We’ve been driving on the way up to Nova Scotia, and last night we pulled in to stay in New York City, a couple of blocks away from Times Square. I’ve always suspected it, but now I can say with certainty that I couldn’t handle living in a big city. Just being a passenger in a vehicle nearly gave me a heart attack on the way in. Everyone drives crazy, and there are pedestrians everywhere. And this was at ten ‘o clock at night.
That being said, there are some pretty wonderful aspects as well. After we got checked in, and the car parked in an outlandishly expensive parking garage, we went down to take a look around Times Square. This was by far the busiest, most crowded urban environment I’ve ever been in, and this was in the middle of the night (right around midnight). The streets were alive with pedestrians going back and forth, police keeping order, construction workers closing and renovating streets, garbage collectors cleaning up the piles of trash on every curb, homeless men setting up with their signs and sleeping bags for the night, and dealers of counterfeit goods carrying their bedsheet bags of products about, relocating at a moment’s notice. Remember, this is midnight. And there were hot dog carts and more legitimate table-top vendors to boot.
The next morning we went out and caught a cab to Central Park, which proved impressive on multiple levels, the first one most certainly being the cab driver. I think a drive through Manhattan would amount to a death sentence, myself, but this man navigated just as easily as I do back home in little ‘ol Bradenton, weaving and dodging at screeching to a halt at a moment’s notice. Then came the park. For a city which places real estate at such a premium, with buildings towering dozens of stories above the sidewalk every which way, Central Park was the last thing I expected to find. I’ve seen all sorts of different parks around the places I’ve been—wooded parks with nature trails, parks with open-fields, parks with playgrounds for children or fields for sports practice—and I found each and every one of those types contained within Central Park, and a great deal more. The sheep meadow made for quite possibly one of the most amusing sights I’ve ever seen: a vast, open green field with a picturesque tree line…and skyscrapers rising ominously behind it all. I only wish I’d had my camera handy. If I ever find myself in New York for any extended period of time, I can easily imagine spending a good week with a camera just exploring that park.
After that, we went ahead on to B&H Photo Video, which was simply spectacular. I got to play with unbelievably nice video cameras mounted on exquisitely perfect fluid heads just after I walked through the door. Then there was the kid-in-a-candy store awe of the lighting department, and the multiple floors of just about every bit and piece of photo gear I could imagine. I finally got a chance to take Canon’s 1D and 1Ds cameras for a test-run, and couldn’t believe how nice the bodies felt…and how fast the 1D Mark III fired. The store also had an awfully nifty order system. You place an order at a sales counter up stairs, and then they give you a receipt and send you to the checkout counter. While you’re paying at one desk, they put your order in a box that goes along a conveyor belt down to the merchandise pickup desk. You just head over there with receipt in hand after paying, and they hand you your stuff, all bagged up and ready. Quite possibly the most efficient system I’ve ever seen in a store.
After all that, we had lunch, packed up, and headed out. Not a terribly long trip to the city, but enough to get a taste. Perhaps I’ll come back some day, and see the vast bulk of it that’s still left, but who knows. I know for sure that I could do without that traffic for the rest of my life.