I love NY (at least, Manhattan, so far)

[question everything]

Just came back from a family reunion and a visit to the city.

First, when we took a shuttle from LGA to Manhattan, I was fascinated by the sites on the way. Coming from semi-homogeneous Lilly white suburb of Minneapolis, I am always captivated by the diversity of people and stores and languages that I see in NY. But.. then I was thinking that someone from the bible belt could look at the same sites with horrors, claiming that "this is not America."

We went to a museum that also had a time line of Hitler rising to power with the almost immediate new laws and WWII. And as I was reading about persecuting homosexuals, and about the promise of "law and order" I shivered. Was just toooooo close to home.

It was raining hard on Friday, so we ducked to Federal Hall, and read George Washington's inaugural address and, again, concluded about the descent to hell from George to George. Our spirits were lifted a bit on our subway ride back to our hotel, when we noticed a "Fuck Bush" sticker on the coat of a woman sitting across the aisle.

Last year we climbed the Empire State Building on Christmas Day and my spouse, while going around the observation tower, zooming the camera on the sites below, exclaimed that there was a Concorde in the harbor.

Thus, this time, on a very cold and windy Saturday we headed to the Air, Space and Sea museum aboard the aircraft carrier Intrepid to climb aboard the Concorde. Very very narrow. The Intrepid herself is interesting, but these times provides a place for many to express their patriotism, I think.

Some years ago I was enchanted by the movie "Monsoon Wedding" - by all the vivid colors, and songs and dancing, and thus was curious about the musical "Bombay Dreams." It was nice but I thought that the dances were different. I remember the wedding dances in "Monsoon" as gentle, with the hips swaying seductively. In "Bombay" the hip swaying turned into sharp gyration and some of the dance movements were really hip hop moves.

As we stepped into a near-by restaurant for a light snack, I noticed a huge lighted billboard on one of the building of Times Square congratulating Senator Chuck Schumer on his re-election.... This felt good, too.

The sun finally returned this morning, though was till cold when we visited Central Park and when I saw some joggers wearing only shorts I shivered just looking at them. But it was nicer as we, after watching "Angels in America" on HBO, headed to the Bethesda fountain. I almost expected the angel to lift his head.

We walked north into the "Ramble" which is supposed to be a quiet oasis in the middle of the city except for a noisy helicopter that kept circling around and around.

Wonder whether the Pale (Hawk) Male is still there.

As I said, I love NY. Looking forward to our next visit. There is so much to see.

[gristy]

1. you write very well

[question everything]

4. Thank you. I could not think of a better place to describe

my impressions than here.

[NYC Liberal]

2. Isn't it great?

I could never live anywhere that has a severe level of Freeper infestation.

:hi:

[Lex]

3. I was born and raised in a small town in North Carolina

but the first time I visited Manhattan, I fell in absolutely in love with it.

I totally understand what you're saying. Thanks for sharing it with us.

[Nightowl_2004]

5. I absolutely loved New York when I went about 2 years ago

Awesome place!

[bpcmxr]

6. The capitol of Planet Earth

It's an amazing place. I've been here going on 21 years (grew up in Michigan) and really can't imagine living anywhere else at this point. This city gets into the blood unlike any other I've known. My parents were here last weekend and as I live very close by, Federal Hall was a stop we made, too.

It's been discussed at DU before, but for digging deeper while you're between visits I heartily recommend buying or renting Ric Burns' "New York" series, originally broadcast as part of PBS' American Experience series.

[russian33]

7. I gotta go into the city more often

I live in Queens, and I couldn't write something up like that...I have to start exploring more often, and appreciating it...I think I take it for granted after living here a while

[robbedvoter]

8. And you didn't even see the community gardens in Lower East Side

or the Rites of Spring/Winter parades in our neighborhood...
Or one of our Halloween parades - grownups - too crowded, kiddies - in LES, or the dogs coustume contests...