Postcard from New York City - NYC first impressions

Now that the twin towers have gone, when you come over the bridge from JFK and catch your first sight of the city, you are confronted with heavy metal bridges, gothic architecture and art deco skyscrapers. These are reflected back in the more modern, but smaller, steel and glass towers that intersperse them. If the heyday of a city is marked by it's tallest structure then this is a city in decline, the most prominent architectural features were built in the nineteen twenties and thirties, in the last depression.

The riveted girder bridges are an interesting contrast to the modern, elegant swooping arcs that form modern bridges in Europe. Possibly the bridges need to be on steroids because everything is bigger in America, including the super sized lardy arses of the drivers of the huge and heavy cars that pass over the structures.

Also visible in the heart of the city are vacant lots, something you would just never see in London, where construction on a new building is started the second the dust settles from the demolition of the previous one. One ingenious use that vacant lots are put to is car parking. But, this being New York, it's not just a case of a few shoddy square yards of mud and gravel being used as park up a few cars. Rather, instant multi-story car parks pop up, basically static car transporters where cars sit on, for the want of a better word, shelves. Usually a simple double decker arrangement, I did see one with three levels. Ingenious.


The entire city appears to be constructed of iconic images, every one a mini landmark. Steam venting out of the street, cops as wide as houses, yellow cabs, hot dog carts on every corner and steam pipes in the street looking like cat in the hat hats.




But the defining feature is the skyscrapers. They may have been surpassed in height elsewhere but the sheer density and variety of tall buildings here is staggering. You really do walk around constantly looking up, you can't help it. Other cities may have a single showpiece tower but New York has hundreds of the bloody things. It's quite a sensation to sit on the twenty fourth floor in your hotel room and look down on the tiny dots of people below, then look up at the distant tops of towers above.


The incongruity of the modern and antique, small and large, side by side is most pronounced when you see a church sandwiched between two skyscrapers. Churches are not small buildings, but here they look tiny. One expects the tower or spire of a church to be the tallest structure, especially if you are familiar with English villages, where a spire pops up above the treetops every few miles, dotting the countryside, ready to annoy the hell out of any nearby second-homeowners by having a two hour Sunday morning peal that starts at dawn. Not here, here the churches sit between office blocks. But somehow still manage to look imposing.

Yet New York is built on a human scale too, at least on street level, with the street vendors plying their trade with hot dogs, pretzels, gyros and halal food. And also selling children's books. One guy just had children's toys sat there on the sidewalk, with clockwork cars and helicopters whizzing round in circles around him. Maybe they do need to polish their sales technique however, as the chap drumming up trade on the sidewalk for his barber shop screamed 'shave and a haircut goddamit!' into the faces of passage by. I was so shocked I nearly went in for a bit of male grooming.