Travelogue: New York City

Like many people, I have a complicated relationship with this city. I was raised in the suburbs, the granddaughter of New Yorkers who grew up in Brooklyn and a Lower East Side tenement. My parents both worked in the city when I was a kid. They moved to the Upper West Side once my sister and I graduated high school and lived there until a few years ago. I’ve never lived in New York City - I moved west when I was seventeen and never came back - but everyone in my nuclear and extended maternal family has.

Intellectually, I love New York City. I marvel at its scale; its architectural wonders; its art, culture, and diversity; its epicenter-of-the-western-world zeitgeist. But emotionally, physiologically, I struggle there. A lot of people like the rhythm and pace of life in New York. They tell me that they are nourished by its crazy energy. I wish I felt this way, but there are too many people, too much noise and hassle. My nervous system can’t really handle it. I feel caged in New York. I felt this way when I was a suburban kid. I still feel this way as an adult, though I always forget it until I’m there. 

Carson, you ask, Why did you go to New York? This travelogue is kind of sad.

I used to end up in New York once or twice a year, but various things have shifted over the past decade and I realized that my younger kid, Milo, had never been. This felt like a big omission so I decided to take him there for spring break. And despite the overwhelm, despite the torrential rain, we had a lot of fun. Here are a few things we loved:

Books Are Magic

Super talented novelist and Books Are Magic proprietor Emma Straub is my buddy and Milo is tight with her kids so we visited them in Brooklyn. We went to both Books Are Magic locations because they have excellent merch and I had my eye on a particular sweatshirt. It couldn’t be found in one store so we went to the other. I bought lots of books, including Spider in the Well by Jess Hannigan on a recommendation from a bookseller.

This book is great.

Aaron in Chinatown

We met my friend Aaron for an epic lunch and then walked around and shopped for souvenirs. Chinatown was my favorite NYC destination as a kid. All the things I coveted then - the embroidered slippers, the little silk tasseled horses, the painted paper and bamboo parasols, the miniature jade dragons - are still there, unchanged. It was comforting.

We ate so much. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

Aaron, or MC White Owl if you are into hip hop, is my oldest friend. We hadn’t seen each other in a long time and he’d never met Milo, who is already eleven. Time flies, folks. They were fast friends and Chinatown still delivers.

Yvette on the High Line

People are always telling me how neat the High Line is. I had never been and didn’t get it, but now I do. What a weird, dreamy place. Another old friend, Yvette, has worked on the High Line for years. She’s a horticulturist. This happened to be her last week of work so we met there and took a rainy walk. She showed me her section of the High Line - the part she planted and tends to - and it was the best one.

Bagels

I rarely identify as a New Yorker, but I will proudly tell you that I’m a Jew from New York if we are talking about bagels so that you will know I’m an expert. I’ve spent my adult life in various bagel deserts (Sorry, Portland) and I like to lord my New York Jewishness over my fellow Oregonians in this one context. I did not go to a beloved New York bagel shop like Russ & Daughters on this trip. I went to a place called Black Seed Bagels, which seems to be a chain, because it was attached to the hotel lobby and I didn’t want to walk outside in the rain. It was a great bagel. Maybe it really is the water.

Spamalot

This was so good and you can’t see it because it closed on Monday. I laughed, and - after a standing ovation when the entire audience, on its feet, sang “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” in a shower of sparkly confetti - I cried.

The Morgan Library

This is J.P. Morgan’s personal library, built at the turn of the 20th century. It houses a stunning collection of medieval manuscripts and THREE of the twenty-one surviving Gutenberg bibles, among countless other art and literary treasures. I think I heard a tour guide say it was the first non-commercial building to be built with electricity in the country.

Thanks to everyone who suggested I see the Beatrix Potter exhibition currently on view there. I love Beatrix Potter as much as the next guy but did not expect to be so moved by it. I went to the Morgan Library mainly to see medieval and Renaissance stuff but ended up coming back another day to spend a proper hour in the Potter exhibit by myself. Despite the massive role she has played in children’s literature, I didn’t actually know much about Beatrix Potter. It turns out she was raised in London by an aristocratic family but yearned for the countryside from early childhood. Eventually, when she was around my age, she moved to the Lake District and became a rough-and-tumble farmer and conservationist who basically lived in her wooden-soled clogs.

#goals

Honorable Mentions

Empire State Building: On our last day in New York, I gave Milo a choice: The Met + Central Park or the Harry Potter exhibition + The Empire State Building. I was rooting for the first option. He chose the second one and that’s just fine.

Love/hate this crazy place

Subway: You can tap your credit card at the turnstile to ride the subway now! You all probably knew that but I did not!

Earthquake: We didn’t feel it, but Aaron said he was in a building in Harlem that shook for six seconds.

The Museum of Natural History: It was really crowded - spring break and pouring rain so you can imagine - but it seemed de rigueur for a kid’s first trip to NYC. I liked seeing a movie in the planetarium and this giant diorama of small creatures which I’m pretty sure I remember also loving as a kid.

That’s all! Thanks for reading. Thanks for all the New York recommendations.

Until next time,
Carson

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Mark Twain at The Morgan Library

Harry Potter’s bedroom

More Morgan Library

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