NYC: Day 1
So here I am … day 1 of my 9-day NYC experiment: does the buzz wear off after more than a few days? Will the city be less appealing when I’m not staying at the Soho Grand? I’m here to find out.
For starters, the Hotel 309 is definitely not the Soho Grand. The hotel has no front desk, so I was greeted by Jose, the porter, in a wife-beater, smoking a cigarette. In broken English, and with the cig dangling form his lips, Jose explained to me the rules of the hotel, the first of which is “no smoking”. He tried to convince me that the maid had washed and shrunk the size double mattress-pad in hot water as he struggled valiantly to fit it on a queen-sized mattress. While I watched him finish preparing my room, he told me the story of how he has been at the hotel for ten years and a bunch of other stuff I could not understand. He did mention that there was a “muey grande” Balducci’s grocery next door, and he’s right … it’s huge, which is more than I can say for my accommodations.
My room is under 250 square feet. It has hardwood floors and a little kitchen area with a dorm fridge and a microwave the size of a box of Ritz crackers. But the fridge is brand new, which means it’s clean, and the room smells of Clorox, so I have some confidence that it’s sanitary, which is more than I can say for the shared bathroom. There is a lingering odor of street urine, but I'm hoping that it's just coming in from the street and not a result of something in my room.
It’s bad, but I must say it isn’t as bad as some of the hostels I visited in Europe. I came prepared with a large container of Clorox wipes and shower shoes, so I’ll survive, which is more than I can say for the children who live next door.
I have tried to count the number of distinct voices, but my best guess is that there are at least five children between the ages of 3 and 10 running around the next apartment CONSTANTLY. The bigger ones are beating up on the littler ones because the shrieks of laughter are punctuated with slaps and howls of tears. When the adult voices rumble, the screaming calms down for a few minutes, only to resume a short time later.
But I really didn’t expect much for $90 a night in the hottest neighborhood in Manhattan. The sheets are clean and the AC works, so I’ll be fine. However, if I don’t return next Sunday as scheduled, please send the search team to room 6 at www.hotel309.com on W 14th Street between 8th and 9th Avenue. I’m a little worried that Jose may sneak in to harvest my organs in the middle of the night and I'll end up in a tub full of ice and no one will be the wiser.
So what useful information can I report back to you from the epicenter of hip? Get a pen.
First, I’m a little worried that the iPod, or portable music players in general, are on the decline. I walked around the Village, Soho, and Chelsea for most of the day, and I only counted 6 people wearing earphones, and most of those people did not look like New Yorkers. I wonder if everyone’s afraid of getting mugged, or perhaps the articles about iPod fanatics going deaf have scared people off. I’m not worried about my Apple stock though because the store in Soho was packed to the gills and people weren’t just buying iPods, but MacBooks and desktops and Cinema Displays as fast as they could work the registers.
While earphones may be on the out, the electrical device of choice in the Big Apple is Nextel / Sprint two-way interconnect. That trademark chirp can be heard everywhere in the streets with people shouting into the top of their opened flip phones as they hold it a few inches in front of their face. I hope this fad does not make its way to DC … it’s almost more annoying that people walking around talking to someone who isn’t there with their Bluetooth earpiece. But walkie talkie is definitely the thing here at the moment.
Another trend from NYC is the backpack, my friends. Backpacks EVERYWHERE. Men in expensive suits, women teetering on their Manolos, kids, bohemians … EVERYONE is using a backpack, and with both straps. The backpacks are the ones with the technical looking nylon with straps and serious bungee things all over … they look similar to a hiking running shoe.
I’ve seen many more Vespas than before, especially in Soho with the Vespa dealer just west of Little Italy. It would be great if the moped caught on big-time in the States. I got addicted to the moped in Cambodia … very convenient.
Finally, it’s going to be the year of the scarf. These New Yorkers are just chomping at the bit to break out their neckwear. It reached almost 70 here today, yet as far as the eye could see people had their winter scarves knotted around their necks No coats, but scarves. Women and men. I mentioned this oddity to the sales guy in Ted Baker and he said, “I’m from London, so this is still summer as far as I’m concerned.” Yet he was already wearing a velvet blazer. I’m walking around in a t-shirt and flip flops. Maybe tomorrow I’ll wear a t-shirt and a scarf.
The screaming next door has stopped. Maybe they've all killed each other, or maybe they just have an early bedtime.
