From Skeptic to Smitten: One Week in New York City

My feet ache. My lower back tingles with a light soreness from hours of walking. I slept maybe 4 hours last night. Suddenly, the tunnel gives way to daylight and the sparkling skyline of New York City appears out the window, shining through the golden hour of the early morning like the North Star. It’s beautiful. The train continues to churn forward towards Boston, and I catch more glimpses of the city in between rusty beams of a bridge. I shuffle a playlist on my Spotify, and the first two songs couldn’t be more apt – I Always Wanna Die by The 1975 and You Are a Tourist by Death Cab for Cutie. The lyrics hit me in the feels:

I bet you thought your life would change, but you’re sat on a train again.

And if you feel just like a tourist in the city you were born, then it’s time to go and define your destination.

What a coincidence. Is the universe trying to tell me something? I should be exhausted, but I feel jazzed. Maybe I’m running on adrenaline. Maybe the past week in New York awoke something inside me. Just like London, I feel like I left a piece of my heart in this city. 

It wasn’t immediate sunshine and rainbows with NYC. When we first arrived a week ago, it was overcast and rainy – fine, whatever, I get that in Seattle – but the late August humidity was truly stifling. It was even worse in the subway station. I felt sticky. Our hotel was located in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood, a couple blocks north of Times Square. After being initially fascinated by the giant electronic billboards, I felt a little let down. This was New York? It was dirty, over-commercialized, every block had its own foul smells, and it seemed like everyone was trying to sell me something. All of us, including my wife’s parents who had joined us for part of the trip, remarked that London was so much nicer. After a day in London, I was ready to move. New York…not so much. 

But then, things started to change. The next morning, as my wife and I started across the Brooklyn Bridge, the clouds parted and the sun danced across the brilliant skyscrapers that stretched towards the heavens. Walking across that bridge felt like something out of a movie. I pulled out my Canon G7X and snapped some photos of my wife – potentially the best I’ve taken so far as an amateur photographer who doesn’t know what he’s doing. On the other side, we explored DUMBO and took in the iconic view of the Manhattan Bridge from the street. The trip only got better from here on out.

Yes, these are raw, unedited images straight from the Canon. I guess sometimes I know what I’m doing.

Of course, we hit all the tourist spots. The Financial District, 9/11 museum, boat ride to the Statue of Liberty, multiple observatories, Central Park, MoMA, Grand Central Station, Natural History Museum, The Highline…the list goes on. We might’ve set a record for most bars visited in a week. There’s always more to explore. New York operates on a scale unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. We spent most of a day in Central Park and my wife’s “scratch map” app told us that we only saw 5% of it. It’s mind boggling. I picture what living here would look like: a potential new adventure every week, experiencing a unique part of the city, venturing out to a pop-up exhibit, a fancy new restaurant or even just a picnic with a skyline view. As you can tell, I like to daydream. My heart likes the idea of NYC, but my brain says that living there and traveling there are entirely different. I’m sure at some point, the mundanity of life takes a hold and New York feels normal again. Regardless, the possibilities in the city are endless.

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The train screeches into its first stop, and I reminisce on earlier events this week. After a brief return to our hotel one evening, my wife and I walked along 5th Ave up towards Central Park, finally reaching the edge of the vast green landscape. We strolled into the darkness, and stopped to take in the massive buildings on Billionaire’s Row that bent upwards in front of us, looking like an optical illusion. I’ve seen my fair share of skyscrapers living near Seattle but damn…this was different. It didn’t feel real. I’m not sure how else to describe it except in that moment, I felt like a giddy kid again. A weird thing to say about buildings I’ll never be able to afford to live in. New York, you are something else.

Later in the week, we met up with two old friends – a high school buddy that is now the executive chef at a Brooklyn brewery and a former co-worker from my last job who now works at a cyber security startup. Their reviews of New York were nothing short of glowing. They praised  the character of the city, the never-ending events, the architecture, and the ability to live 5-10 minutes from work (by subway or even walking). There seems to be a stereotype that New York is just a temporary holding place until people burn out and move somewhere quieter and slower-paced. With these two, I found quite the opposite. They’ve been here years and still love it. I guess your mileage may vary.

A quick aside to shout out my friend’s brewery & kitchen, Sound and Fury. If you’re in Brooklyn, do yourself a favor and order a beer and a pizza here. You won’t regret it.

Now give me a second to shout out the walkability, just like I did in my London blog. We love a walkable city with good public transportation! Honestly, it may be even better here than London. Manhattan is flat and built on a perfect grid (with the exception of Broadway), so you can find your way around easily. By the end of the week, we could find our hotel without looking at Maps (for the most part). Just be advised that the Don’t Walk signs at crosswalks are mere suggestions for New Yorkers. Everyone has somewhere to be and they aren’t waiting around. The subway system is also solid. The lines we needed were randomly closed one night, which resulted in me killing my feet walking all the way back to our hotel, but other than that it was easy, cheap and straightforward. Get on a train and go explore every neighborhood – from the Upper West Side to Hudson Yards to the East Village, they all have their own unique vibe. Hey Mamdani, can we get some A/C in the subway tunnels though?

I would be remiss not to mention some of the problems with NYC in this blog while I’m at it. Yes, it has crime. It’s a big city. There was a fatal stabbing in Times Square while we were in town. Overall though, the crime rate in NYC is pretty low in comparison to other large cities in the United States. Their trash system is also weird. They basically chuck all the trash bags in a giant, smelly heap on the sidewalk until they’re picked up. I realize some areas have started using bins, but it seems to be infrequent so far. The last point I’ll mention is that it’s reeeaaalllyyy expensive. It makes Seattle look like a backwoods town in the middle of nowhere. Good cocktails are basically $20 minimum. Buying a condo is out of the question entirely, as even if you found a place with a decent price, the HOA charges thousands of dollars more a month. You can rent a nice 500 square foot apartment - if you’re willing to split it with 2 other people. I’m sure there are cheap meals somewhere, but I sure didn’t find them.

Seriously, like…there has to be a better way.

With all that being said, people obviously still live in New York City, even with lower paying jobs, and they make it work. It’s not impossible or no one would be there. Honestly, after a week, I understand why. There’s something about this place that’s hard to replicate. It feels built around people. Like someone purposefully architected a perfect Sim City. If you have a passion, you can explore it here. You can find the greatest financial institutions in the world, but also some of the most talented artists. You can stroll around acres of greenery or take a picture with a guy in a gorilla costume in front of a giant LED sign. It seems contradictory, but in NYC it works. It’s an ode to the duality of man.  New York City understands what makes a city work and executes it well. It’s living and breathing. It has a pulse. People keep it alive. There I go again with my clichés, but you get the point.

The train pulls into Boston South Station. The next few days will be spent staying with a high school friend in Charlestown, and I’m sure Boston will be an experience of its own. Can’t wait to write more. For now, thanks for an unforgettable week, NYC.

For more photos: @trevor_farthing

Thanks for reading.
-T