18 & Life

I wrote this piece at fifteen years old after visiting New York. It’s my young self’s recollection interspersed with facts about the Big Apple.

Darkness. Just darkness. Where am I? Argh! Now there’s a shrill ringing sound coming from somewhere. Slowly but surely, little by little, my brain starts to function again. The next sense I recover is my sight; I’m in my bed. It’s dark outside. The glowing orange digits of the noisy alarm clock read 0500. Five in the morning!? It’s not time for school yet, is it?

My memory then comes back to me; I’m not going to school. I’m going with the school – to New York City!

New York City is the largest city in the United States, and one of the world’s major global conurbations. Located in the state of New York itself, the city has a population of over 8.2 million within an area of 321 square miles, making it the most densely populated major city in North America. With a population of 18.7 million, the New York Metropolitan Area is one of the largest urban areas in the world. Hope I don’t get lost.

So after just under a year of waiting, I find myself sitting in Glasgow Airport at six o’ clock in the freezing February morning. I’m cold and tired – my body is being kept active on sheer excitement (and before the flight, a rather regrettable Burger King meal). Kitted out in the finest new cowboy boots, I eventually board the plane for the Big Apple. After a nine hour flight, featuring a stop in Reykjavik (which is forgetable, to say the least) we touch down in JFK airport, the biggest international gateway into the United States. Still buzzing, we march out of the plane into Terminal 7, and I set foot on a non-European country for the first time.

And wow.

Being in New York in person is a thousand times different from seeing it on television. Compared to Glasgow, it’s like stepping into another world; the future, even. From the bus to the hotel in Times Square, the gasps and ‘Wow! Look at that!’s don’t stop for a second. Every building glitters, glows, flashes, sparkles, or advertises Coca Cola. There’s neon lights aplenty, and some of them even have a letter flickering – a true authentic touch of big city class. The residential parts of the city have a very distinctive character. Stone and brick became the city’s construction materials of choice after the construction of wood-frame houses was limited in the aftermath of the Great Fire of 1835. Unlike Paris, which for centuries was built from its own limestone bedrock, New York has always drawn its building stone from a far-flung network of quarries and its stone buildings have a variety of textures and hues. The majority of them are at least twice the height of those in Glasgow, which emphasizes how small Britain is in comparison to the States. After a quick trip to McDonald’s (true American culture!), we go back to our hotel and hit the hay, ready for the experience of a life time.

KRRR-CHOOOOOM!

We’re awoken the next morning by a huge thunderstorm. Nothing to be afraid of, but after 9/11, what’s the first thing you think of when you’re eleven storeys up in a New York building, and hear a loud explosion? After we shake off the remaining jetlag and terror-sweat, we meet everyone in the lobby and find out our mission briefing for Day One. We’ll be visiting the UN building, the Guggenheim Museum, and then going to see an ice hockey game between the Toronto Mapleleafs and New York Rangers at Madison Square Gardens. Before we leave, my friend Jo almost jumps through a mirror, mistaking it for a corridor. This starts off my day quite nicely.

A very long march through Manhattan (gasps and camera flashes at all angles) eventually leads us to the United Nations Headquarters, surrounded by the different nations’ flags. The building was constructed in New York City in 1949 and 1950 beside the East River on land purchased by an 8.5 million dollar donation from John D. Rockefeller, Jr. The land remains the territory of the United States. However, the site of the United Nations headquarters has extraterritorial status as embassies do. This affects some law enforcement where UN rules override the laws of New York City, but does not give immunity to crimes that take place there. The architecture of the inside building is staggering, and the fact we’re standing in the room where the most important and powerful people in the world gather adds to the amazement we experience.

After we get our fill of amazement, it’s a trek through upper Manhattan (I really am regretting the boots by this point), and we’re at the Guggenheim museum. It was founded to showcase avant-garde art by early modernists such as Wassily Kandinsky and Piet Mondrian. Don’t worry, I’ve no idea who they are either. It moved to its present location, at the corners of 89th Street and Fifth Avenue (overlooking Central Park), in 1959, when Frank Lloyd Wright’s design for the site was completed. It’s the strangest looking building I’ve ever seen; it’s a large cylindrical tower, and you scale it by following a twisting path around the sides. Exhaustion and bloody feet (as well as a general lack of interest) prevent us from taking it all in, but next we have the ice hockey, which is a definite highlight of the trip.

Thus, next stop on the excitment train is Madison Square Gardens; a large arena used for sporting events and concerts, and also the entity which owns the arena and several of the professional sports franchises which play there. We’re siding with the Rangers tonight, obviously. Our school name is even displayed on the monitors, to tremendous applause. Before the game begins, a certain deputy headmaster returns from the bar claiming they asked him for identification. No one believes him. Despite the the obvious opposition of the two teams, for those in the audience tonight is simply about having a good time – no matter whose side you are on. From my personal experience of attending football games in Scotland, there is always an air of uninspiring rivalry in the stadiums, while during games at smaller venues those in attendance often exchange unpleasantries with fans of the opposing team, occasionally to the point of physical violence. There is a notable difference in atmosphere in Madison Square, as the Americans sitting around us simply share laughs together and cheer for their team, without resorting to pointlessly insulting the Canadian visitors; it makes for a much more pleasant and enjoyable experience. So even if the New York Rangers hadn’t absolutely mauled the Mapleleafs, good times would still have been had by all! We also found it worth noting that Mike Myers was in attendance. Starstruck.

The people we encountered in New York were all exceptionally friendly; people greeted us with a bright ‘Good morning!’ when we came down to breakfast, and many locals smiled and wished us a good day as we walked the streets. Behind the neon and typical sleazy gutter phenomena of New York is a community strongly held together by caring residents from all walks of life. After an event like the September 11th attacks, the brotherhood of New Yorkers were undoubtedly blessed with a much stronger bond than before; getting through such a horrific time together would definitely have linked them all in some way, regardless of any pre-existing rivalries such as those that exist between violent, Sectarian groups of Glasgow and the rest of the UK. Despite the bustling streets and eternal traffic jams, I notice a sense of togetherness and peace in the various neighbourhoods we trek through.

The next day, after one badly-organised train journey in which we risked life and limb running through different carriages (the trains are so big in New York you have to be in a certain carriage to get off at the correct station), we arrive at South Ferry, where we catch the boat to the most famous and easily recognised New York structures; the Statue of Liberty, the big lady herself. Given to the United States by France in 1885, standing at Liberty Island in the mouth of the Hudson River in New York Harbor, it is a welcome to all visitors, immigrants, and returning Americans. It is actually a lot smaller and chubbier than it looks in pictures and on television (it’s also green), but it’s still a breath-taking sight to behold. If you look over to the city from Liberty Island, you see one of the most famous New York skylines; the Empire State Building, the waterfront – and the area where the World Trade Centre once stood. The skyline of New York is one of the most recognizable in the world. The city actually has three separately recognizable skylines: Midtown Manhattan, Lower Manhattan, and Downtown Brooklyn.

On the penultimate night we find ourselves looking out over the city from the top of the Empire State Building, witnessing New York in all of its terrifyingly high glory, and experiencing a true sense of belonging. The elevator back down feels like a crash back to reality, as does the plane landing back in rainy, grey Glasgow with its boring, unanimated buildings. It pales in comparison to our new spiritual home, the Big Apple, which now feels like a universe away. One must wonder how a city simply located across a body of water from Glasgow and even in the same hemisphere manages to have such a different feel to our home. In my opinion, while both cities fully embrace Western culture, it is a simple case of our transatlantic cousins doing nothing by halves, its potentially garish buildings standing as an inspiring symbol of the city’s achievement. Apparently it never sleeps, but after the experience it’s given us, I think we can allow it to catch forty winks.