New York, New York

“I want to wake up in a city that doesn’t sleep…”- which is exactly what we did, or rather, we woke up in New Jersey, a bus ride away from the city that never sleeps. Our three days were action-packed, so I’ll have to pick out just a couple of highlights.

Day 1

Our first stop in New York was the quintessential American tourist destination- the Statue of Liberty. Then we took the ferry from the island where the statue is to Ellis Island. This was one of my very favorite activities we took part in. Plenty of historical tourist destinations try to recreate some version of the idea that you can “feel” the history of the place, and most times I think it’s just wishful thinking, but with Ellis Island, it was different. I don’t know about the rest of our group, but I did have this eerie feeling the entire time we were there, thinking about how this place determined the destiny of so many of today’s American citizens, including my own. I had ancestors come through Ellis Island from Germany in the late 1700s- had they not been allowed into America, I would not be here. My favorite part of this museum was a photo exhibit from the time that Ellis Island stood empty from 1954 to sometime in the late 1980s when it began to be restored as a museum. The photos that some photographers who simply came exploring this empty building on their own during the 30 year vacancy are so eerie in a way I can’t quite explain. The idea that this building witnessed over 12 million immigrants coming through, some of them being welcomed into the country and some of them being turned away for unknowingly possessing some “undesirable” characteristic as determined by our government, and then it was simply abandoned, left to rot- the pictures of relics left behind, the little signs in a desolate building that once it was a bustling center of hopes and dreams…I wish I could have been one of the people to come before it was restored and see that for myself.

We got on the ferry to go back to the city and split into groups. My group went to hang out in Central Park, which was swarming with people enjoying the beautiful weather. We spent a couple of hours here, but my favorite part was when we stumbled across a skating dance party. There were probably 75-100 people of all different ages, races, shapes and sizes all roller-skating and dancing together to music blasting out of speakers someone had set up. This struck me as one of the perks of living in a big city- when would you ever see something like this in the suburbs or small towns? We ate dinner at a Jewish deli and headed back towards our bus, taking a quick detour to Times Square.

In Times Square, we stopped to talk to a few interesting characters, including some young teen girls that were holding signs saying they were giving out free hugs and a young Russian girl dressed as the statue of liberty. However, my favorite conversation of the night was with a Colombian man probably in his early ‘30s who I am pretty sure was gay. He had asked us to take a picture of his friend and him in front of the classic Times Square background, and then laughingly asked someone else to take a picture with all of him and us. He was so excited to be in New York, and we started to ask him what it meant to be an American. He told us that he was going to be an official citizen very soon, he had been taking classes to pass the citizenship test and he couldn’t wait to be able to call himself an American. He talked about how in Colombia he was not accepted for who he was (which I am guessing means that his lifestyle as a homosexual wasn’t accepted, but I don’t know for sure) but then he came to America and there are so many different kinds of people here, especially in cities and that he felt like in America he could be whoever he wanted to be. He came right out and said that he already felt like an American and he was prouder than we were, having lived here all of our lives, because he knew how hard life could be somewhere else and here he felt accepted for the first time. All of us agreed after talking to this excited patriotic almost-citizen that it made us feel proud of our country, that no matter what issues people might have in specific regions of the county with discrimination, it seemed that as a whole America is viewed as a place where you can live the life you want.

Day 2

Our second volunteer project for our trip was working in a furniture store for the recently homeless in Brooklyn. We all had fun as we sat together on the warehouse floor trying to assemble various types of furniture, and afterwards we ate lunch at a great little New York style pizza joint down the road. We explored on our own for a while in the afternoon, and a few of us ended up going to a comedy club at night, which was really fun.

Day 3

I started and ended our day with feeling starkly out of place. Our day began with a group lunch at this upscale trendy sushi restaurant in Greenwich Village. At first, I thought the fact that there was no sign for this restaurant (we only found it because we looked in the window of this basement and noticed it was a restaurant) was a sign that it would be really authentic, a place just for locals. Now I think the lack of advertising may have been more a mark of exclusivity. The waitress was smug when I asked about something on the menu I didn’t recognize and I unknowingly paid $10 for a mere 4 pieces of sushi. Oh well. After our pricey lunch, we went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which absolutely blew me away. I have to go back to New York and spend all day there sometime. Rashina, Elisabeth and I got coffee and sat in this little shaded church courtyard for quite awhile, enjoying a respite from the busy city atmosphere. We had dinner in a little diner that was reminiscent of the diner in Seinfeld, along with an adorably grumpy old waiter. Then Chris met up with us and we all took the subway forever away to the Bronx, where we went to a community salsa concert in the local park. It was extremely difficult to find our way there- guess why? The Bronx isn’t on the city maps that are provided in the subway. What does this say to visitors about one of the poorest areas in the city? Anyway, we arrived at the salsa show to find out, not surprisingly, that we stuck out. On our way back to the subway, we heard some interesting commentary about how we stuck out from some of the locals. We took the train from the Bronx to Grand Central Station, and that ride was interesting to say the least. As we went from stop to stop, you could see the social demographics changing in a number of ways. As we were leaving the Bronx, a young man who may have been homeless came through our train asking for money and food, saying that he was hungry and just wanted a little help. A few people offered up a couple of dollars and he thanked them and proceeded on through other parts of the train. By the time he came back through, we were further into the heart of the city and there were new people on our car. We watched as he came through and repeated his plea. The lady with her Saks 5th Avenue bag uncomfortably averted her eyes. Another lady listened to his request for food, proceeds to pull out a granola bar from her purse…. and eat it herself, in front of him.

We hung out in Grand Central Station for a bit, observing how even here we looked out of place among the rush of busy young professionals in their suits, even though it was about 8 at night. We returned to the bus with a new perspective on the many faces of New York City.