Tuesday

One thing I haven’t written about in this blog is the inequality in America. In all of the big cities we’ve visited we’ve seen many homeless people, usually men and almost always quite old. We’ve seen them pushing shopping trolleys around, loaded with all their possessions, we’ve seen them rummaging through bins hunting for food or sometimes simply shaking a cup and begging for spare change. A few have been in wheelchairs with missing legs, and a lot have claimed to be veterans who can’t afford to buy food.

Before coming here I’d assumed this was something that was just a cliché from 80s films, but it’s not. And the thing that struck me yesterday as we ate a ridiculously large portion of food was that the inequality seemed awful. How can people finish a meal, stuffed so full it hurts and still leave gluttonous proportions of food on their plate while outside people starve. It just seems wrong. Maybe the homeless and the hungry are more hidden in the UK, but it certainly never appears to me to be as bad as this.

Anyway, enough of that. On to what we did on Tuesday. We started the day by getting the subway down to the Meatpacking district (which was a very nice area) and attending the Ground Zero Museum Workshop. This was a fantastic experience. The museum is only in one, small room and so we had to pre book a timeslot to visit (there are currently only 2 tours each day) and there are only 25 people allowed on each tour.

The museum (it's quite small)

Clock stopped at the moment the North Tower collapsed

Artefacts saved by Gary Suson

The room is full of photographs by Gary Suson (who was appointed the official photographer at Ground Zero after mayor Rudy Giuliani banned all photographers form the site) and is inspired by the Anne Frank museum in Amsterdam. Gary documented the recovery at Ground Zero, 17 hours a day, six days a week for a 14 months. There are hundreds of photos and artefacts, many of which you are encouraged to hold and touch, all of which designed to bring you closer to the events and people who died that day.

The crosses and star were cut from the steel beams by recovery workers and given to relatives of the victims.

The tour is interactive, so as you look at a photo or an object, Gary Suson describes on your Tourmate (audio headset) what you are seeing. Luckily, a few of the objects are a bit more light-hearted as it can get quite heavy. It’s a brilliant museum and if you ever visit NYC I recommend you check it out.

We were there for 2 hours, and when we left we were both starving, so we headed to Little Italy for some food. As we wandered the streets looking at restaurants, two guys came out of a little place called La Mela saying “Oh my God, that was so good” “Best food ever!” or something like that, so we stopped them and asked what they had. It sounded good so we said to each other “Let’s go here” and we ate there.  It was laid back and the food was indeed tasty, so a good choice. (Laura: Natalie forgets to mention the fact that there was a ‘proper’ Italian fella on the door, looking like something out of The Sopranos, trying to encourage us to come in. He was all “whaddaya know, youse girls are gonna gedda surprise in here”. There were also lots of photos on the walls of famous people who had eaten there, so we figured it had to be good.)

Famous people on the wall

After that we popped over to Greenwich Village and had a nosey around. We had tea and a gigantic slice of Lemon Meringue Pie at Rocco’s while marvelling at the huge array of cakes and pastries.

We saw the building used for exterior shots of Rachel and Monica’s apartment in Friends.

Greenwich Village seemed like a very nice neighbourhood.

 

We then got on the subway to Flushing Meadow as it was time to get all sporty and watch a baseball game!

First, we wandered around the old World’s Fair Site and marvelled at the unisphere, which was massive.

Worlds Fair Park

If you look closely, you can just see me at the bottom left

At Citifield we somehow found ourselves in the memorabilia shop… so we’re both now kited out with Mets t-shirts, jumpers and hoodies. Whoops! Before taking our seats, I changed into mine so that I would look like more of a fan. What would have helped me more would have been PAYING ATTENTION to the game and not accidentally whooping when the opposing team almost got a home run… whoops again!

We had great seats (a bargain on Stubhub) and enjoyed every minute of the experience: the game, the spectacle, the adverts, the organ, the music, and the interludes between innings. It was great fun. I think if I lived in America I could become a real fan of baseball. The only downside was that it got really cold towards the end of the night. Oh, and the Mets lost (doh!). So at the bottom of the 8^th (get me with my fancy terminology!) we headed off and got the Subway home. Another fab day in New York City.