New York Day 2

 The mission today was The Met. I’ve done very little tourism since Cumberland, frankly I spend a good bit of time in these places and they’re all generally familiar to me. However, I had a day to kill and I cannot remember having gone to this particular museum. Maybe I went ages ago and forgot, maybe it never happened. Also, this is one of my last opportunities for a while to look at American art. It sounds a little silly but realistically, there’s no reason for me to go looking at French paintings in the US when I’ll be in Paris in two weeks.

Wrapping up my USA to do list. My day started with redeeming a free burrito I had at Taco Bell. Hey, free is free. This landed me at Hoboken terminal and I needed to get into the city. The sensible option would be to PATH in but I’ve spent a lot of time underground and I’m not in a rush. A perfect excuse to take the ferry. New York has an extensive ferry system and I’ve never had a reason to use it. Just my luck, the boat to Brookfield Place was leaving in about 20 minutes. It pulled in right on time and we made our way across The Hudson. This is a real throwback, for many years Hoboken and Jersey City were horrid places to live. A big part of that was much of the city functioning like a giant railyard. Google around looking at Photos of the shoreline in the 1920s, it’s a bustling array of tracks and pollution. In the bad old days, you would take a train from points south to Jersey and transfer to a ferry to take you across. Four companies had terminals there and they dominated the space. After the PRR built a tunnel to take trains directly to Manhattan (now Amtrak’s Hudson connection) and the Hudson and Manhattan Railway (now PATH) built their tubes, the ferries and terminals started to disappear. Hoboken is the only one of the four still left.

My ride across the Hudson was short but beautiful. The best views of Manhattan are found elsewhere. I spent the 15 minute crossing mostly talking to the ferry workers. There were about 10 of us total on the boat. He told me that in spite of all the rail connectivity, he does still get commuters who make it a part of their regular crossing. This man was working the ferries during 9/11 and saw the attack from the water. In the aftermath PATH trains were unable to get to lower Manhattan and the ferry service stepped up to get folks to where they needed to be. Empty boats became jam packed with commuters. Service was ramped up from once every 20 minutes to every five. He spoke with pride reflecting on the work he did then. I told him that I was from California and a similar thing happened in San Francisco after an earthquake. The transbay bridge was knocked out and BART was down. SF ran 24 hours ferry service for the first time in decades to fill the gap. He smiled, the custodian of a living fossil sitting and waiting ready to serve in a time of need. He mentioned he had family in Northern California. “Next time you go visit you have to try the ferries there. Some people have a one hour ferry commute every day and the boats are so big they even have bars!” He was excited. 

Picturesque Ambling Trans-Hudson

I went out to the bow to snap photos and overheard the passengers in front of me chatting in German. I speak some and asked if they were from Germany, in German. They replied in English. Non native German speakers know that this is a typical interaction. German speakers usually speak better English than I do and do not humor my attempt to speak their language. The only time an English speaking German was thankful for me trying was in Berlin. Evidently over tourism there is reshaping priorities. One of the Teutonic gents was from Berlin and the other from Hamburg. I mentioned that I had been to one and was going to be in the other soon. “You will like Hamburg. It is a great city. We have a river cruise.” Hmmmm, they could be anywhere. 

Real ones know where the Colgate Clock is in this photo

My ferry dropped me off in lower Manhattan, not where I needed to be but it was once again time for a snack. I took a bus (a bus, in Manhattan?!) to Chinatown for dim sum and tea, a great second breakfast, and walked Canal Street to the subway. A quick rip uptown and I was at The Met. In between taking blood money from the Sacklers, The Met has accumulated an incredible collection of artwork. While the collection is global, I’m looking for more local things. I took in the old American architecture. Rooms in the collection from old mansions by McKim, Mead, and White. Glass from Tiffany and Company. Silver by Revere and Sons. Chairs by Eames. Tables by Greene and Greene. The surprise hilight was a vase in the Arts and Crafts exhibition from Santa Barbara, my origin city on this tour. In addition to the art, the people watching was exceptional. Halloween is an opportunity for the docents to have a little fun at work. The younger art students were out in full form. 

The statues were costumed

Back to Jersey City and it was time to change. I’ve brought a Luigi costume from California with me. Partially because I had one in the closed I could dispose of at the end of the night and partially because anyone named Luigi is topical in New York. All night people were asking me where Mario was and I gave the same answer “He became the CEO of an insurance company and then I had to, you know…”

Ghetto Pat was a big costume this year, I saw more of him than Mario. High effort hilights were Jafar which may have been a theater costume, Jigsaw on a tricycle ominously not talking to anyone, Doug Dimmadome with the hat on the subway, and the impressive array of folks who are able to leave their house in their underwear knowing full well that it’s going to be forty degrees outside. Matt and I met up with my cousin Ben at a small apartment party with a group of his friends from back home and out here. After drinks, it was off to another party further north and out to a bar. That was enough. Time for pizza and bed. Happy Halloween.

Vote Mamdani or Get Plunged