Tenements and spelling
Today Debbie and I left Phoenix to it, and made straight for the Lower East Side and its Tenement Museum. Finding it was slightly trickier than it needed to be. On Orchard Street I spotted a large "Tenement Museum" sign. When we got to that building, it was an antique shop. On its counter was a small handwritten sign saying "For tenement museum tickets, go to 108 Orchard St." Since not all the doorways were numbered, we had to look up and down a little before finding the somewhat anonymous museum ticket office and gift shop.
We were 15 minutes early for their 11am opening, so we went for a light breakfast of croissants across the road. We returned, bought tour tickets and watched a looping film about various immigrants' stories while we waited. Some schoolchildren fidgeted throughout.
When the time came, a nice lady led us across the street to their preserved tenement. Paul was right when he recommended the place, warning that they'd present it as if New York was the only place to have had poor living conditions. While it was undeniably harsh, I imagine the slums of Birmingham (England) would have been little better. The construction was similar to that of our squalid residence in Small Heath, where like these tenements families would originally have shared outdoor toilets, and although that house was comparatively spacious, far worse accommodation was removed when Aston's slums were cleared.
That being said, they had a hard life. Our tour concentrated on the garment industry, which at the time was primarily piece work performed in the home. An English woman asked why the unions didn't help. I resisted butting in to explain how if there are enough desperate and unemployed people it's an employer's job market: "You want to strike? There's 10 other people who'll do the job and not complain.". The guide's terse explanation was "It wasn't unionised at that time."
Later, buoyed by the cross-class feminist movement, there was indeed a shirtmaker's strike, and it was apparently rather effective.
The schoolchildren were rather naively fascinated by a fake cockroach in the sink. "Would there really have been roaches in the sink?", one asked. "Sure, " answered our guide, "and rats too." — but not "Honey, there's thousands of homes with cockroaches and rats today".
With the tour over, we took a quick peek in Essex Street Market, still in the Lower East Side. This was so similar to Birmingham's indoor markets (but smaller) that we didn't stay for long.
We took the subway up to 34th St. and walked a few blocks picking out somewhere for lunch. We settled on a Hawaiian fast food joint called T&T's, where $6.50 bought a bento lunchbox of salad, sushi, sashimi and little deep fried pastry parcels.
Around this area, I spotted a truck that had been tagged by Sonic the Hedgehog and Miles "Tails" Prower, Sonic's fox companion.
With that we split up so Debbie could explore the shops some more.
I set myself the goal of buying Steve a PSP memory stick. This found me bartering with the high-pressure salesmen of the small electronics shops which are dotted around midtown. Eventually I was offered an official Sony 2GB card for the price GameStop were charging for 3rd party memory, as long as I paid cash. I think that worked out OK. As always, I forgot about tax, so it was lucky that I got a bit extra out on my visit to the ATM.
I popped into New York Public Library to appreciate the grandeur, and found a man carving "The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation" into the list of benefactors. I strolled through a reading room distracting people, and admiring the vast ornate ceilings, chandeliers and of course the masses of bookshelves. Although I had a quick play with the electronic catalogue, it wasn't obvious to me how one would go about locating a specific title. Plenty of staff were on hand though, so if I'd been serious I'm sure I could have found out.
I walked on to Times Square to attempt to get some video of crowds walking past. Unfortunately it didn't seem to be the right time of day for real crowds, and I didn't really get what I wanted. (In case you're wondering, I wanted to experiment with slot-scans where instead of the camera moving, the subjects move — basically a photo-finish capture. The best I got was this — it shows the principle but isn't very good)
I trudged up 8th Avenue passing many adult DVD shops and peep shows, then the theatre district with its souvenir shops and its restaurants, all the way up to 57th St., the home stretch. I got a coffee and took it to the hotel, where I looked at my pictures relaxed a little.
Debbie texted me to say she was on her way back, and would I like her to bring food. We didn't have long for eating, since we had theatre tickets. Phoenix showed up shortly thereafter, but didn't want to add an order to Debbie's burden. Debbie turned up with four large slices of tasty pizza.
Debbie was particularly excited by her visit to Tiffany's, where she had gone in to treat it as a museum and was impressed by the personal attention every visitor received. It worked: she bought herself a necklace (allegedly the cheapest in the shop) and I'm sure part of the price of the necklace pays for the Tiffany's "ride".
As theatre time approached, and Debbie and Phoenix compared their afternoons' shopping, I tried to gently and diplomatically suggest that they should start getting ready — because I have learnt that women like to preen themselves before going out for an evening. About 15 minutes later, Phoenix idly asked whether my computer had the time on it. It did, but my watch had the time adjusted for the local timezone, which is much easier. "OH MY GOD THAT DOESN'T LEAVE MUCH TIME TO GET READY!" she cried — so I had clearly been a little more gentle and diplomatic than required.
When they were just about ready, I put on a shirt.
We were OK though, and were seated in The Circle In The Square theatre with ten minutes to spare, having walked the seven easy blocks. The show was "The 25th Annual Puttnam County Spelling Bee" — sort of like "Spellbound: The Musical". I was proud as punch to have got us tickets two rows from the front, but this was dulled slightly because the seats extended around three sides of the stage and it became apparent that however much they tried to play to the whole audience, those facing the front of the stage were bound to get the best view.
I think we all enjoyed the show greatly. It was funny, topical, romantic and touching by turn, and it featured a song called "My unfortunate erection"…
We walked home with half an eye on dropping into a bar for a drink, but instead found ourselves at home, trying to squeeze our shopping into our suitcases.
Just as we decided it was bedtime, our neighbours decided to blast music through our wall. Our British reserve told us to endure it stoically, but our frustration grew quickly. It took three calls to reception to shut them up — I believe on the third call, they said that they would threaten our neighbours with the police, which worked.