I had two dreams several years ago. In the first one, I saw myself sitting
on top of some high grey building like a bird sitting on the rooftop, watching
a flow of people and cars underneath me. Those buildings in front of me looked
like some kind of Roman palaces with tall pillars. I didn't realize back
then that what I was watching was Wall Street, until recently.
In the second dream, me and some other girl who felt like my sister, were
walking towards a city in a distance, with towering buildings and we were crossing very busy roads. In that dream I have realized it
was probably New York, although I have never wished to visit it before or did
not have slightest interest in going there.
Me and my sister Gabi arrived to New York on 28th May, 2024. Don't ask me
how it happened, because there were moments when I was not sure I really wanted
to go. The original purpose was publishing of my recent book and a promise of
book signing, which did not work out in the end. In my mind I was already half
decided I will go, just out of pure curiosity. I will skip the boring parts
like ten hours flight and one hour travel from JFK to the city, but what I will
talk about is the feeling NY gave me.
Well, what can I say. After sticking our heads from the metro at PENN STATION that very evening, I was like in a dream. The Empire state building
just right in front of me, Madison square gardens on my right. I felt
dumbfounded and exhilarated. It was literally like a fantasy movie. It wasn' t the fact that those glass and steel monsters would be THAT beautiful, because they were
not, but they were impressive, powerful. Creating a
feeling one should feel when seeing America for real. The power and might and the
impossible made possible, that is what America is all about. We accomodated at THE LIFE hotel in Koreatown, a former Life magazine offices. On the way there
we encountered many stinky garbage bags lined up along the streets waiting to
be taken away, a bunch of homeless Latinos sitting on the pavement in front of
Saint Francis of Assisi church and lot of hustle and bustle in the streets all around. They say you will have a culture shock when in New York and they
were completely right.
The next day we had a breakfast at BREAD AND BUTTER eatery, which proved to
be the best spot to eat in, as we later discovered. From there we took 5th
Avenue up the hill to stroll around. We visited GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL, a very
impressive building, which serves as a main train station. One guy showed us a
black little spot on the ceiling and told us that this was a smoke stain from
past times, which was left uncovered, as a reminder. We then continued to St.
Patrick's church and had a glimpse of Times square during a daylight. As the
distances between each sight were quite enormous, we rested our tired legs in BRYANT PARK, a medium size oasis with alley of trees and cute little tables and
chairs, where many New Yorkers took a breeze with us.
The day 2 - we took 7th Avenue down the hill to get to GREENWICH VILLAGE and SOHO. That was our agenda for the day. I wanted to stop at Peter MacManus pub,
where Highlander scene took place. Christopher Lambert as Connor Macleod meets
Brenda inside as he sits at the bar, then walks out into the lonely, misty
night. I sat on the steps and took few pictures, as the pub was closed during
the morning. I am a freak when it comes to movie locations, especially antyhing
to do with Queen and Highlander, as that is my most favourite movie of all
time.
After half an hour we slowly reached GREENWICH VILLAGE, a totally different
quarter with very posh, snobby vibes, but nontheless cute. One felt like
entering some British town with all those alleyways, neat porches, old brick
and stone houses and huge wooden doors. There were almost no people, only bunch
of tourists in front of Carrie Bradshaw' s house, a famous Sex in the City
character ( which I never watched). We then moved on to SOHO, another quarter
just across the street, which had yet another vibe to it. You could feel
touchable shift in energies when it came to individual zones of the city. I
have never experienced anyhting like it before, because in Prague, there is
only old part of the city and new one, nothing in between. Here you had
diversities, a huge energy shift as if you walked from one world into antoher.
SOHO felt very bohemian. People looked and walked different, they were suddenly
more colourful and free, diverse. With a hindsight, I would say that SOHO was
the best vibing place from all New York, together with Central Park.
My sister insisted we continue towards Financial district, although I knew
it' s a trip for one day on its own. We took it around CITY SUPREME COURT, at
which point I started to realize how little I knew of New York. Those buildings
were getting higher and higher and my neck was broken from constantly looking up.
What we encountered was a huge amount of reporter cars with satellites, tons of
cops and many people with strange signposts and messages on their t-shirts,
from which was obvious, that Trump must be around. I knew that there was
ongoing process with Trump over his scandalous and illicit activities and money
laundering. I just did not expect to witness the gathering of his followers and
opposers. There was a crowd in the park that rushed after someone with cameras
and microphones, but I could not see if it was Trump himself or his
spokesperson. I only remember a homeless looking guy waving a huge cross over
his hairy head. Probably nothing unsual in
America.
From there we went right up to the BROOKLYN BRIDGE, which was yet another enormous looking structure, which I knew from movies and documentaries. It took maybe half an hour to cross that gigant made of stone and steel, but the wind here was fresh and the views were simply amazing. My sister noted that some of the buildings in this part of city look like Mordor, the city of Sauron. I had to agree with her on that, as I have never seen buildings so intimidating as these. When on the bridge, I suddenly recalled my dream of New York, it came as a dejavouz.
We visited DUMBO, which is right underneath the bridge, a very popular
photographic spot and I must say, very impressive too. I liked the vibe there,
it felt more at ease then the hot steamy Financial district we just left. You
could walk across a little park and sit by the shore, watching the rest of the
city from another side. The waves of the sea were crashing against the banks,
people were relaxing and chatting to each other and it was all fine until the
moment when we tried to get back. Our legs could barely carry us anymore and there was
not a chance in hell I was able to cross that bridge again. We needed to find a
metro. This city had one huge problem, and that was a lack of signposts. Let me
correct myself. Lack is too weak a word. There were none at all. We never knew
where we were and if we did not use GPS all the time, we would be lost forever.
Fortunatelly, New Yorkers proved to be extremely kind and helpful, always
giving us directions when they saw our lost faces. Sometimes they approached us
even without us asking them for favour, which was unheard of. That would not
happen in Prague, and I consider Czech people friendly. But New Yorkers
surprised us extremely and quite unexpectedly.
I asked a tired cop sitting on the bench to give us directions to metro. He looked up with his bloodshot eyes, probably too tired to even think. 'Sorry, how long is it to reach a metro from here?', I asked. He paused as if thinking hard, then laughing, replied: 'about three days', and then he gave me a fist bump (i found out later that' s how they call it, as I only knew high five). When we finally reached the metro or what looked like an entrance to it, we were not sure which line to take. New York metro is a very complicated web of lines that intertwine and go various directions, and as we later found out, it is not easy even for New Yorkers themselves. The homeless guy in a wheelchair happily informed us how to get the right metro. After this tiresome, long walk, we returned to Financial district once more, to see WALL STREET and the CHARGING BULL. The funny thing about the BULL was the two queues on each side of it. One lining up for balls, another one for the head. We didn't intend to take selfie with either, so we just took a photo of the bull and that was it, problem solved. The people are queing there till today.....
My sister was still not happy and would not leave the Ferry for another day, as I suggested. We went to look for FERRY that went around STATUE OF LIBERTY. It was in BATTERY PARK just closeby and it was free of charge. The ferry took us on the edges of New York from where we had marvellous views of the whole panorama, the Statue was quite a distance from us, but I did not mind that much. On our way back to metro station, we visited the saddest and most memorable place of all, the TWIN TOWER MEMORIAL. First we could not find it, so when I asked a lady by a metro where is Twin towers, she turned around and pointed just behind my shoulder. It was funny and not funny, if you know what I mean. We were few metres from something that used to be hugely present twenty years ago, yet now it was invisible. There were only enormous square holes with waterfalls in the ground in the place where Towers used to be. On the frame of the wall were hundreds of engraved names, the victims. I placed my hand on several names, one of them was of Peter Adam Feidelberg. I looked up his name later at home just to discover that he was the last victim to be identified. He moved to NY for work shortly before attacks with his wife Meredith, whose body was never found. And that was only one person out of 2.996. My heart was heavy as I felt strong connection with this place, re-living the moment that has happened 23 years ago. Everyone knows where he was and what he was doing on this fateful day. I was in Ireland watching the news in our little kitchen, when the towers went down and I cried.
Then we moved further through Central park buzzing with horse carriages and rikshaws. The energy of this part of park was extremely calming to soul. Once, while sitting on the bench, a huge turtle popped its head out from the leaves behind us. We then continued to BOW bridge, where part of Highlander took place. Connor Macleod meets his buddy immortal and they shake their hands on the bridge after not seeing each other for centuries. Frome there, we went around BETSHEDA, which is very ornamental pavillion with an angelic fountain. Later, totally axhausted by all day walking, we sat in the huge park on SHEEPS MEADOW. We took our shoes off and cooled our feet in the cold grass. There we hundreds of young people sprayed around the park, sitting and talking, picnicking or playing with ball. It was very welcome and desired break. After that we went throught the busy city streets towards Roosevelt tram station, to take a ride with a red cabin they called a tram here. It takes you across the river to ROOSEVELT ISLAND and you can see some amazing views on the way. As I lost my weekly metro card the day before, I had to purchase individual tickets, which were not much, around 3 USD. There was not much to see on the other side, except take in the river views and then return back, so we did, but for a change, my sister's OMNY card stopped working and she had to be led through by one employee. I knew that Freddie owned a flat just across the river and I tried to look it up, but we were too tired to search for it.
Day - 4 My sister went to a Vivian Maier exhibition in the morning, so we walked towards Park Avenue, stopping on our way in MADISON SQUARE. Unfortunatelly for us, the famous FLATIRON building was just under reconstruction, so we did not see it in its full glory. We stopped in the MADISON SQUARE PARK, where was something very cute - the playground for small and big dogs, both set separate from each other, so that even dogs had their own peace of mind. I have never encountered such a thing and I thought it was such a great idea. New Yorkers definitely love their dogs and plenty of them had one. After that we had a breakfast in bagel shop called Zucker's, where they made delicious cream cheese filling. I might also mention that we walked around FRIEND'S STUDIO EXPERIENCE, where all the famous TV series took place. We continued to UNION PARK, had a peek inside the famous Barnes and Noble bookstore and strolled around the farmer's market, where they sold lot of vegetables, fruits and flowers. It was getting incredibly hot, so we hid under the trees for a while and then continued to WASHINGTON PARK, where we sat for another while to watch people sitting by a huge fountain. Needed to say that both me and my sister were photographing each step of our way, mostly taking pictures of the colourful aray of humanity.
After this experience, we decided to visit Soho once more, but we could not
find anything more interesting so we moved on to LITTLE ITALY, a long
busy street lined up with Italian restaurants. It was very hot and in front of
each restauramt was a waiter who tried to grab an attention by offering you
good price, the best spaghetti in the world or both. In the end, totally
exhausted and me near to death by hunger, we decided to sit in Umberto's clam
house, where I had spaghetti with meatballs. Just one portion cost me 16 USD
and they also charged me 3 USD extra as an automatic tip, which took me by
surprise, because nobody warned me. And that was the cheapest meal in LITTLE
ITALY I could get! We also stopped at some Italian ice cream in Ferrara cafe,
where we had to queue ten minutes with ice cream to get to the cash register,
at which point our ice cream was almost running down our hands. Do not chose
pistachio. It was bitter and I did not like it one bit. Or maybe I was just
unlucky. Sorry Ferraras.
After little bit of Italy we strolled again through Soho, walking around
Comedy cellar and then at one point, not sure exactly where, as we were
crossing the zebra, I looked up at a guy coming right in front of me. It was a
split second, but I immediately recognized those eyes, that were hiding behind
sunglasses. He walked with some girl, but I didn' t notice her much. Just
as he walked past us, me and my sister looked at each other and both said at
the same time ' Jude Law'. It was such a funny moment because we were almost sure
he must have heard us. He continued
walking though, as if things like these were a daily occurence. My sister wouldn' t want to
follow him, so I took at least few photos from behind, like an
experienced paparazzi. There was some footbal match that night and all the
pubs and bars were loaded with merry people drinking beer. My sister agreed
with her friend Damien that we would meet in Washington park. He then took us
for a fast paced walk along the scenic Hudson Yard's HIGHLINE, which took us
along the edges of the city. It used to be an old railway, now overgworn with
grass. A beautiful sunset followed us on our journey. At the end of the path,
we got to the open square where was a monumental building called the VESSEL.
After that we parted with Damien and went home.
Day 5 – we went to Central park again, only this time by walk, which took
much longer. There was an Israeli support march, so when we reached near the
park, we were suddenly engulfed by hundreds of protesters and NYPD guarding
each square metre. We chose the wrong turn and were swept away into the crowds
and were pushed further and further in to the parade. It took us additional hour to circle back to where we started from so that we would be able to
re-enter Central park. We followed the familar route around Betsheda and the
Lake, then deeper into the park until we finally reached JAQUELINE KENNEDY'S RESERVOIR,
which is approximately in the middle of Central park. If you check out the map,
you will be shocked, how much distance we covered. I could barely walk at this
point, so we had to stop every ten minutes and take a rest. And rest we did.
Right in the middle of the GREAT LAWN, which at this afternoon hour was full of
baseball players, pedestrians, dog lovers, families with kids, boxers training to
be a next new Mike Tyson, rolleskaters and so forth. After we took the long
needed rest, we went back through city until we reached BROADWAY. I went to take
a look at the GERSWHIN THEATRE, which hosted Queen as a first rock band back in
the 70’s. (The old name was Uris theatre). We also saw CARNEGIE HALL, RADIO CITY as well as main Broadway theatre, where Chicago was currently on play. As
we were closing down to TIMES SQUARE, the streets were getting cloged with more
and more people. Until we reached it. The fabulous but very energy demanding
TIMES SQUARE. We sat on top of the stairs and waited perhaps two hours until
dark. The city buzz and energy was unreal. There was so much to absorb, so many
things and people to watch, but at the same time, the noise and the vibe was
extremely exhausting. We couldn‘t stay here for too long, so we left home. As we
were walking through various parts of the city, we encountered Mickey mouses,
Muppets, Spiderman, then a group of Mexicans playing their music, twenty metres
apart from another ethnic group, which were probably New York black rappers and
then some group who sounded like Haare Krishnas, but I could not be sure.
It was like a boiling pot full of flavours and you just didn‘ t know what to
taste first.
Day 6 – As this was to be our final day, or whatever was left off it, we decided to just take it easy and also, to finalize it with TOP OF THE ROCK, the famous Rockefeller Tower. The entrance fee was around 42 USD. It took us a while to orient ourselves in the bottomles pit of the groundfloor with no signposts that would say where to go. We had to ask maybe three times before we finally found it. The elevator took us several floors up to be checked by security guards as we made it through the electronic gates. I suppose precautions after 9/11. After that we were herded together with another few morning visitors into another elevator, that took us up with astounding speed. The 70 floors flew by in several seconds and we could also watch the speeding machine through the glass ceiling. The views were breathless indeed. As we still had plenty time until departure, which was at 8pm, we went for last lunch to our favourite hotspot, the Bread and butter, where they made the most delicious Pozole soup.
We then spent some time in Union park, taking some more pictures and then moved to STUYVESANT PARK, where we encountered a lady leading a hog on the leash. Something out of this world. And then we headed back to hotel to gather our belongings. The worst part of the whole stay in New York was to travel by their metro. It was dirty (yes we met a junkee with needle in his hand sitting on the stairs), but also very confusing not only for us, but as we could find out, even for some of the city dwellers, as they all sent us different directions and none of them really knew where Jamaica station is. With suitcases, we run across from one pltaform to another to find out we were sent the wrong way, then running back to catch the metro to find out my sister’s metro card won’t let her enter – so in a pure desparation I ordered her to squeeze under the tourniquets so that we could leave this terrible place. Oh I forgot to mention she also had a dream prior to travelling to New York. She got stuck in the tunnel in metro and could not reach me. We must be some kind of visionaries……or something similar. Our frustration slowly dissipated as soon as we were finally sitting on the correct metro going, to Jamaica. From there we changed over to Air Train and then continued another journey to airport. And then we waved goodbye to NY flying over the night lights flickering below us. It was wonderful, amazing, intense, exciting, frustrating, wild. It was beautiful and ugly, it contained it all. But I could not be happier to leave and see my little daughter and hold her tight. There is nothing like HOME, I'm sure everyone will agree. BIG THANK YOU NEW YORK FOR BEING SO KIND TO US AND GIVING US THE RIGHT TO SAY : 'HEY JUDE'
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