LOST IN NEW YORK

The best way to deal with travelling in New York is to assume you are lost and it’s your job to find yourself (physically not spiritually, though there are plenty of people who would love to help you with the latter). It’s a deceptively simple city on the map, with lots of straight lines, squares, rectangles and numbers. There’s an Up and there’s a Down and an East and West. The subway lines are all letters and numbers. In theory, basic literacy and arithmetic should do, but not if you’re on the subway.

Remember, if you’re heading for 42^nd street, it isn’t a location, it’s a tramp across Manhattan; walking up and down 5^th Avenue is a tramping holiday. 5^th and 42^nd  actually is a location, but when you get there, there are four different locations (depending on which corner you come out of as you come up from the underworld), and at each of the corners, there are three wrong ways to go. The first one you choose is always wrong.

However, before you get out of the subway to make that poor decision, remember that many of the subway stations are not just stations. They are subterranean suburbs. If you want to get off at Times Square, you are as likely to end up on 8^th Avenue as 5^th Avenue (and almost certainly the one you didn’t want). In the underworld, there are three dimensional issues, as you can get out of the station by going up and down (either or both) as well as left and right, forward and backward. At Union Square, there is an elevator upto the subway.

One way around some of this is to look for a station that is a real location to go to (as long as it’s not Times Square, or for that matter Central Park which is the size of Devonport). Bryant Park is a good example and a very good place to visit, though you get to that station from where I live by getting off at 5th Avenue, and you get home by getting on at 42^nd and Bryant Park. With me so far?

And there are oddities. Be careful of Broadway (for all sorts of reasons). But in travelling terms, it perversely doesn’t go in a straight line and so for a long time it’s West of Fifth Avenue, and then later on it becomes East. Similarly, many of the main streets have two names. Travel to Sixth Avenue and you may find yourself on the Avenue of the Americas as well; Seventh Avenue will suddenly turn into Fashion Avenue. And as you get further North into Harlem, Lenox Avenue is also (indeed principally) Malcolm X Boulevard, Eighth Avenue is Frederick Douglas Boulevard and Seventh Avenue doubles up as Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard. Also, don’t be fooled by the idea that 1st street is at the bottom of Manhattan. Between that and the Staten Island ferry is a complex of irregular streets which is about as comprehensible (or incomprehensible) as central London.

Of course, when you are lost, asking how to get found is a good idea. I started by trying the old English professor bit (a common theme on this trip). Speaking nicely and politely. I quickly discovered that there is no such a thing as an unusual accent in New York. No one ever asks you if that is a British accent you have because there are 150 different languages and accents on the street. Different is normal. And in any case, with a Yorkshire accent, you could easily be Latvian. There is only one British accent, that of the privately educated young man. The British accent (well the English accent really - Scots wear kilts and have subtitles, and Irish are Americans) used to be a sign of an evil baddy on TV and movies, seeking to overthrow the free world. In the last few years that seems to have changed. Now every sitcom (I counted three last night) seems to have a young British male in it. They hold union jack mugs in their hand, have slightly foppish haircuts, and are very tidy.  They have obviously been to Eton and speak proper. They are cute, all with black hair cut in the same way. They either play the gay counterpoint (all the girls love him and he loves all the boys but hasn’t told them - yet). Or they are the co-worker/neighbour who will become the true love of the girl who is involved with an equally cute, American boy, but with more muscles and testosterone, who thinks that all English guys are gay and therefore not a threat. They sometimes are gay, but if they aren’t, they have to be assumed to be so for a couple of episodes before they become the focus of attraction of the girl. This is all absolutely hilarious (British irony).

Sorry for that diversion. The point was, I think, that playing the British card (New Zealand– that would really confuse them) won’t get you anywhere, unless you’re cute, young, posh and/or gay which rules out some of the audience reading this blog (though some of you are quite cute). But Americans are actually quite friendly (a young woman offered me – politely calling me ‘Sir’ - a seat on the subway) and, if they can translate what you are saying, very helpful. However, it took me and two jovial young American supermarket people nearly a minute to work out that I wanted Tofu: that’s just four letters, so don’t get complicated if you need to ask.

And don’t ask a traffic policeman, if the one who is on duty at the corner of 7^th and 42^nd (see I’m getting the hang of it) was anything to go by. He was standing in the middle of the junction blowing a hornpipe on his whistle and pointing at drivers, up streets, down streets, behind him, up in the air and down at the ground. Admittedly that’s also the point at which Broadway crosses and this may have influenced his style. Very energetic and forceful, but apparently random, without observable purpose, other than to bring the traffic to a standstill rather than increase the flow Those of you who have watched Brooklyn Nine Nine, you will know.

However, the solution to travel in this wonderful city – because it is worth travelling - is fairly simple, if time consuming. A number of maps, an hour’s planning every day, a compass and a calmness of spirit, and a drink when you are found. Training, persistence and practice will win out. I have now found myself two days on the trot without having to get back on the subway, reverse several streets, ask someone where I am, or sit down and sob. Each day (well almost) I found the place I was going to and each day I found my way home even if, for much of the rest of the time, I was lost. In between I found some interesting places I would never have known about. Which will take me neatly to my next blog – Found in New York. Coming very soon.