’m also reminded of the renowned Italian comic actor Alberto Sordi and his film Un tassinaro a New York, or A Taxi Driver in New York.
That is proof of the magic of films, the way that certain scenes make such an impression on the collective imagination that when you get into a taxi cab, it’s an adventure!
In a moment of madness, I’ve booked a hotel on Park Avenue. What can I say? Simply that I was driven to do so by Arnold, the unforgettable youngster from Harlem who gets adopted, together with his brother Willis, by the wealthy Mr. Drummond, who lives on Park Avenue in the TV show Diff’rent Strokes.
The price is stratospheric, the room is so tiny that it can only fit a French bed, the smallest double-bed there is, and two of us are sharing the room, with the only place to unpack our bags being the bed itself. I’m better off not even thinking of how many nights I could have stayed at the Lebua at the State Tower in Bangkok at that price! The hotel is a joke, and a bad one at that, but it’s the price you pay to stay in a magical location!
I have my third transportation experience on the antiquated, quite dirty, but highly efficient New York subway.
Now I’ll take you through the places in New York that made me dream.
What to see in New York
TIMES SQUARE
Times Square is the most heavily visited tourist attraction in the world. Sitting between Broadway and 7th Avenue, it runs from 42nd Street to 47th Street on the west side.
In 1904, the world famous daily paper The New York Times decided to move its headquarters to what was then Longacre Square, and so the site was rechristened Times Square.
I went there on the subway, getting off at the 42nd street station. Being accustomed to the calm, imperturbable tone of the announcements made on the London underground, the shrill voice with the heavy American accent that called out “Times Square!” left me even more excited about my destination, like I’d had a shot of adrenaline.
Times Square is New York! What a blast!
My mind played back the scene from the film Vanilla Sky where Tom Cruise arrives in Times Square and gets out of the car looking dumbstruck. Frightened to death, he runs through a completely deserted Times Square lit up bright as day. Stopping underneath the illuminated Nasdaq and JVC billboards, he lets out a yell.
Of course the reality is way different. There’s little chance that his screams could be heard amidst the traffic, plus the thousands of pedestrians who make their way into Times Square at all hours of the day and night. The advertising billboards, always lit and always filled with movement, are striking by day and magnificent at night. Times Square never stands still!
I’m immediately drawn to the celebrated U.S Armed Forces Recruiting Station, where people have a natural urge to get their picture taken alongside the “I Want You!” poster of Uncle Sam created by James Montgomery Flagg in 1917.
Everything about Times Square reaches out and grabs your attention: giant billboards advertising all sorts of products, as well as banks, Broadway shows, TV series, stores and much much more.
There are a number of international chain outlets, but what draws me in is the stupendous M&M’S store, where you can become a candy-craving child again, wishing you were allowed to stand with your mouth wide open under the transparent tubes holding M&M’S divided by colour. It’s like entering wonderland!
And as long as I’d gone back to being a child, I had to make a stop at the Disney Store, where right away I bought a large Mickey Mouse, plus a smaller version posing as the Statue of Liberty. I’m delighted! Even now, as I write this, my eyes have turned heart-shaped.
As an aficionada of photography, I also treasure Times Square for the unforgettable photo of the sailor kissing the nurse in 1945, during the celebration of victory over Japan. While I was in New York, a giant statue of the two was on display. Another thrill! It seems the statue is displayed every five years.
BROADWAY
Broadway is New York’s oldest and longest street. As far back as the Dutch colonial period, it was known as the main thoroughfare.
New York’s world-renowned Theatre District is found on Broadway. For such a small area, it puts on an astounding number of shows.
The very first musical is thought to be The Black Crook, which opened in 1886, with each performance running for five and a half hours!
I was lucky enough to have seen a good many theatrical productions in London’s West End, the only other theatre district comparable to Broadway, so sadly enough I’d already been to the main ones then playing on Broadway. But I suggest that everybody go to see at least one show. Even if you don’t understand what’s being said, the experience will prove unforgettable!
5TH AVENUE
Who can forget the opening scene of Breakfast at Tiffany’s, with the yellow taxi that moves slowly up 5th Avenue to the tune of Moon River? It stops in front of the building where the jewellery store Tiffany’s is located, and she gets out, that timeless icon of sophistication in a black Givenchy tube dress: Audrey Hepburn, making for a masterful touch of ethereal elegance.
5th Avenue is the world-famous street that runs lengthwise through Manhattan, dividing it up into the East Side and the West Side.
The avenues starts in Washington Square, in lower Manhattan, and runs all the way up to Harlem, in upper Manhattan, having covered a distance of 10 kilometres.
Manhattan’s very first skyscraper stands on 5th Avenue: the Flatiron Building. And in 1931 the Empire State Building was built at the intersection of 5th Avenue and 34th Street.
The portion between 49th and 59th Streets is the ultra-chic realm of luxury. Further up, at 57th Street, is Tiffany’s. The prestigious brand-name stores found along 5th Avenue, to name only a few, include Louis Vuitton, Versace, Armani, Jimmy Choo, Michael Kors, Gucci and Prada. And let’s not forget the large department store Saks Fifth Avenue.
Mixed in with the major designer labels are names that, though more commercial, are no less famous.
Also worthy of mention are the massive buildings of America’s magnates, such as Rockefeller Center, Trump Tower, Onassis’s Olympic Tower and the Andrew Carnegie Mansion, since converted into a museum.
Between the 5th and 6th Avenues is the MOMA, the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art.
EMPIRE STATE BUILDING
The Empire State Building is anther renowned site tied to classic American films and TV series.
In the finale scene of King Kong, the ape, holding his beloved Ann in his hand, climbs the Empire State Building as if it were a tree in the Borneo rainforest. Once he reaches the top, Air Force planes attack him, eventually doing him in.
Another classic Hollywood film, An Affair to Remember, starring Cary Grant, has made entire generations of Americans dream, along with moviegoers in other countries, ever since it first came out in 1957. It has also influenced any number of American films and TV series that came after it. The two lead characters, having met and fallen in love on a ship, agree to meet again 6 months later, after 5 pm, on the terrace of the 102nd floor of the Empire State Building. But the encounter never happens!
The same plot device was used in Sleepless in Seattle, with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan making a date for St. Valentine’s Day on the terrace. But in their case, they do get together!
In the popular TV series Gossip Girl, Chuck Bass, in the tradition of An Affair to Remember, sets up a date with Blair Waldorf, planning to ask her to marry him, but Blair fails to show up on time.
What can I say? Personally I’d never make a date with anyone on the Empire State Building in order to see my dreams of love come true, but it certainly is the right spot for the most breath-taking view of New York!
Located on 5th Avenue, between 33rd and 34th Streets, in was built in 1931, in the Art Deco style, and stands 443 metres high.
The panoramic terrace is up on the 86th floor, and the observatory on the 102nd, at a height of 381 metres. The building has quite a few elevators, and they move at what seems like supersonic speed.
CENTRAL PARK
This is New York’s largest park, stretching from 59th Street to 110th, and covering a total of 840 acres. The city’s green lung, it dates back to the middle of the 19th century, when New Yorkers, just as the city was starting to expand, felt they needed to set aside an area for parkland.
It may be the most frequently photographed park in the world, and it definitely is the one that has made the most appearances in American films. There’s hardly a film or a TV series that doesn’t include scenes or shots of Central Park.
You can spend an entire day in the park and be certain that you still haven’t seen everything.
Being so large, Central Park has a number of different entrances, the most famous of which is found at the Grand Army Plaza, on 59th Street.
A well-known feature of this corner of the park is The Pond, from which the skyscrapers of Manhattan can be seen towering above the greenery.
The Wildlife Center, requires an entrance fee and houses more than 130 species of animals, and has a pool for sea lions.
I have to confess that, after seeing Jodie Foster in the film The Brave One, I would only go into Central Park in the daytime. The lead character is brutally attacked one night while out walking her dog in the park, after she passes under one of the arches – I belief it was the Driprock – in a spot where, during the day, any number of people would be out and about.
Gradually moving further north, we find the Sheep Meadow, once an actual field for pasturing sheep.
The Strawberry Field, found at the West 72nd Street entrance, was named in honour of John Lennon, after he was killed near the spot in 1980.
The Loeb Boathouse is a restaurant that faces onto the Lake, a dream location amidst the greenery of the Park and the Lake itself. Here Carrie, the main character of Sex and the City, has a date with Mr. Big, only both of them fall into the lake when he tries to embrace her in front of the restaurant’s railing.
CHRYSLER BUILDING
This may be the city’s most interesting skyscraper. It certainly came as a surprise to me.
Built in the Art Deco style, it was completed on the day before the 1929 Wall Street crash. At a height of 320 metres, it was initially the tallest skyscraper in the world until the construction of the Empire State Building in 1931.
At the time, Walter Chrysler was America’s third-largest car maker and, wanting to make his mark in a grandiose way, he did just that.
The building’s distinctive 38-metre crown is made of chrome-plated stainless steel, giving it a luminous appearance. An especially striking feature is the array of 30 triangular windows set in a radiating pattern.
It was here, in a scene from Men in Black 3, that Will Smith jumps into both physical space and time by taking a leap off the Chrysler Building.
A stroll around the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir can be a delightful experience. I went there at sunset, when the buildings off in the distance were tinted a delicate pink.
The Statue of Liberty
The Statue of Liberty is the symbol not just of New York, but of all of America.
When a giant tsunami hits New York in the disaster film The Day after Tomorrow, the wave strikes the State of Liberty, but she takes the blow, as both her head and the torch stay above water, symbols of hope for a nation that never gives up, that bends but does not break.
The Statue of Liberty is visible from 40 km away, and it was definitely the first thing seen by millions of immigrants who reached America in ships, after months at sea, carrying with them their precious cargo of hope. Lady Liberty was there to welcome them. Lady Liberty is America.
Souvenirs, statues, knick-knacks, bathing suits, fake crowns, even the immortal Mickey Mouse is sold wearing the toga and holding up the flame.
A ferry from Battery Park takes you to the Statue. There’s a considerable wait before you get on, but your arrival on Liberty Island makes up for any time you’ve lost.
A few years ago, I saw the smaller version in Paris. In fact, the statue was meant to be a symbol of Franco-American friendship at the time of the America revolution, and there’s no denying that the French have some experience with revolutions!
It was the work of the Frenchmen Frederic Auguste Bartholdi and Gustave Eiffel. At a height of 93 metres, including the base, it depicts the Goddess of Reason in the form of a woman wearing a toga and a crown with 7 points that represent the 7 seas and 7 continents.
In her raised right hand she holds the torch whose flame, inspired by Masonic imagery, symbolises knowledge, while her left arm holds a tablet on which the date of America’s independence is written.
MOMA: MUSEUM OF MODERN ART
I’m reluctant to say much about the Moma, for I feel it’s better to let the endless emotions I experienced speak for themselves.
Here are works that many of us have hung on our walls as posters, that give us a feeling of joy every time we look at them. Where are they kept? At the Museum of Modern Art!
Found between 5th and 6th Avenues, the MOMA is one of the world’s most important museums of modern art. Nobody who loves or appreciates art should leave it off their tour of New York. It holds incomparable works that will provide you with moments of ecstatic beauty.
Examples include The Starry Night by Van Gogh, The Lovers by Magritte, Persistence of Memory by Dalì, The Japanese Bridge by Monet, Song of Love by De Chirico and other masterworks by Klimt, Pollock, Matisse and Modigliani, plus so much more.
I spent quite a few unforgettable hours inside the MOMA.
DREAMING NEW YORK: others
THE BROOKLIN BRIDGE
When I was a little girl, the Brooklyn Bridge was the design on the pack of “Brooklyn brand“ chewing gum. Everybody chewed “Brooklyn, the gum with the bridge”. The company that produced it, Perfetti Van Melle, managed to establish a winning combination in our minds: a symbol of America consumerism tied to the very symbol of America, the Brooklyn Bridge. A winning proposition if there ever was one!
No trip to New York is complete if you don’t cross the Brooklyn Bridge, rigorously on foot.
The first ever bridge built of steel, it has six lanes: 3 for travelling to Brooklyn and 3 for the return trip to Manhattan.
In writing about the Empire State Building, I mentioned that many films have used its terrace as a meeting place for two people in love. In the case of the Brooklyn Bridge, it was chosen as the spot in the first “Sex and the City” movie where Miranda and Steve, after a period in which they separated and go to couple’s therapy, get back together as, meeting each other halfway across the bridge, to the tune of Al Green’s “How can you mend a broken heart”.
DUMBO
Dumbo stands for “Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass”.
It is an area in Brooklyn, located between the Brooklyn and the Manhattan bridges, where you’ll find the view of Manhattan that appears in countless American films and TV series.
From one spot in particular, Washington Street, you can look through the cables of the Manhattan Bridge and see the Empire State Building off in the distance: the same scene that was used for the poster of the film Once upon a Time in America, the masterpiece by director Sergio Leone.
In the famous TV series Gossip Girl, which gave its millions of fans a chance to dream of New York, “the lonely boy”, Dan Humphrey, lives with his devilishly charming father Rufus and his rebellious sister Jenny in a loft at 97 Plymouth Street, right under the Manhattan Bridge.
In Vanilla Sky, Penelope Cruz lives in a loft in Dumbo, at the corner of Water Street.
Dumbo is also an ideal spot in which to sit in the evening and take in the New York skyline after dining out at one of the local restaurants.
WEST VILLAGE
For six whole years, the West Village was brought into our living rooms as part of the highly successful, award-winning TV series Sex and the City.
Carrie Bradshaw, the show’s main character and its off-screen narrator, is an intelligent, witty, high-spirited woman with a love for fashion and an unrestrained passion for shoes. She lives at 66 Perry Street in the West Village, where she writes her Sex and the City column.
The typical architecture of the West Village is the Federal style, and the neighbourhood also contains a wealth of trendy restaurants and shops.
GREENWICH VILLAGE
Greenwich Village has a style that immediately says, “New York”, whenever it makes one of its numerous film appearances.
Known as the Federal style, it represents a reworking of England’s Georgian style that proved popular between 1785 to 1830. Distinctive features include the red-brick walls and the wrought-iron handrails of the front stairs of the buildings.
The neighbourhood is a traditional favourite of artists, and its nightspots have hosted performance by legends of the world of music. It is also the neighbourhood where the gay-rights movement came to the fore in 1969.
There is a vivid nightlife scene of clubs, restaurants and other establishments in which to spend the evening. I highly recommend the Cafe Wha, less a nightspot than a temple of entertainment that has hosted performances by young artists who later became legends in their time, including Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Jimi Hendrix and Woody Allen, to name just a few.
For all those who spent the years from 1994 to 2004 practically glued to their TV sets, laughing and crying to the adventures of Rachel, Monica and the rest of the Friends, their legendary apartment building is located at 90 Bedford Street, in the neighbourhood that served as the home base for everything else.
LITTLE ITALY
There is a vivid nightlife scene of clubs, restaurants and other establishments in which to spend the evening. I highly recommend the Cafe Wha, less a nightspot than a temple of entertainment that has hosted performances by young artists who later became legends in their time, including Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Jimi Hendrix and Woody Allen, to name just a few.
For all those who spent the years from 1994 to 2004 practically glued to their TV sets, laughing and crying to the adventures of Rachel, Monica and the rest of the Friends, their legendary apartment building is located at 90 Bedford Street, in the neighbourhood that served as the home base for everything else.
CHINATOWN
Unlike the Italians, the Chinese have kept their culture, their language and their traditions alive from one generation to the next.
New York’s Chinatown is like similar neighbourhoods throughout the world: a replica of China, complete with its flavours and aromas, the stores with the signs in Chinese, selling typical souvenirs and local products.
You can dine on glazed Pecking duck or dumplings, or stroll through the market on Mott Street.
WALL STREET
Even if the stock market, with its ups and downs, is not your cup of tea, you have to go see Wall Street, the world’s best known stock exchange, along with the Federal Reserve building.
Located in lower Manhattan, the street was named after a three and a half metre wall that dated back to the Dutch colonial period and was dismantled by the English in 1699.
What you see today is the outside of the neoclassical building holding the stock exchange, designed by George B. Post and officially opened in 1903. Sitting atop its sumptuous columns is a pediment decorated with allegorical figures. Since September 11, 2001, a large American flag flies above the structure.
A must photo opportunity for any visitor is a picture taken alongside the famous Charging Bull, a statue created Alberto Di Modica and installed in 1989.
I’ve come back to New York quite a few times, and each trip has turned out to be becomes an expedition in which I rediscover the city, seeing it with new eyes. I don’t know whether I’ve changed or the city has, or maybe both of us. It’s hard to tell.
As Michael Stipe sings: “Leaving New York, never easy”. But when I left, I knew one thing for sure: that I’d be back!
