NEWS
EVENTS
NYC CRAZY
Other | Wednesday 19th October 2011 | Osh
The first thing to remember about NYC is that the people are crazy. I knew this from watching Taxi Driver years ago and I was warned again in an affected Brooklyn drawl by the thirty-something Londoner by birth who took the plane seat next to me. As the plane soared over London’s riots bellow it was hard to imagine how my destination could be crazier and as my new friend told me there was no way anything like that would happen in NYC. People there are crazy in a different way.
Instantly after landing I began to find out what he meant. Arriving at my hotel after cab pooling with a middle aged man who invited me home to sleep with his wife, I went to explore Time Square. The square looks a bit like Moron Mountain from Space Jam which was more than enough to excite the child in me to bar crawl to the nearest Ray's Pizza and sit bug eyed, chewing. Walking out into the street just in time to see a man dressed like a Burger King Kid free line skate through heavy traffic while loudly singing Ghostbusters I realised just how eccentric this city really is. It seems that you really can make yourself into whoever you want to be in NYC and as long as you don't step on peoples toes along the way, most people will high five you for it.
This bizzare sight set the precedent for a large variety of stranger sights. Leaving Katz’s Diner on 2nd avenue, which probably makes the best salt beef sandwich in the world, I saw a man fishing with a magnet down a drain cover for small change. Later that night my friends and I were approached by a five foot tall man who told us he was really depressed because his lover had just broken up with him. It turns out he really needed some coke to feel better but the only problem was that his ex-lover was also his coke dealer. Sadly for him, the only other dealer he knew sold crack exclusively, no tick, so he needed 20 dollars from us no less. He was polite but needless to say we walked swiftly on to Diner 24 in Chelsea, which does exactly what it says on the cover.
The best thing about NYC is the 24-hour dining. Nowhere else I know in the world can you stumble into a restaurant with your mates and slur with whiskey breath into the waiters ear that you want the biggest burger they have. The one downside being breakfast one morning where I heard a hooker in the diner explaining with pride how her daughter had just gone into the family business.
Sadly I was doomed to miss the weekend. From what I saw though, NY nightlife focuses much more on drink and sexy dancing rather than the drugs and puke while dancing model we’ve mastered here. I feel both sides of the pond have a lot to learn from each other. Nonethless, during a heatwave especially, daytime is the time to see the city and as the picture shows the youth of the city have bags of character all the time.
