I’m headed for NYC today to meet up with friends and eat cupcakes and pastrami and poached eggs and whatever else crosses my path. So, it will be a light posting day for me. Maybe we can have some fun by telling our favorite New York City stories. If you haven’t been, you must know some who has. What’s the craziest thing you’ve seen or done in the City?
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
The craziest thing? I was born there.
That means I’ll love it forever.
🙂
Me too. But it’s hard to go back now that I’m a country bumpkin.
I was born in Nassau County and went to Manhattan quite a bit with my parents and grandparents, often to places like this and this. My grandfather worked close to the Hudson and I remember seeing the RMS Queen Mary docked from a window in his building.
I was born and raised in Manhattan, went to high school in Greenwich Village, and had my first two kids on Brooklyn. When we were teenagers we’d cut out of class, sit in the turned-off fountain in Washington Square Park, and complain that New York was really lame and boring and that there was nothing to do. Looking back, that was kind of crazy.
Very funny. You’re at the center of the cultural universe and you still feel teenage boredom.
I’d rather not go into the craziest day I had in NY. Some things you’d like to scrub from your mind, or at least I would.
But I do remember Nicki buying a small (or maybe I bought it for her, I can’t remember for sure) black and white – picture, not drawing, I think – from a street vendor, a shot from the park looking at a horse drawn carriage crossing a bridge, buildings in the background. I know she really liked it, I know she really liked visiting the city. I took her twice.
I have that picture, its one of the few things her mother gave me. I should really dig through that box. I shouldn’t have made her change her shoes when we went to the city that day, I should have just brought along her comfortable pair without telling her. As John Mayer says so eloquently:
And all of our parents
They’re getting older
I wonder if they’ve wished for anything better
While in their memories
Tiny tragedies
I’ve never been to a big city. Sure, I’ve been to Philadelphia, but I’ve never been to Center City or anything historic, just the suburbs and stuff (like northern Philly, almost touching Bucks County area, etc).
I’ve been to New Orleans, but only Bourbon Street.
So I’ve never actually been to a city lol. Just rural country, and suburbia. I hate it here.
You should visit NYC sometime. You can go to the museums and all that but the best is just to walk around the city all day. It’s pretty incredible.
Yes, you’re right – if you’ve never been there, especially if you’ve never been anywhere like it, wandering without much in the way of a destination is truly cool.
I still remember it as being more like a European city than any other I’ve visited here.
You guys have fun, I really wish I could be there to share time with you too.
hmmm, yes the details go only in my diary but my favorite of many trips to NYC was a visit on St. Patrick’s Day in March 2002. The whole city wanted a reason to stop the pain and grieving, at least for a few hours, and my girlfriends and I had a two day “affair” with the city and every fireman we met on that visit. I don’t think anyone remembers much about that day/evening – just enough to bring a smile in recollection.
The parade itself earlier in the day was so moving and so perfect to be able to honor the fireman and police marching. I recall the parade stopping exactly at the minute the first plane hit and the bands and the music went silent. No kids yelling, no babies crying, no sirens or whistles. All that a person heard for an entire minute were the sounds of the many flags flapping in the slight breeze. It was a moment I will never forget.
When I was a teen I’d go into Greenwich Village from Jersey. I’d buy 45s at a great little record store there. I got “Gimme Some Lovin'” by the Spencer Davis Group there. I bought The Doors’ “Waiting For the Sun” album in a record shop at the Port Authority.
When I was a child I loved the Museum of Natural History. When I was older I loved the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Saw the Beatles at Shea Stadium. Couldn’t hear them though.
Saw the Mets (and the New York Titans!) at the Polo Grounds. Really short foul poles, something like 250 feet. Largest centerfield. You could get rich as a dead pull hitter.
My friend and I were jumped by a gang on the Lower East Side in 1968 at two a.m. My friend got cut and I wheeled around pretending to know karate (really) and the gang backed off. My greatest bluff. That was pretty crazy.
Used to go into the city on Sundays with a roommate from college to hear jazz. There were jazz vespers at a Lutheran church. Steve Paul’s Scene used to have jazz shows on Sunday nights. Saw Sun Ra’s Space Arkestra there. Greatest, most wacked out version of “On A Clear Day” I ever heard.
First time I dropped acid was at Tompkins Square Park at night.
Saw a great concert at the Fillmore East: Allman Brothers opened, Arthur Lee’s Love was second on the bill, headlined by the Grateful Dead. Back when Pigpen was alive. At the end of the Dead’s show Duane Allman and the guitarist from Love joined the Dead and jammed into the wee hours of the morning.
When I lived on Avenue B I could see junkies starting fires to keep warm in the burned out buildings behind us. I won’t go into fumigating that apartment. I couldn’t get a job because I was #1 in Nixon’s draft lottery and as soon as I put my birthday on a job application the personnel guy would laugh at me.
Met a British woman at a little hootenanny in Central Park on a Saturday afternoon in 1970 and had great sex with her later that day. Actually, several of us did.
Was in the outtakes for “Shaft”. Didn’t make the final cut.
I met Moondog once. He was standing in front of the CBS building, I think they called it Black Rock. Didn’t know who he was at the time. Dressed up like a Viking.
No one goes there anymore, Boo. It’s too crowded. 🙂
I’ve been to Manhattan, but that’s it. No crazy stories. Closest to crazy was getting on the wrong train headed downtown and getting off at, I think, 1st Avenue on the edge of Alphabet City at about 1AM. That was…interesting.
I loved visiting, but I couldn’t live there. It’s just too pricey even by the offensive standard of DC (which is like paying for New York and getting Cleveland with Miami drivers). But: Good people, great food, lots to do, so nothing against New York.
Only city in the Northeast Corridor I could see living in is Boston, although admittedly I’ve never been to Philly beyond a brief train stop.
Had my fill of big city life. Maybe Atlanta if I could somehow be on the MARTA line.