New York - There are all sorts of games to play in New York. One of my favourites is anticipating people’s reactions. Ask for a cup of coffee and chances are that “Comin’ up!” or “You got it!” will be barked back at you. Once the coffee has arrived and you’ve said thank you, take your pick from “You bet!” or simply “Sure!”
Such rapid-fire responses fit perfectly with this pulsating, absorbing city – overtly positive, unambiguous, energetic.
It’s the energy that’s so addictive. Even the seconds counting down at traffic lights to help pedestrians cross the road safely seem speeded up.
The police sirens are noisier, the fast food faster, the portions bigger (never order two Caesar salads, and remember that a “side” of chips will feed a family of four), the beer colder, the teeth whiter, the seasons starker.
“New York keeps you going,” is how a stranger puts it after we take our seats at Carbone, a terrific – and currently fashionable – restaurant in Greenwich Village which might be seen as passé in three weeks’ time.
Talking to strangers is perfectly normal in the Big Bagel. It’s as if everyone has just got off the plane and wants to introduce themselves.
“Where you from?” is the enduring refrain. “A little-known planet due south of Saturn, actually. You?”
“Not sure, but I’m living in the present now.”
Living In The Present might be a good slogan to replace the whiskery The City That Never Sleeps.
The taxi driver bringing you into town from JFK airport might have arrived here himself only two days earlier, but you would never know it. Or, as Tom Wolfe, author of that masterpiece about Manhattan, The Bonfire Of The Vanities, put it more eloquently: “One belongs to New York instantly, one belongs to it as much in five minutes as in five years.”
The area is perhaps more important than the hotel, but get both right – as we do – and you’ll be richly rewarded.
We opt for The Mark on the Upper East Side between Fifth and Madison because we are neither cool nor in our 20s or 30s (or even 40s if you must know) and want to be near Central Park (to run or walk round the Jackie Onassis reservoir before breakfast is the urban equivalent of picking wild mushrooms on a dewy Scottish morning), the Metropolitan Museum and the stupendous Frick Collection.
The Mark is privately owned, discreet, restful. Beautiful people glide by in pressed linen and expensive shoes – and that’s just the staff.
Its restaurant is overseen by chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten and attracts a blue-chip crowd. Sex And The City’s Sarah Jessica Parker loves the place. She lives nearby, but still checks in from time to time.
Seasoned New Yorkers will tell you the trendy Meatpacking District on the Lower West Side is already overcooked. But it seems juicy enough to us.
On Sunday afternoon, after walking the glorious High Line (the last section of the route, once an elevated railway line from the 1930s, opens next Sunday), a queue forms outside the Gansevolt Hotel and we join it.
When at the front, a man wearing dark glasses, an earpiece and holding a clipboard gives us the once over. “Is there a party going on?” I ask him.
“You bet!” he says.
“Well, we’ve not been invited, I’m afraid.”
“You have now, brother. Head up to the roof terrace and have yourselves a great time.”
One place – perhaps the only place – where New York retreats in on itself is at the National September 11 Memorial. Here, two vast pools with the largest man-made waterfalls in the US are sunk into the ground within the footprints of the Twin Towers. The names of all those who died in the terror attacks of 2001 are etched into the supporting walls.
The September 11 Museum is now open, but has attracted criticism for selling T-shirts, toy rescue dogs and such like. “Vulgarity with the noblest intentions,” is how a relative of a man killed that day has put it.
What’s certain is that no visit to New York feels right without making the pilgrimage to this extraordinary spot.
Our visit to the Met at the Lincoln Centre coincides with the American Ballet’s production of Don Quixote.
First, we eat spectacularly well just across the road from the opera house at Bar Boulud. After the show we walk to Columbus Circle and make for the Lobby Lounge on the 37th floor of the Mandarin Oriental, with sensational views. Across the way is a new high-rise where, our waiter says, the penthouse has just sold for $200-million.
Fact or fantasy? The two blur beautifully in America’s greatest city. A couple of decades ago, I spent three years working here. A fellow journalist welcomed me by saying: “Whereas in some towns you feel like you’re watching a movie, here in New York City you’re in the damn movie.” – Daily Mail