New York... part 3

Thank God for late check-out! We staggered out of the hotel around noon, weighed down with bags and a hangover caused by Daryl’s favourite “Delirium Tremens” and an even scarier beer he recommended called “Arrogant Bastard”, into Charles and Laura’s flat, our home for the next five days.
We filled the afternoon with a tour of the Tenement Museum and a walk through Lower East Side and then Little Italy.

NY is famous for its immigrants and this walk showed us why. From what my friends tell me, today’s immigrants arrive, rent a shoebox flat, and find a familiar bar to hang out in, probably just like their Italian, Irish and German predecessors a century before. But the Tenement tour showed us how much tougher the old guys had it.
We saw grubby crowded landings with no lights, heating or water, and rooms reconstructed with original artefacts to show how families struggled to cook, wash and relax in their tiny dark spaces.
The building had dozens of pointless brown-painted windows built into internal walls, an early attempt by landlords to circumvent public health laws. We also heard the fairy tale story behind the museum itself: a house that lay boarded up for generations until someone looked inside and found a century-old time capsule and a new vocation as a curator.
After that we walked through Little Italy, thriving with pavement restaurants and Italia football shirts, and Chinatown, where we heard no English at all.
Queuing later outside a restaurant with Charles and Laura, the sky clouded over at sunset in a spectacular fashion, bringing a crowd of amateur photographers out into the street.

If they were tired after a long week, they didn’t show it. C&L had us up, coffee’d and onto our hire bikes early on Saturday morning for a tour around Manhattan. We pedalled along the East Hudson past the replica tallship HMS Bounty (used in the films “Mutiny on the Bounty” and “Pirates of the Caribbean”), past the spot where a US Airways Airbus crash landed in icy water last January, a marina of stupidly flash motor-yachts, Ground Zero where the construction of the controversial 105-floor Freedom Tower is taking place, Wall Street, and over the Brooklyn Bridge to the fabulously named district of Dumbo (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass), a fancy former dock area, like London's Shad Thames. We then pedalled, a bit wobbly, back to the East Village via some of their favourite places – a German been hall, a wine bar called Grape and Grain, a cocktail bar, sake bar and a fancy icecream shop (chickheaven).

New York … part 2

Wednesday morning and we were back in New York again with a fantastically empty week stretching ahead of us. I lazed around Jess and Brian’s Latino neighbourhood of Jackson Heights while C honed her Carrie Bradshaw skills, lunching with Abigail and shopping all afternoon.
On Thursday, we left our generous and long-suffering hosts - thank you so much J&B!! - and decamped to the Hilton in Times Square, in the heart of the midtown buzz, courtesy of C’s airmiles.
Hopping into a yellow taxi cab, we went to Columbus Circle, HQ of the Time Warner empire and the CNN studios. Colleague Yana’s husband, Richard Morris, works there as a producer and had offered to show us around, an irresistible offer for both of us, especially as C’s new job in September might see her in front of TV cameras again.
Richard works for a daily current affairs talk show hosted by Campbell Brown, America’s female answer to Jeremy Paxman. In a very informative tour, Richard talked us through the production cycle for each one-hour show, from brainstorming topics, booking guests, morning editorial calls to live filming. A hot topic was whether the news station should broadcast videos of Iranian election riots, such as mobile phone footage of a woman shot by security forces. Apparently, CNN initially broadcast the clip, but after an urgent debate about verification and the risk of manipulation, decided not to show it again. It was a fascinating glimpse into editorial life in TV, where technology and reach are so different from the print world.
We visited the news studio with its famous touch screen where election results come through, Larry King’s studio (above), an editing booth and the control room. This high-tech bunker – which Richard saved for the end - is where the team of producers and directors edit the show as it goes out, directing and mixing camera shots, adding music and graphics, and counting in ad breaks with scientific precision. It is a dark room with rows of swivel chairs facing a wall made entirely of TV screens. Each seat has a flashing panel of switches, a bit like a flight deck. The room was empty when we went in, but you could still feel the adrenalin.
We emerged into the sunlight – many thanks to Richard for sparing his time – and headed to Greenwich village for my highlight of the week so far, a crawl of NY bars and beers! News of Michael Jackson’s collapse broke as we arrived in the first bar, triggering the first of many unprintable jokes from Jeff (surfer dude we met in Cambodia), Daryl (from Euromoney days, now at Pearson) and Charles. Strangely, I cannot remember too much more after ...

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