The sight of omnipresent stars and stripes peppered throughout JFK kick-starts the restlessness. Reassuring flags seen waving along the Van Wyck and Long Island Highway only intensify my anticipation. Approaching the Queens-Midtown tunnel I make out the iconic skyline. It is hard to contain myself now. A deep sigh of suppressed exultation forces itself from my chest as our cab crawls past the Empire State Building. Looking up at its deserved pretentiousness, lit up red and green to commemorate the season, I subconsciously pinch myself and smile. I am back in New York City.
I am with Paul, Toby and another friend, Amee, heading for an apartment block in the East Village run by Hare Krishnas. It is easy to find; it is right next door to the New York chapter of Hell’s Angels. They seem to get along – although we will not appreciate our 100-decibel Aerosmith alarm-call early each morning.
“Oh, that’s just Kevin”, laughs our host, Adi. “He’s a character.”
Kevin’s a character all right. We see him one day, outside our window, as high as a kite and shouting up something insulting about the English. We ignore him.
New Yorkers’ famous no-nonsense attitude is perhaps explained by its weather. The tormenting bitterness of this New Year’s Eve, out of doors, is not to be trifled with. It is a temperature that makes you practical and blunt. From A to B, from here to there - with no messing around in-between. The wind bites and chews your face. To expose any flesh is an act of defiance to the climate – “I dare you to make me cold!”
I have been here twice before. The first time was a bright but freezing March that saw some night rain. The second, an Indian Summer that made a stroll along the Coney Island boardwalk reminiscent of a 1970s summer in Margate. My souvenir, my first ever sunburn. I still have it.
Upon leaving the apartment to head out for the celebrations, it is hard to believe that anywhere on earth could be colder. It’s physical. We had got a cab from the airport and a plane to the airport from a pleasantly warm Orlando. We were prepared for a cooler temperature, but this is something like 20°C colder and below zero!
At ninety minutes to countdown, we are not going to get anywhere near Times Square for the traditional ball-drop. A pedicab driver, on a previous visit, had let me in on the fact that ‘real’ New Yorkers watch it from the relative comfort of the West Drive entrance to Central Park. Mind you, he was a fresh Polish immigrant that kept calling John Lennon “Jeff”, so I don’t know how reliable he really was. Thankfully though, it is not too crowded - probably because ‘real’ New Yorkers are actually watching from the comfort of their own homes. We can’t see anything happening from where we are, and, being over 3000 miles away from Big Ben, have to gauge the exact timing of the auspicious moment by the waves of whistles and noisemakers crescendoing towards us. It is not so much an exhilarating burst into a new January as a dispiriting tumble out of an old December. But we make the best of it by half-heartedly pretending not to notice.
Expecting the same kind of post-celebratory rush for public transport we usually see in London, we start walking. At Columbus Circle, a group of Hare Krishnas celebrate in their unique way. Either they have had a boom in recruitment tonight or people want to celebrate anything. I suspect the latter. We join in for a while before they move up Central Park West. We walk the opposite way, down Broadway.
A few blocks along, complaints begin rising up about the cold. It’s catchy. We each wail a few discordant verses of “I’m sick of walking”, “It’s freezing”, “I want to sit down” and “I need the loo” as we are diverted off the straight route by cordons. Okay, it’s mostly me. Nevertheless, we attune ourselves by the time we drift through the fallen confetti in Times Square, which is in the process of returning to normal itself. I am warmed at seeing the kaleidoscope of lights reflected in my friends’ faces.
In the subway, the heat is almost suffocating. I have found that underneath the city, no matter what the weather is like above, it can be like Hell’s furnace down there. And this is in December – sorry, January now.
On the three-block walk back to our temporary home we warm our bellies with cheap pizza. Even expensive pizzas I’ve had in Italy do not compare with the perfection of a New York pie. Numerous pizza places say it’s something to do with the water supplied by the Catskills.
As we reach our block, we hear the ‘cha-cha-ching, cha-cha-ching’ that we all identify as being the saffron monks from Columbus Circle. It turns out they are staying in the next apartment. Amee, a Hindu, considers them a karmic gift from Krishna.
Indoors for the night, I unwittingly lie down to sleep with bedbugs that will see in the New Year by dancing on my skin, inebriated on my blood - as lumpy wheals of itchy fire on my legs will testify tomorrow...
I am with Paul, Toby and another friend, Amee, heading for an apartment block in the East Village run by Hare Krishnas. It is easy to find; it is right next door to the New York chapter of Hell’s Angels. They seem to get along – although we will not appreciate our 100-decibel Aerosmith alarm-call early each morning.
“Oh, that’s just Kevin”, laughs our host, Adi. “He’s a character.”
Kevin’s a character all right. We see him one day, outside our window, as high as a kite and shouting up something insulting about the English. We ignore him.
New Yorkers’ famous no-nonsense attitude is perhaps explained by its weather. The tormenting bitterness of this New Year’s Eve, out of doors, is not to be trifled with. It is a temperature that makes you practical and blunt. From A to B, from here to there - with no messing around in-between. The wind bites and chews your face. To expose any flesh is an act of defiance to the climate – “I dare you to make me cold!”
I have been here twice before. The first time was a bright but freezing March that saw some night rain. The second, an Indian Summer that made a stroll along the Coney Island boardwalk reminiscent of a 1970s summer in Margate. My souvenir, my first ever sunburn. I still have it.
Upon leaving the apartment to head out for the celebrations, it is hard to believe that anywhere on earth could be colder. It’s physical. We had got a cab from the airport and a plane to the airport from a pleasantly warm Orlando. We were prepared for a cooler temperature, but this is something like 20°C colder and below zero!
At ninety minutes to countdown, we are not going to get anywhere near Times Square for the traditional ball-drop. A pedicab driver, on a previous visit, had let me in on the fact that ‘real’ New Yorkers watch it from the relative comfort of the West Drive entrance to Central Park. Mind you, he was a fresh Polish immigrant that kept calling John Lennon “Jeff”, so I don’t know how reliable he really was. Thankfully though, it is not too crowded - probably because ‘real’ New Yorkers are actually watching from the comfort of their own homes. We can’t see anything happening from where we are, and, being over 3000 miles away from Big Ben, have to gauge the exact timing of the auspicious moment by the waves of whistles and noisemakers crescendoing towards us. It is not so much an exhilarating burst into a new January as a dispiriting tumble out of an old December. But we make the best of it by half-heartedly pretending not to notice.
Expecting the same kind of post-celebratory rush for public transport we usually see in London, we start walking. At Columbus Circle, a group of Hare Krishnas celebrate in their unique way. Either they have had a boom in recruitment tonight or people want to celebrate anything. I suspect the latter. We join in for a while before they move up Central Park West. We walk the opposite way, down Broadway.
A few blocks along, complaints begin rising up about the cold. It’s catchy. We each wail a few discordant verses of “I’m sick of walking”, “It’s freezing”, “I want to sit down” and “I need the loo” as we are diverted off the straight route by cordons. Okay, it’s mostly me. Nevertheless, we attune ourselves by the time we drift through the fallen confetti in Times Square, which is in the process of returning to normal itself. I am warmed at seeing the kaleidoscope of lights reflected in my friends’ faces.
In the subway, the heat is almost suffocating. I have found that underneath the city, no matter what the weather is like above, it can be like Hell’s furnace down there. And this is in December – sorry, January now.
On the three-block walk back to our temporary home we warm our bellies with cheap pizza. Even expensive pizzas I’ve had in Italy do not compare with the perfection of a New York pie. Numerous pizza places say it’s something to do with the water supplied by the Catskills.
As we reach our block, we hear the ‘cha-cha-ching, cha-cha-ching’ that we all identify as being the saffron monks from Columbus Circle. It turns out they are staying in the next apartment. Amee, a Hindu, considers them a karmic gift from Krishna.
Indoors for the night, I unwittingly lie down to sleep with bedbugs that will see in the New Year by dancing on my skin, inebriated on my blood - as lumpy wheals of itchy fire on my legs will testify tomorrow...
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