Final Thoughts

Monday 13th July 2009

Today was our final day in New York. We just checked out of our hotel, got the shuttle at 3pm, then flew out to London at 7pm. As it was pretty uneventful I thought I'd just give you our final thoughts and impressions on Manhattan specifically, and New York in general.

New York is incredible and like a lot of things the only way to know what it's like and the feeling of the place is to actually go there yourself. It's larger than life, proud and strong, and while anyone could write pages and pages about it, our first impression of Manhattan was that it is very much like a theme park.

From the street performers to the food cart vendors, the flashing neon lights of Times Square to the rows upon rows of upmarket fashion and shopping stores, the tour buses, Broadway shows, restaurants, and even down to the tunnels, back doors and alleyways used to do all the service work... it is very much a place geared to give the best impression to the tourists. Just some examples of this... late every night great piles of trash and rubbish is left on the sidewalk and in the morning, just like magic, it has all disappeared; on just about every corner there is someone trying to sell tour bus tickets; and at our hotel the maintenance and housekeeping staff were not allowed to use the elevator if a guest was already in there.


Of course to say that Manhattan is a theme park is an insult to the 1.3 million people that are trying to live there (+7 million in the rest of New York), trying to carve out a living in any way they can. The view that most tourists get, even before they come, is of the 'Sex and the City' lifestyle - that life in New York is all about shopping, cafes and restaurants and that nobody seems to go to work, however this is far from the truth. New York is actually a very expensive place to live ($4000 per month to rent a basic apartment) and believe it or not the tourists actually see the worst of people - they see the ones who are doing anything they can to make enough money to live - pushing, pushing, pushing for one more ticket to the comedy club or the bus tours, carrying around giant (real) snakes or dressing up in Elmo and Mickey Mouse suits so they can charge $2 a photo, the poster/fake designer handbag/jewellery stalls that spring up every night, or the standard carny tricksters at Coney Island, the list goes on.


The buildings, architecture, parks, squares and city lights all make the city stunning in their own way, but if you step back, step outside the tourist traps, and just watch, even with everything I have mentioned above, you will see it is the people that make New York beautiful. Their generosity and willingness to help people in trouble is quite incredible. We first got a glimpse of this in the WTC memorial at St Paul's Church that described how the volunteers worked non-stop and gave freely of their food, time and services to support the emergency services personnel that were finding survivors, then bodies, then cleaning up. But then as we started catching buses and the subway we saw first hand examples. The numerous occassions where multiple people would without question or comment offer someone change for the bus fare if their card didn't work, or when the disabled lady with the bad leg (who had every right to keep whatever came her way) gave $5 to the homeless man who just got on the bus, or the old lady who could hardly walk give her lunch to the same homeless man, even the bus tour ticket sales guys would help out with directions even though you weren't buying any tickets.


So, we heartily recommend New York as a place to see, and offer these final pointers:
* By all means do the bus tours, but do them first so you can get your bearings and then see what you want do in more detail later
* Don't just do use the bus tours to get around. Get a Metro card and use the very good subway and/or bus system and you will see the real New York and the real New Yorkers. Even if you just go out to Coney Island and back you will see the poorer sections that the tourists don't normally see. And they are very clean and very safe.
* It's very easey to spend a fortune, but if you're careful and with a little bit of work you can also do it on the cheap
* Hotels in general are expensive for what you get, but do your research and you will find one that is good and in your price range (the internet is your friend - I recommend TripAdvisor!)
* Be prepared to walk a lot - even if you do use the public transit
* Do your research first to see what you want to do (again, TripAdvisor is your friend). We just did the main bus tour but didn't look until our last day into all the other great tours you could do and it was too late by then
* There are heaps of great little delis/cafes everywhere so go get a sandwich and sit somewhere and just enjoy the feeling of the city.