New York, Part 4

I’m finally here, typing this up in my hotel room on the 22nd floor. What a pickle! Everything was going swimmingly perfectly well until I reached the check-in desk at the hotel.

Me: “Hello, I have a reservation for Mr Sheridan, for four days”

Snooty hotel man: “Ok”, tap-tap-tap-tap, raised eyebrow, “ah, yes, I see. Sir, your card was declined (equate my emphasis to his volume), so that booking is now gone.”

I’m sure I don’t need to give examples of some of the choice words I used here – I’m sure you can get the picture, and the long and short of it is, well, I’m on the 22nd floor looking out over Broadway , but I do need to ring my bank tomorrow – it looks like the card I ‘paid’ with is barred from international transactions, presumably as an anti-fraud measure.

The rest of the flight was fine, felt a bit tired by the end, but once we got into the last hour, it flew by (pun intended). JFK Terminal 4 deserted, and Homeland Security let me in with no qualms. Which was nice.

The AirTrain was nice – very modern, clean, and easy – a far cry from the NY Subway! I stood at Howard Beach station for nearly 20 minutes waiting for a train – if this was London, there’d be a riot in front of Parliament! The subway trains are old, rattly and noisy, full of lunatics, but they’re way more spacious than London tubes, and most importantly – air conditioned.

The subway journey is quite a ride – about 40 minutes from Howard Beach to 42nd St/Port Authority, taking in some of New York’s finest fruitcakes – like the lady wheeling on a toddler and a baby, then shouting out her pre-prepared begging script (“I’m livin’ on the streets with mah babies, please give us any food or sandwiches you might have…” – who’s gonna have a spare sandwich? No-one, it’s dollars she’s after, like everyone else) to everyone in that car. Or the little Asian lady trying to sell you pirated ‘dee-wee-dees’, or the preacher, spreading the word of the lord! At each stop, they rotate into the next carriage and move along – it was almost like a constant stream of entertainment!

The subway makes a lot of assumptions to the tourist traveller – I guess this is why a lot of people avoid it. There is precisely *one* subway map in the car, and if someone happens to be sitting in front of it, then tough shit. There are no announcements of next stops, or changeovers, it’s very much do-or-die. The stations are much the same too, and there’s precious little signage telling ‘outsiders’ where to go. It’s quite unfriendly, but maybe that’s why New Yorkers like it!

The ‘free transfer’ I mentioned the other day, from the 42nd St/Port Authority stop to the 42nd St/Times Square stop was indeed just an underpass – albeit quite a bloody long one. I emerged from the subway into Times Square at around 9.30pm local time. The word ‘busy’ doesn’t even begin to cover it. Neon lights and plasma screens as far as the eye can see. I located the hotel and checked in, and fired the netbook up – still an hour and half on the battery!

More tomorrow, folks!

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