I’m in NYC …
… for the first time in five years. The last time I was here was for a niece’s wedding that took place a few months before COVID. And now I’m here for a different niece’s wedding. Last time I came in a car. This time no more driving in NYC; I’ve lot my nerve for that.
So I did something I haven’t done in about 55 years: I took the bus to the Port Authority Terminal.
The bus ride was fine. I was really wondering how the Port Authority Terminal would be faring after all those many years. I remember it as having always been seedy, full of drunks and crazy people and what used to be called vagrants but are now the un-housed. But when I got off the bus and entered the terminal, I immediately noticed that it’s been somewhat spiffied up in the intervening half-century. It’s cleaner, for one thing, and brighter – and it may be one of the few places in the US that now has fewer crazies and street people than before. That’s not to say it has none, of course. But it really did seem to be, if not a pleasant place, at least a less unpleasant place.
I’m planning to be in New York for a week. But don’t worry, I also plan to keep up with the blogging.
The Port Authority Bus Terminal has to be the nastiest way to arrive and depart from NYC.
Many blessings to your family on this happy occasion! So nice to gather for a beginning instead of an ending.
Kate:
Thanks!
How do you know you are not one of the crazies now, Neo ?
Just joking!!! Love the blog. Been reading it for 18 years now.
A while back, I was eating in a McDonald’s and there was a guy sitting over there talking out loud to himself.
By the time I left he was outside the door still carrying on his conversation.
As I drove off by myself, I said out loud ” That poor guy is talking to himself.”
Immediately realizing the irony.
As I drove away, Me, Myself , and I – all three- had a great laugh.
I see people talking to themselves often, before realizing they’ve got earbuds in and they’re talking to someone who isn’t there. It does look and sound really odd.
Could be that they’re only pretending to use the buds (or cell phone).
See they don’t want others to think they’re actually talking to themselves.
In which case…are they really crazy?
I always try and avoid driving in NYC. I have family that live in the suburbs. So I leave my car there and either take a commuter train or uber. I’ve never done the bus terminal.
It must be so interesting and emotional spending time in the city where you grew up.
Have a wonderful time at the wedding and visiting family and friends!
A story apropos to this thread and to it being St. Patrick’s Day.
Late one night a number of years ago I in the MacDonald’s in Dublin, Ireland, just off Duke Street. I was alone, minding my own business, the only customer in the place, munching on my burger and fries when, suddenly . . .
A horde (literally) of Glasgow Rangers fans came rampaging (again, literally) down the street bellowing, cursing, breaking windows, overturning trash cans, etc. Several of the barbarians pushed through the door into the MacDonald’s and stood there just inside the entrance glaring at me with crazy drunken expressions. I looked over at the Mickey-Dee employees behind the counter. They gestured, urgently, for me to join them behind the counter. I did, with alacrity. Now, I’m a big guy and I can take care of myself, but there was no way in hell that I was going to go up against four big, bad, drunk/insane Glasgow Ranger fans hailing from what is (deservedly) reputed to be the meanest, toughest city in Europe. This incident occurred during the height of the “football [i.e. soccer] thugs” phenomenon and, in the circumstances, I decided that discretion was the better part of valor.
Having put distance and a physical barrier between myself and the Rangers fans, they lost interest in me and exited the premises, rejoining their compatriots to resume rioting through downtown Dublin. I thanked the staff for saving me and went back to my burger and fries.
There is a prequel to this story. I had encountered a large continent of Rangers fans the day before, on the ferry from Stranraer (Scotland) to Larne (Northern Ireland). The Rangers fans had functionally taken over the boat and all of them, it seemed, were very drunk and loud and unruly. I retreated to a corner on the upper deck, kept my head down, and said nothing to no one. When we had docked in Larne and I drove off the boat in my rental, I headed straight for Dublin with a sense of great relief.
Little did I know that not far behind me was a long caravan of buses packed with Rangers fans, also headed to Dublin to attend a football match pitting the Rangers against the Dublin team (to be held the next day).
I later learned that the Rangers fans tossed a Catholic priest overboard from the ferry in Larne Harbor. Also that the Irish government eventually called out local units of the Irish army to contain the rampaging Rangers fans.
Good times, good times.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day to all!
I have taken a bus to NYC, but my favorite way is by train.
I have driven a car into NYC to visit SoHo cousins. First time paid $10/day for open air parking. Then $40/day for parking garage. Price of gentrification. I am planning a drive up East with a friend. These days, I am no longer comfortable driving a car into NYC—my concern is more traffic than crime. Time will tell.
NYC is bad enough to drive through on limited access roads–let alone getting on its streets. (Though 30 miles through Houston freeways is not comfortable, either.) I once drove a U-Haul van through NYC. I gave a sigh of relief when I got on the New Jersey Turnpike. For all the negative publicity it gets, the New Jersey Turnpike is stress-free heaven compared to NYC.
(Nor would I drive in downtown Boston. In my experience, Boston drivers are the worst in the country. I will finesse Boston by going on 495.)
Regarding changing neighborhoods in NYC: cousins’ SoHo neighborhood had open air drug markets in the 1980s. Gentrified, so that loud, drunken tourists became the issue. Going back down now, I hear. Because of rent control, their apartment is $600/mo—would be $6000 or more on open market. (But cousin’s husband installed floors on his own and more…There was a reason he could lock in a good rent.) But as they own a nearby apt. , and also own a house in flyover country, loss of that under-price apt. wouldn’t be insurmountable.
I spend tone summer in NYC in the mid-eighties and then in the late nineties, I live there for five years going to grad school.
Back in the mid-eighties, when I was in NYC, for some weird reason, I had to go to the Port Authority Bus Station. Ugh. T\It was mid-day, there were a tone of cops there, but it was still pretty seedy-ish, (though brightly lit!) I had to go back again in the late nineties. WHAT A DIFFERENCE! Still a lot of cops, but cleaner, and safer feeling. And fewer scuzzy looking people.
I remember in the eighties, you did NOT go east of 1st Avenue if you could help it, and NEVER past Avenue A. Tompkins Square Park was just for drugs. When I moved back in 1995, I wound up going to something in Alphabet City – at night – and walked through Thompkins Square Park at 1:00 in the morning! It was soooo yuppie-fied! It was amazing! (you could never have walked there at 1:00 am in the 80s.)
In the eighties, I hated talking the subway because the trains were filthy and the stations stunk of urine. I almost always took the bus. In the nineties, it was nice, even the older trains with crappy a/c where clean.
My roommate in the eighties was a student at Circle int he Square. We walked to pick her up a few times. It is not far from Times square, and Times Square was disgusting with all the porn houses. Most of them were gone by the late nineties, and there were people who said that their loss ruined the “flavor” of Times Square.
I had a friend in the eighties who was a student at JTS which is up at 122nd and Broadway, I forget where he lived but it was nearby, and there was an invisible line you didn’t walk east of. Period. You tried not to go out at night if you didn’t have to. By the late nineties– a HUGE difference!
I could go on and on and on….
(I do wish I had bought my apartment back in the nineties — it was going for $100K which I thought was insane. It goes for a lot more now!)
I lived in New York for a few years during the mid-’70s, but never passed through the Port Authority bus station.
My girlfriend and I had a cheap apartment in the East Village, between First Avenue and Avenue A. The neighborhood wasn’t exactly dangerous, but we’d avoid burned out buildings by crossing from one side of the street to the other.
Around the corner, on Avenue A, there was a good Ukrainean restaurant. Tompkins Square Park was just up the street, and I sometimes played basketball there. The druggies were easy to ignore. Despite the sordid atmosphere, I had a good time, made some good friends, and have lots of good memories.
I’ve never been back, but I’ve been told that the neighborhood’s become a fiefdom of NYU, so I probably wouldn’t even recognize most of it.
Always took the train into the city. Had a professional meeting in the mid 80s…left the meeting early and came home. The city was downright frightening and I felt unsafe. Go ahead a decade or so, post Guiliani, and we took our young daughters for a trip…amazing and wonderful time. Another decade, and it was like the 80s again. Never have been back and don’t want to.
We have relatives in Stony Brook, so have been there, but not the city. Take the ferry from CT. When we moved to FL as we drove across the GW bridge I was so happy to never have to cross that bridge again, or to drive on the NJTP.