New York City – July 29^th

A brief update - I haven’t posted for a few days because I didn’t think there would be much interest in a typical Big Apple tourist blog and that’s how I’ve been spending my time.  It’s been a mix of bike and subway riding and in summary, there have been a few changes since my last visit here in 1969.  Some bullets regarding them are as follows:

·         Over the years, vast sums of money poured into the city have washed away most of its former grit.  Times Square, which used to be down, dirty and even dangerous is now a tourist amusement park

and Harlem, where I was once glared at as a “whitey”, now appears to be occupied by a good minority of Caucasians (including former president Bill Clinton).  The changes are probably for the better but, truth be told, I kind of miss the city’s former edge.

• I’m amazed by the large number of huge multi-tower social housing projects, even in up-scale neighbourhoods. 

                                   

The city appears to have become a receptacle for a good portion of the area's poor.  Some projects appear to be tidy, well-run and reasonably safe but I suspect others are less so.  Packing low income people together like that probably explains why the US has such a drug problem.  Such projects are clearly social engineering gone awry and I’d be really scared living in the city if the welfare cheques ever stopped.

·         The two new World Trade Centre towers appear to be about 80% complete. 

                        

One wonders, however, why the powers that be would want to build more iconic targets for future generations of terrorists.  Speaking of such, that's one of the reasons I wouldn't want to live here.  Sooner or later, I suspect someone's going to do something really bad to this iconic city, such as  exploding a dirty (nuclear) bomb.

·         After decades of Hispanic immigration, New York is now almost as bilingual a city as Montreal.  This has provided me with a good opportunity to improve my limited Spanish.  I’ve also run into a lot of Francophones in the hostels and my similarly limited French is also getting intermittent workouts.  As the cliché goes, travel is so broadening…

 Considering its size, The city is reasonably if not totally bike-friendly.  Its topopgraphy is almost completely dead flat and there are numerous bike lanes, traffic-separated or otherwise, along major streets as well as a dedicated bike path along the Hudson and East River shores of Manhatttan Island. 

Minor annoyances are the surfeit of unnecessary (and long) traffic lights, which local pedestrians and cyclists typically ignore, and numerous vehicles that use the bike lanes as double-parking spaces.  The main protection cyclists have is that traffic is so congested that vehicles typically don't move fast enough to do any serious damage to them.

Returning to my day-to-day, I reunited with Nedo, my recently-acquired biking buddy and surrogate son at our previous Brooklyn hostel.  We changed hostels yesterday and are now ensconced in the Hostelling International (HI) hostel on Manhattan’s upper west side, a relatively ritzy part of town.  After spending last night here, however, we both agree that our more modest and laid back Brooklyn digs (the NYC Moore hostel) were nicer and a much better deal at almost half the price.  Too bad we didn’t know that before we booked here. 

To repeat, in my modest opinion, hostelling has to be the best way to travel, particularly when travelling alone.  You meet (and sleep with) interesting folks, young and older, from all over the world and  hostels are probably doing a better job of breaking down international barriers than are most diplomats.

That’s all for now, and probably this blog's last post .  Tonight a NY Yankees game with Nedo then tomorrow, a six-hour bus ride to Utica, NY where I’ll hook up with friends for a ride to Ottawa then home.