Visiting New York for the First Time

What the hell do you write about New York that hasn’t already been written a thousand times over? Trying to have a unique thought about this place that isn’t unfair or extreme is a task I’m not sure anyone has been able to rise to since Fran Lebowitz.

It’s been a while since I was there and truly it feels like a dream, not because it was fluffy and nice and clean. Quite the opposite. It is such a seen place; it feels familiar, deeply distant and unreal. It's the opposite of seeing the place you live in on a TV show or a film. You step inside the movie and rather than knowing how the streets connect, you recognise corners and snapshots and have no idea how to get from one place to another.

The first experience of visiting New York for the first time from outside the US is queueing. Once you have queued to get off your plane. You queue to go through immigration. I don’t begrudge a nation having a secure or even thorough process of admission but this experience was trying. Standing in a packed, warm passport hall with people from around the world all desperate not to have to be near one another, after 6+ hours sharing the same air on a plane filled with farts.

Several days later (or at least it felt that way), at the end of the never ending line, we were through. We were here, in the land of the free and the home of the… hang on, why is our case on the ground? The conveyor belts were going but we’d spent so long in the queue our checked bag had either had enough or gotten dizzy and decided to line up on the floor with the other baggage. We’d been in the queue for so long there was no more space for it on the belt. This complaint may now also feel endless.

On the subway to our hotel at Times Square, (yeah, that one, heard of it?) the stops came more into focus as we got closer, more recognisable and familiar. We surfaced. It slaps you in the face, unapologetically. The sights, heights and smells all at once. Perfect.

The reason for staying in a hotel just off Times Square was twofold. One, there was a good package deal when booking flights through British Airways. The other was because it played into my mantra for the whole trip. ‘You’re a tourist in New York City, lean into it’. This was the trip to do all the touristy things, with full enthusiasm and annoying excitement that only someone with an I heart NY tee can bring.

Times Square itself was a nightmare. It looks great but actually trying to walk through it and take it in is like trying to suck mashed potato through a straw. There’s too much, you don’t have the power to process it all and you end up with a headache. As we wandered through, blinded by the sounds and deafened by the brightness, a woman in a long leather coat crossed our path, strutting, followed closely by a small young man who looked nervous. They looked like ‘important person’ and ‘important person's long suffering assistant’. The woman stepped out into traffic. A car destined for her slams on its brakes and blares its horn. The woman in the long leather coat raised her hand and slammed it on the bonnet of the car exclaiming ‘fu*k off!’ all while not breaking her stride. She disappeared into the distance, followed by the small man.

I didn’t have the heart to tell her the line was ‘I’m walkin’ here’. Not that she seemed to be in the mood for feedback.

This was the character of the city. Yes, there are nice people and places. But the attitude of ‘you’ve got to shout about what you want or you wont get it’ is the overriding vibe. Even if all you want is that car to fuck off.

This brings me to the crux of this piece. I want to write something cool about this city. I want to delve into some interesting insights and point out things that make you go ‘he really got under that city's skin’. All I have for you at this point is my unbridled excitement and basic touristy tips. The truth is, I have nothing cool to say about this place. Not this time at least. I know if I were to go back now, exactly what I’d do differently, what I wouldn’t do and what I'd take a chance on. Then I’d have you nodding at your screen, smiling and thinking; ‘this guy has something to say about the Big Apple’.

There is such pressure on New York to be incredible but it doesn't seem to fall foul of expectation in the way that Paris does. It delivers exactly what you want because actually, you knew what you were going to get all along. This huge, unkempt, beautiful, mesmerising, smelly, fascinating city exists both in the real world and in our mind. We think we know it, but its true appeal is that it can’t ever really be known.