Body Ritual in Manhattan – Manhattan, New York, USA

By: Neville Millen

Body Ritual in Manhattan
Manhattan, New York
The descent into New York’s LaGuardia airport at noon was spectacular with a million shiny roofs and sparkling water everywhere after a morning thunderstorm. Here I was, over New York City, an immense city of raw urban energy and cramped millions, with an unenviable reputation for coolness and inhumanity.

On arrival and travelling light, I exited the airline terminal quickly and dodged the one hundred taxis to catch the Gray line airport bus for $11 American dollars into the metropolis. The closer you get, the Atlantis-like skyline beckons with a strange mixture of majestic and threatening presence.

I got out at the Greyhound Terminal on 42nd Street and needed only to walk two blocks along the east-west street to my pre-booked hotel, The Travel Inn. This hotel was a bargain for my four-day stay, at only $75 a night, plus tax. It had everything including a television and an excellent bathroom. You would be hard pressed to find anything as good right in the centre of the city, close to Broadway.

Although tired from nervous energy, I decided to hit the streets at five in the afternoon. I walked about five kilometres downtown into Greenwich Village. I was enchanted by the myriad sidewalk cafes and bistros and enjoyed watching people, relaxing in the balmy air and viewing the last of a deep orange setting sun. I took several photos of the leafy streets, with ornate cast iron fire escapes in the Village, and I was struck by the similarity with Brunswick Street Fitzroy and the areas around Chapel Street Prahran.

Next morning it was a cheap breakfast of a bagel, ham and egg, doughnut and endless tea for $4 on the corner of 42nd Street and 8th Avenue. A good breakfast can be secured for this price anywhere across New York. I thought about McDonalds, but the guard with a big nightstick put me off the idea of relaxing there.

This was to be my high art day. With an art teacher for a spouse, I had been given specific instructions to visit a bevy of these manhattans in Manhattan. I got to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and paid $2 to be blown away by the wealth and diversity of the collections. The Egyptian antiquities rooms were outstanding, as were the superbly etched armour and exquisite weaponry of the military collections.

After a rest and an al-fresco lunch on the steps of the Met, I took a stroll through Central Park and found it quite laid-back, safe and full of interesting people and happenings – portrait artists, a zoo, poets, acrobats, joggers and roller bladers. The beautiful natural granite outcrops in the park were like miniature versions of wild dog rocks at Batesford and this reminded me of why Manhattan has such tall buildings – the island is solid basalt and granite.

Once out of the park, I went into the Plaza Hotel precinct and all the beautiful Hansom cabs which tour around the park. I ventured into the Museum of Modern Art and spent four hours recovering and relaxing. The collection covers modern masters of all descriptions, but my mood took me to the Jackson Pollock Room and the Frank Lloyd Wright exhibits. The sculpture courtyard downstairs contains tinkling water and modern, comfortable open-weave wire chairs designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in the 1920s.

It was Friday afternoon and I hauled myself into my favourite coffee shop on 8th Avenue. I met some friendly New Yorkers, contrary to the negative view I had accepted. They overheard me talking a strange language and invited me to have drinks with them in a bar (actually a series of bars) in the vicinity of 2nd Avenue, close to the United Nations building. This area is where the white-collar executives and secretaries hang out after the money-making week’s work is done.

Apart from the usual posturing that goes on in bars between and within sexes, I found out that New Yorkers, in this mother of all cities and the centre of corporate capitalism, yearn to create their extra-tribal personas. This is expressed in the fad for body tattoos. Male white-collar executives showed off their shoulder patch tattoos (disguised during working hours), and demure-looking secretaries revealed tattooed upper arms inked with Celtic bracelets of intricate designs. It seemed as if the whole of Middle America in New York had a love affair with tattoos and tribalism, if the patterns are to have any meaning.

The next morning, I set out south by bus for the ferries which leave Battery Point Park, at the tip of Manhattan and ended up in Tribeca, a once run-down area below Greenwich Village and now a trendy fashionable art gallery zone and student quarter. It was Saturday and all sorts of interesting people emerged out of the urban cracks and crannies, wall-to-wall warehouses and street markets.

Before my eyes was another veritable kaleidoscope of tattoos. It was a warm muggy morning and ubiquitous black singlets replaced the white blouses of the night before. I became fascinated by the designs of tattoos that paraded before me. The tattoo shops in the area looked busy, and it wasn’t only your "bikie" culture types. It was Ms. or Mr. Average getting a Gothic or Celtic chain design on the ankle or upper arm, though block cartoons (like little coloured pages) were popular also. Tribeca, like Soho, means something clever about the streets, but for me it was to remain synonymous with the meeting of the Tribes for their permanent inked war paint.

I arrived at Battery Park and declined to spend $15 riding the ferry to Liberty Island, gawking up 125 feet at the statue from under her immense skirt. I chose instead the 50 cent (free, since nobody asked for a fare), 25 minute ride to Staten Island and back. I was able to enjoy an uninterrupted vista to the lady with the light, as well as the comings and going of the small and large craft on the Hudson River.

The next morning I was more reflective on New York and its inhabitants. It is not only an exciting, vibrant place, it also has good-natured charm and finesse. In fact, New Yorkers do not seem the brash, dehumanised people I had imagined them to be. My initial fears having subsided, I ventured to areas often referred to as "no white man’s land."

I caught the bus north to Harlem. Expecting the worst, I got out at about 110th street, a good round number. I landed right in Spanish Harlem, on a street performance by the Harlem Dance Company and promptly bought one of their unique T-shirts. I was charmed by the whole environment and became a minor celebrity of my own – not many Australians go to Harlem. They should.

My wanderings took me to street markets and budding rock groups performing on Madison Avenue, to a train ride across the East River to Queens. After crossing what seemed like a square kilometre of urban renewal, an area left derelict, the train entered the suburbs. I got out at Bowling Green to land right into the heart of a huge Chinatown.

I rode the train back in the afternoon and terminated at Civic for I was determined to walk across the bridge to Brooklyn, mythical land of gangsters in the 1920s. I went for the long, memorable (and safe) trek across the Brooklyn Bridge – a marvel of engineering with its symphony of wound steel cables, like a finely tuned harp. From the vantage point of the bridge, there is an unforgettable view. Look across to the glass citadels of commerce on Wall Street and the ferry terminal, then up the East River to Harlem and across to Queens. It is a magic place.

All that was left now was to ascend the famous eternal sentinel of New York, the Empire State Building. With evening darkness drawing near, I reached the top to see another thunderstorm brooding over New Jersey in the west. I watched it sweep with lightning flashes across Staten Island. After fighting off King Kong, who now frequents the observation platform to harass tourists, I cast eyes down on the Chrysler Building, the Art Deco masterpiece of New York skyscrapers – land adorned with its beautiful stainless steel, fanned and fluted roofline.

I had now done the tour of New York. I yearned to return for a few weeks and do it the justice it really deserves, stopping to sit and get to know the natives on the outer perimeters of their glass menagerie.

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