Your adventures begin at Inverness Airport
N
ightfall had descended by the time I stood on the roof of our 17-storey hotel, gazing at the skyline with a glass of spirits in hand. The Empire State Building, adorned in blue, red and pink light, peeked coyly around a nearby office block, while yellow cabs streaked across intersections below amid irate car horns which permeated the smooth beats of Jurassic 5 and the maraca-rattle of ice in cocktail shakers. It has to be said, the textbook clichés that I had heard were out in force in my first whirlwind hour in Manhattan. The air, prickly with the dry heat of another warm autumn evening, was tinged with a funk from the subway vents at street level. The charm of New York is its sheer size and all the sights, sounds and smells that come with it. And I was seduced instantly. Happily for us, weekends in America's most populated metropolis revolve around food. Brunch is an institution so, waking from a jet laginduced slumber, we reserved a table online at Kitchenette, a busy Sunday spot on an otherwise tranquil Tribeca side-street.
GINGERBREAD PANCAKES
Inside, young families with strollers, couples and singles were all accommodated at tables fashioned from old doors in a long, homely dining room which tapered in the middle. Scores more decided to wait outside for a table to free up. Satiated with a stack of gingerbread pancakes and apple butter, we set out towards Brooklyn. Passing high-porch townhouses decorated with pumpkins in serene Brooklyn Heights, we wove through the throngs to Smorgasburg, a food market on what was formerly dilapidated docklands. Pier 5 at Brooklyn Bridge Park, the current venue of this Sunday market, is quite a perch to take in striking skyline views of Manhattan. It also presents just a slice of New York's cultural diversity with 75 entrepreneurial vendors from across the locality setting up here. A plethora of smells wafted from a swathe of small stands, tempting like-minded food lovers with their wares. Bolivian salteñas, pulled pork, artisanal ice cream and sauces, cured meats and pizzas. We opted for fusion hotdogs from the Asiadogs stand and devoured them while people-watching and catching the glint of the afternoon sun on skyscraper glass. It is only one of six similar Brooklyn markets that take place over the weekend, including another at the Brooklyn Flea in Williamsburg, the Bohemian enclave du jour. A trip north on the G train to Nassau Avenue brought us to the top of Bedford Avenue, the nucleus of the neighbourhood. Behind the urban decay of its derelict buildings, wasteland and graffitied walls beats the throbbing pulse of alternative New York. It's an increasingly gentrified district; artists' loft studios stand side by side with pricey restaurants. Williamsburg is also base camp for the Brooklyn Brewery, craft brewers here since 1988, who offer free tours on Sundays. Buying beer tokens and sampling their offerings in their raucous beer hall is well worth the
stop alone. The main draws however are places like Beacon's Closet on North 11th Street, a mecca for fashion-savvy hipsters with a penchant for vintage, or Artists and Fleas on North 7th St. It wasn’t long before our appetites once more needed sating so we stopped for a quick bite at J.G. Melon, a low-key Upper East Side watering hole on 3 rd Avenue whose hamburgers and cheesecake have attracted a dedicated following. I collapsed into bed in a daze when we finally made it back to the hotel. Billed as “luxury tombs” by The New York Times, Pod 39 in Midtown is considered by critics and devotees alike as somewhat of a trailblazer. In a city where space is at a premium, the micro-hotel concept first found fertile ground in Manhattan with the much-lauded opening of Pod 51 in 2007, followed by Pod 39 in 2012. Our small but cleverly-appointed Queen room maximised every inch of space possible to accommodate suitcase and clothes storage, equipped with a flat screen TV, an iPod dock and an immaculate whitetiled en-suite bathroom with a rainhead shower. The mantra is simple; offering affordable, stylish accommodation with a community feel for travellers. Bolstering its alternative credentials, the Pod hotels have teamed up with Streetwise to offer guests free off-the-beaten-track walking tours three days a week. We joined Dan, our guide for the morning, for a tour of the Lower East Side and Chinatown. Rounding up the group, we boarded a train downtown. It was hard not to be struck by streets of tenement blocks and fire escapes stretching into the distance in either direction. An astonishing one in three of all Americans can trace their ancestry back to the early squalor of the Lower East Side.
SLUMS OF MUMBAI
“Where we're standing was akin to the slums of Mumbai,” said Dan, leading our band to the corner of Essex and Rivington Street. Nearly 30million European immigrants passed through here between 1880 and 1924, crossing the Atlantic to the New World in droves aboard ocean liners. “This was a stepping stone; you saved money and you got out of here.” Given its expanse, there just isn't enough time to truly experience New York or understand it. In any case, it shifts daily, contorts and evolves beyond recognition. There is one constant, the feeling you first have when you arrive. Musing from the lounge bar over one final drink, I freeze-frame the scene for posterity: innumerable cubes of light, The Empire State Building, now bathed in white, and the honks of traffic to a hip hop soundtrack.
i THE HOLIDAY
HOLIDAYS
WORDS | David Walsh
NEW YORK: BE A PART OF IT
Aer Lingus (www.aerlingus.com) flies from Aberdeen to JFK via Dublin from £606 return, based on travel in October. David stayed at the Pod 39 Hotel on East 39th Street. Rooms are available from $119 (£69) a night Billed as “luxury tombs” by The New York Times, Pod 39 in Midtown is considered a trailblazer (www.thepodhotel.com)
20 The Press and Journal | Saturday, August 2, 2014
Your adventures begin at Inverness Airport
Book with
jerseytravel.com
hial.co.uk
ightfall had descended by the time I stood on the roof of our 17-storey hotel, gazing at the skyline with a glass of spirits in hand. The Empire State Building, adorned in blue, red and pink light, peeked coyly around a nearby office block, while yellow cabs streaked across intersections below amid irate car horns which permeated the smooth beats of Jurassic 5 and the maraca-rattle of ice in cocktail shakers. It has to be said, the textbook clichés that I had heard were out in force in my first whirlwind hour in Manhattan. The air, prickly with the dry heat of another warm autumn evening, was tinged with a funk from the subway vents at street level. The charm of New York is its sheer size and all the sights, sounds and smells that come with it. And I was seduced instantly. Happily for us, weekends in America's most populated metropolis revolve around food. Brunch is an institution so, waking from a jet laginduced slumber, we reserved a table online at Kitchenette, a busy Sunday spot on an otherwise tranquil Tribeca side-street.
GINGERBREAD PANCAKES
Inside, young families with strollers, couples and singles were all accommodated at tables fashioned from old doors in a long, homely dining room which tapered in the middle. Scores more decided to wait outside for a table to free up. Satiated with a stack of gingerbread pancakes and apple butter, we set out towards Brooklyn. Passing high-porch townhouses decorated with pumpkins in serene Brooklyn Heights, we wove through the throngs to Smorgasburg, a food market on what was formerly dilapidated docklands. Pier 5 at Brooklyn Bridge Park, the current venue of this Sunday market, is quite a perch to take in striking skyline views of Manhattan. It also presents just a slice of New York's cultural diversity with 75 entrepreneurial vendors from across the locality setting up here. A plethora of smells wafted from a swathe of small stands, tempting like-minded food lovers with their wares. Bolivian salteñas, pulled pork, artisanal ice cream and sauces, cured meats and pizzas. We opted for fusion hotdogs from the Asiadogs stand and devoured them while people-watching and catching the glint of the afternoon sun on skyscraper glass. It is only one of six similar Brooklyn markets that take place over the weekend, including another at the Brooklyn Flea in Williamsburg, the Bohemian enclave du jour. A trip north on the G train to Nassau Avenue brought us to the top of Bedford Avenue, the nucleus of the neighbourhood. Behind the urban decay of its derelict buildings, wasteland and graffitied walls beats the throbbing pulse of alternative New York. It's an increasingly gentrified district; artists' loft studios stand side by side with pricey restaurants. Williamsburg is also base camp for the Brooklyn Brewery, craft brewers here since 1988, who offer free tours on Sundays. Buying beer tokens and sampling their offerings in their raucous beer hall is well worth the
stop alone. The main draws however are places like Beacon's Closet on North 11th Street, a mecca for fashion-savvy hipsters with a penchant for vintage, or Artists and Fleas on North 7th St. It wasn’t long before our appetites once more needed sating so we stopped for a quick bite at J.G. Melon, a low-key Upper East Side watering hole on 3 rd Avenue whose hamburgers and cheesecake have attracted a dedicated following. I collapsed into bed in a daze when we finally made it back to the hotel. Billed as “luxury tombs” by The New York Times, Pod 39 in Midtown is considered by critics and devotees alike as somewhat of a trailblazer. In a city where space is at a premium, the micro-hotel concept first found fertile ground in Manhattan with the much-lauded opening of Pod 51 in 2007, followed by Pod 39 in 2012. Our small but cleverly-appointed Queen room maximised every inch of space possible to accommodate suitcase and clothes storage, equipped with a flat screen TV, an iPod dock and an immaculate whitetiled en-suite bathroom with a rainhead shower. The mantra is simple; offering affordable, stylish accommodation with a community feel for travellers. Bolstering its alternative credentials, the Pod hotels have teamed up with Streetwise to offer guests free off-the-beaten-track walking tours three days a week. We joined Dan, our guide for the morning, for a tour of the Lower East Side and Chinatown. Rounding up the group, we boarded a train downtown. It was hard not to be struck by streets of tenement blocks and fire escapes stretching into the distance in either direction. An astonishing one in three of all Americans can trace their ancestry back to the early squalor of the Lower East Side.
SLUMS OF MUMBAI
“Where we're standing was akin to the slums of Mumbai,” said Dan, leading our band to the corner of Essex and Rivington Street. Nearly 30million European immigrants passed through here between 1880 and 1924, crossing the Atlantic to the New World in droves aboard ocean liners. “This was a stepping stone; you saved money and you got out of here.” Given its expanse, there just isn't enough time to truly experience New York or understand it. In any case, it shifts daily, contorts and evolves beyond recognition. There is one constant, the feeling you first have when you arrive. Musing from the lounge bar over one final drink, I freeze-frame the scene for posterity: innumerable cubes of light, The Empire State Building, now bathed in white, and the honks of traffic to a hip hop soundtrack.
i THE HOLIDAY
HOLIDAYS
WORDS | David Walsh
NEW YORK: BE A PART OF IT
Aer Lingus (www.aerlingus.com) flies from Aberdeen to JFK via Dublin from £606 return, based on travel in October. David stayed at the Pod 39 Hotel on East 39th Street. Rooms are available from $119 (£69) a night Billed as “luxury tombs” by The New York Times, Pod 39 in Midtown is considered a trailblazer (www.thepodhotel.com)
20 The Press and Journal | Saturday, August 2, 2014
Your adventures begin at Inverness Airport
Book with
jerseytravel.com
hial.co.uk
