The song was “Autumn in New York,” not Saturday, but just spending a day can be an interesting experience. Over the years I’ve spent quite a few Saturdays or a few occasional weekdays in the city, mostly walking from place to place. It’s good to have comfortable shoes, a well-rested body and good spirits if you plan to hoof through the forest of steel and stone that is New York City.
It feels good to walk, spending an hour or so between destinations on the move and not sitting down. When you work all week from an office chair, the pavements of the city are welcoming and amazingly well maintained for such high traffic activity day and night. The people seem used to fast footwork, crowded street corners and the cacophony of multiple languages clashing above their heads from all angles.
The backdrop of Times Square is changing (always has been), and the afternoon I was there found droves of visitors sitting in traffic-free zones enjoying the atmosphere. The mess of city traffic has been refined by new laws, and the change seems to have relaxed the crowds considerably. The glitz of the overhead signage was still there, but the visual effect wasn’t drowned out by car, truck, taxi or bus horns.
The running joke for me about NYC is the presence of the Duane Reed pharmacy chain, competing with Starbucks for the most city corner presence. I guess with millions of people in the city, you need a lot of places to get aspirin or a cup of coffee, so at least the business district is accommodating in that respect.
If you can’t find what you want in New York City, you’re not looking in the right place. There are stores of every kind, places to eat, drink, take the kids, take your date, take a break. Movie houses have what appears to be the entire Hollywood repetoire in one location. There are museums for everything, restaurants for every culture, fast food for every finicky palate, and more ways to part with your take home pay per square foot than microbes on the head of a pin.
As for me, I have been going to the opera a lot lately, with plans to make a special trip to see Phantom of the Opera soon (not being one to give up my first love of live theatre). No matter when I get into the city, I always seem to miss what happens with the Saturday theatre matinee crowd, because I’m away from the theatre district, at Lincoln Center, when the shows start. When you go to opera productions that start at 12 or 1:00, it’s easy to forget that Broadway gets busy, and the streets probably get less packed, as patrons file into the theatres for the next big musical or that big visiting star doing a cameo in a production. Around 5:00, the lobbies belch out happy crowds of tune humming tourists back into the heart of the city, and the restaurants do their part to feed them all. I don’t bother with dinner, because the busses run on odd schedules that don’t allow time for even a quick fast food stop. My day usually ends with prolonged standing for a seat on a bus out of town, but by then I’m blissfully exhausted and have been well exercised and entertained.
It’s one interesting place to spend a Saturday.
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