NYC

The past week has been hectic. I have visited places where I haven't been since my first time in the United States, back in 1990 when I was fifteen years old. I flew from Milwaukee to New York on Thanksgiving Thursday, a little more than a week ago. There is a lot to write about the fantastic people I spent time with and the things I did, but I think I will actually skip that and just write a couple of words about the city. I have visited many other big cities around the world, and I have lived six months in Tokyo with its approximately 35 million people in the metropolitan area, but New York is special. The city is so dynamic, a total mix of opposites. It has a unique soul and flavor with its worn down, almost Gothic darkness, its sprawling and unruly creativity and its fast, hard and efficient attitude. New York challenges and inspires.

On my first night I went for a beer with Bren, my Peruvian friend from Langkawi, and her girlfriend. Somewhere after midnight I ended up with another friend, at a Thanksgiving party in a huge loft belonging to a German artist in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The night ended in West Harlem somewhere near sunrise. I took the A-train downtown from Harlem the next afternoon. "Ladies and gentlemen, it is showtime!!!" Just as we rolled out from 145th street, two guys started dancing in the accelerating train, doing backflips, dancing on each other, spinning around the interior. On the next station, the air echoed with congas and Latin percussion rhythms. Down on Columbus Circle, the Latin music was replaced with classic violins. That is New York. And the rest of my stay in the city continued in the same spirit...



I took a walk through Central Park on the third day.



The Metropolitan Museum of Art is located in the park. It is ginormous. Modern and classic art, industrial design, Asian art, historical weapons and armors, the largest collection of ancient Egyptian artifacts outside Cairo, and so on. Like a dozen fairly large museums shoved into one building. These amazingly expressive figurines are from the collection of traditional Papuan and Melanesian art, probably my favorite section of the museum.



From the same section comes this collection of big statues.



Mural from the Art Deco section.



View from Central Park at night. New York has gotten friendlier and safer since my last visit. Strolling through the park at night was not recommended back in the early nineties.



Full moon over Central Park.



I walked from Greenpoint to Manhattan one morning. On the way I passed Williamsburg Bridge. This is a view towards southern Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridge.



Rooftops and glimpse of Manhattan skyline from Williamsburg Bridge.



I went to the Guggenheim museum one afternoon. A very interesting building, by Frank Lloyd Wright.



Interior from Guggenheim. There was a really big exhibition going on with Kandinsky paintings.



The High Line probably has the largest length to beam-ratio of any park in the world. It follows an old elevated railroad, abandoned many decades ago. The park is brand new, not even completely finished yet. I went there on my last evening in NY.



These seats are mounted on the old tracks, so you can slide them apart or together depending on how much you appreciate the company of whoever happens to sit next to you.



Tracks covered by vegetation.



Another view from the High Line. The park cuts through some buildings, just like the old tracks did.



More from the High Line.



Random picture.



Me with a Tokyo style multi-story parking lot in the background.



View from my room at Bren's place in Brooklyn. Yes, it is a lousy picture, but I just wanted to point out that Bren has a amazing view of the Manhattan skyline, not a very common thing.