New York City
United States of America, January 2020
New York, New York… Since I started dancing Lindy Hop my curiosity about ‘The Big Apple’ had started to grow. During the 1920’s and 1930’s, swing dance legends danced their asses off in the several ballrooms that New York City counts. Besides, I’m also very intrigued by street art and as you might know, New York is full of it. So, just before getting to Costa Rica I made a 6 day stop-over to discover ‘The City that Never Sleeps’.
Brooklyn Bridge
Just when I started packing for my trip, I realized that in New York it could get really really cold around this time of the year… and that in Costa Rica, my second destination of this trip, the hot dry season was in full swing (no pun intended).
It turned out to be a very big challenge to pack all the appropriate clothing and other belongings. The fact that I was going to travel for about a year made the packing even more complicated. My initial plan was to travel to countries in South America after staying with my fiancé in Costa Rica for a while.
As you might understand, I had to change my plans because of Covid-19. Anyway, since I didn’t really know where I would end up during this year, I had to be prepared for hot, cold, rainy and windy weather circumstances. Add a DSLR camera, laptop, snorkel and goggles, binoculars, etc… So you can picture me entering New York with two suitcases (a small and a big one), a backpack and a handbag :) .
I stayed in a hostel in Brooklyn, between Bushwick and Williamsburg, a perfect location to start exploring the city by foot. I highly prefer walking (or biking) through cities over taking public transport to get to my destination. Of course, it takes a lot more time to get from A to B, but I just love to roam around through the smaller streets of a city to discover hidden spots with their very own character.
So, on my first day in NY, I walked from my hostel through Williamsburg, crossed the Williamsburg bridge, walked through Chinatown, Little Italy, parts of SOHO, crossed the Brooklyn bridge, where I decided, after a 16K walk and a couple of 70 pictures later, to take the metro to get back to my hostel. Well, people had told me how big New York is, but to experience the dimensions of this city by walking from one part of the city to another and back, just really takes it to the next level! That night, during the sunset, I went all the way up to the top of the Rockefeller Center to take pictures of how billions of lights lit up the city.
On my way to Williamsburg Bridge
Williamsburg Bridge
Brooklyn Bridge
Flushing Avenue metro station
View at sunset from Rockefeller Center
The next day, I visited the world famous Natural History Museum. It took me almost the whole day to go around in this massive building. Almost every theme that is explained and discussed at the Natural History Museum interests me, the ecology, evolution, geology… There was also a butterfly exposition and the funny thing was that most of the butterflies exposed where bred in Costa Rica! Since the Natural History Museum is (relatively) close to Times Square I spent the evening taking pictures of the massive billboards and took in the extremely busy traffic around this place (pedestrians, some cyclists, cars, taxis…)
Butterfly exhibition @Natural History Museum
Around Times Square
The morning of the next day, I joined a street art tour through Bushwick. It was very interesting to get to know about the different styles, artists and the history behind the street art in this part of New York. Then I had a nice lunch with two ladies that I met during the street art tour. They were both from France and they had both moved to New York because their husbands were sent to NY by the companies they work for. They were living in the same apartment building, where they had met each other and once in a while they would discover places in New York together while their kids are at school.
After saying goodbye to them, I took the metro to Union Square Park, crossed Washington Square Park, walked by Friends Apartment, and arrived Chelsea Market and The High Line, where I took pictures during the sunset. My last stop that day, again after about a 16K walk, was Flatiron Building. Time to get home and get some rest!
Graffiti around Bushwick
'Dive into the music'
The High Line
Then it was time to get to know the impressive Ground Zero, the Oculus (an iconic metro station) Wall Street, the Charging Bull and The Battery, a park at the south tip of Manhattan where I had a view of the Statue of Liberty.
That night, it was time to get a taste of the Lindy Hop scene in New York. I went to a small bar, that had announced to host a Lindy Hop event, with two friends. I had got to know one of them years before, during a rock climbing initiation in Thailand in 2014. We were both solo backpackers and by coincidence we met each other about 4 times more in different places in Thailand. It was a pleasure to hang out with her again. I had met the other friend in the hostel were I was staying. The fun part was that she also dances Lindy Hop. We found out by coincidence when we were having a conversation in our hostel room. It was very nice to share this night with them and to get to know some local Lindy Hoppers in New York.
Ground Zero.
A flower is put in the name of a victim on their birthday
The Oculus
Wall Street and the Charging Bull
A homeless person feeding the squirrels and pigeons
Sea Glass Carousel
Then my last day had already arrived… And it was the day of the Super Bowl! It was a pleasure that I could spent this day having lunch with the friend that I had met in Thailand, walk with her through Central Park and, to make my Super Bowl experience complete: Watching the Super Bowl at a friend of hers, eating typical Super Bowl food and getting to know some locals from New York City.
If you would ask me what I think about my experience in New York: I’ve got some mixed feelings about this city. Although New York has it’s very own character and feeling, for me personally, the city is too big and in my experience, there is a lot of social distance between people.
First, there is the difference/distance between rich and poor. The wealth of the incredibly big skyscrapers form a big contrast with the junkies roaming around in the underground. It’s truly a very sad scene. To see this misery everywhere, made it harder for me to just fully enjoy this city without paying attention to this aspect.
Besides, I found it quite hard to make a connection to people in New York. Normally, I would count on meeting a bunch of people in a hostel and also spending time with them during the day to explore a place or city together. I was surprised to see that most people rather spent time with their smartphones in the common rooms than making conversation with the other hostel guests. So, in the end I basically explored New York on my own and I truly missed sharing the experience with other people.
I'm aware that my view is based on only 6 days in New York and a handful of random experiences. Maybe it's not enough to have a very strong opinion about this city. Let's say that it was a first impression.
Of course I’m very grateful for the people that I did meet in New York and with whom I spent some wonderful moments! I also really enjoyed spending my time in New York taking a lot of wonderful pictures :).
Hope you enjoyed them!
Central Park
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