New York – Martinique 2016, part 1 (New York)
I love New York very much. Although this is indeed a fabulous city by itself, the main reason why I love it so much and why I love going there are my friends who live there. As a matter fact it was precisely when I went to these friends in 2016 that I realised I felt better at their place than at my own home. How was that possible, I wondered after returning from the trip and then I realised: I feel literally at home at their place, but without all the obligations and tasks that must be dealt with when I’m in Belgrade.
And it all started like that, from this feeling of ease as if I was going home when going there. A couple of months before the trip I came across a fantastic air-ticket promotion and then I thought that it would be quite nice to go to New York and then to come up with another “local” trip while there. I dialled the phone and it was Mitar who picked up, so we chatted a little about general things and families, and then I asked him if it was ok with him to have guests. Mitar asked me who this was about and sort of timidly I said it was me who would like to visit. Then, with a joyful and jocular tone of voice he asked me:
“Well, does this mean that I need to ask if I want to come to your place?”
I knew that this meant I could go there any time I wanted and his suggestion about coming to my place was actually just a joke. To start with, Mitar has never come to my place since he has a lot of family in Serbia and Montenegro, and he only said it like that (although I would be delighted if they were my guests). The second thing is that both he and Milana belong to the traditional people from this part of the world where it is self-understood that the door is always wide open for family and friends. Thus, in addition to New York, I can also go whenever I feel like it to my cousin’s in Leskovac (Serbia), while my family also has friends like this in Kraljevo (Serbia) and I simply know that I can go there when I want because some of these formal “invitations” are always open.
Nowadays, this has been almost entirely lost, there is no spontaneity and everybody meets with others almost solely with a prior arrangement on the date and the hour of the encounter. I can partially understand this, since I must admit that with my work and the types of obligations I have it would not always suit me to have uninvited guests who come for an indefinite period of time. On the other hand, I know that I would truly rejoice in seeing again the people I love and I suppose that my work and obligations would somehow work out. I like to believe that one bright and positive part of our tradition has not waned in me.
But, let me go back to my story about my trip to New York. After the conversation with Mitar, I bought the ticket and it was only then that I realised I did not ask him at all if it were ok for me to be there for three weeks. Still, the ticket was bought and I left my home, while Milana and Mitar waited for me at the airport and it was a very joyful encounter.
With my age I am somewhere between Milana and Mitar, and their son Velislav, so I am practically a friend with all of them. In the meantime, Velislav got married and has two children and I get along with all of them quite well. Since my stay in New York this time started during a weekend, I spent those first days with Velislav, Nale and their children.
The children had already started doing different sports and thus on the very first day I went with the younger part of the family to the tennis courts that belong to the complex in the Flushing Meadows Park. Needless to say, this did not mean the central court of the Arthur Ashe Stadium, but after the children had finished with their training, we then rented one of the numerous auxiliary courts and thus together with the children we the adults spent an hour playing tennis and having fun.
A part of this very nice and enjoyable weekend spent with my friends also entailed going to some other tennis courts in the Bronx for additional tennis lessons for the children, as well as a nice walk around and along the Astoria Park with Nale and Tamara.
When I travel I usually take a lot of photos, but during those first days I was very much relaxed and did not even take my photo-camera with me, just enjoying the company of my beloved and dear people. Still, during this walk around the Astoria Park and beside the East River, Nale jumped in, so in addition to a couple of photos where we can be seen and which are a part of the private collection, today I also have a couple of photos that show the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge, the East River and parts of Manhattan. This also includes the middle parts of this island (Manhattan) that constitutes the centre of New York, which may easily be concluded on the basis of some of the famous buildings that may be seen in the photos, but I’m going to deal with these buildings a little later on.
By the way, the East River is not a river at all, but rather this is a strait that separates the island of Manhattan and Long Island. Since I’m mentioning this, let me give some general geographic and spatial indications concerning New York and its surroundings. The city of New York is located in the federal state of New York, but it is not its capital (this is Albany). It incorporates five boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island. Practically, New York extends along the shores of the Atlantic Ocean and it covers the territory of several islands. There is Manhattan, as well as Staten Island; Brooklyn and Queens are practically situated on Long Island and the territory of the city also incorporates a large number of smaller islands that belong to these boroughs, while only the Bronx is located on the littoral part of the continent.
After a few more days spent solely with my friends, including being present at Maksim’s piano lesson, one nice and sunny day I went for a walk around Manhattan. First, it is important to emphasize that it was January and it was cold (around 0 degrees Celsius), but the wind was not strong and I was appropriately dressed, so I felt quite fine and ready for a pleasant walk.
When I’m in New York, I stay in Queens, not far from the first station of an underground train (called subway in the USA), so I can always select my seat since I like to look through the window. Namely, this train actually goes on the surface while in Queens and it also crosses to Manhattan via a bridge, so I can watch the city while nicely seated.
The immediate surroundings of the underground line are not impressive at all, but I like watching in the distance some of the famous Manhattan buildings that are easy to recognise – the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building, for instance. It is possible to look nicely at Manhattan even from the bridge, although the fences and the construction of the bridge certainly spoil the view. As soon as it goes over to the side of Manhattan, the train goes underground and then one can basically see nothing except for the interior of the train itself and the stations.
The idea for this day was to walk around the middle parts of Manhattan or more accurately around the areas called East Village and Midtown. I started from Houston Street and that street is interesting because it constitutes a sort of a traffic and urban boundary – roughly speaking, to the south from this street there are streets intertwining in all sorts of ways and they are named after different personalities or notions, while roughly speaking north of Houston Street there is the well-known New York street and avenue grid. The streets go across Manhattan and they are numbered from 1 up (the first starts after Houston St), while the avenues go along Manhattan. As a rule, these streets and avenues cross one another at the right angle, while the main exception is Broadway which from the 78th St towards lower sections of Manhattan crosses this traffic grid diagonally. As I write about my walks and visits around Manhattan, I will often mention the numbers of the streets and/or avenues, and although this may seem as too many numbers in one place, it certainly facilitates finding one’s way around a huge city such as New York.
When I got out to the surface from the underground, first I turned around and tried to get my bearings and remember details from some of my earlier visits to New York. And then I headed for the 3rd Avenue, turning soon into the 9th Street. Still, before all of this, I started to enjoy the landscape of central Manhattan.
New York is not like London, Paris or Istanbul, not to mention Rome, where there is a history measured in centuries and millennia, and reflected in structures, streets and monuments. New York is basically the child of the 20th century. Although these parts of the continent were originally inhabited by members of the Lenape people, the first settlement in the south section of Manhattan was called New Amsterdam in 1613 (the island belonged to the Dutch at the time). From 1664, when the English conquered the town, it got its current name – New York. Still, it was only in the 20th century that New York grew into one of the world’s centres, primarily as the centre of international finance, as well as culture, among other things, and one of its main features are its buildings, foremost its famous skyscrapers which are regularly among the highest and most famous high-rise buildings in the world.
As I was walking, I passed by a couple of nameless buildings that are not famous on any account, but they caught my eye nonetheless because of the colours of the facades that stood out intensively in the winter sun. In addition, these buildings were so typical with their fire escapes which are usually seen in films and TV series.
The first goal of my walk on this day was a special shop which I like to visit every time I go to New York. This is a small shop that sells occult, i.e., magic items. Back in the day I got to know some occult stuff and thus I had the need for Abramelin oil. This is a very special concoction of oils used for ceremonial magic purposes and since the oil is very, very special it cannot be found in many places. But, it can be found in this shop. When I first came to this shop looking for the oil, the person working as the shop assistant asked me if I needed the oil for external or for internal use and I took the one that could be “taken in.” By the way, the oil is not used for cooking and so in any case it is not to be ingested in any significant quantities, but rather its use is brought down to highly symbolic quantities.
The next time I was in New York, I went to the shop again and then I had a very funny experience. Namely, I approached the girl who worked there and asked for Abramelin oil, saying right away that I needed the one for internal use. She looked at me in TOTAL bewilderment and said that Abramelin oil is poisonous and should not be ingested under any circumstances.
“But, I have already done that,” I said, apparently still very much alive and kicking.
The girl was still quite perplexed, so she went to inquire further. I found the whole situation additionally funny and silly, since the girl wore a tank top and her whole body seemed completely tattooed, while around her neck she wore all sorts of chains with pendants in line with the shop in which she worked. As opposed to her, since it was winter and I had come from the outside, I had a yellow jacket with black details and a matching scarf, while my hair was braided into pigtails. So, in comparison to her I looked like Alice in Wonderland (nothing personal, I just want to emphasise how differently we looked on the outside). Then she came back with a guy who apparently knew the issue more deeply, so the two of us exchanged some more information and along the way he also told me that he had joined the Satanists already at the tender age of 13, etc, asking me in the end a little conspiratorially:
“And you are O.T.O.?” (O.T.O. – Ordo Templi Orientis – a well-known occult organisation)
I just smiled and said I did not like to talk about it, which must have added some more mysticism to my exterior Alice. The point is that I very rarely use the oil in such a way that it ends up in my body and even if I do that it is in such minute quantities that I have really never had any problems. On the other hand, the oil has fantastic scent and I have friends who would like to have Abramelin oil, but can’t get to New York and this shop, so it’s a fine opportunity for me to buy a couple of small bottles as presents.
And so, back in 2016, I came to the shop again, but this time around I did not volunteer any information in advance, but rather only asked for the oil, paid for it and went out.
I continued with my walk zigzagging until I reached the 14th Street and then I followed it in the direction of the Union Square Park. Down one of the streets that follow the direction of the avenues, and this street is called Irving Place which from the Gramercy Park turns into Lexington Avenue, I saw Chrysler Building in the distance.
The Chrysler Building was built in the Art Deco style at the corner of the 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue in 1930 and for 11 months it was the tallest building in the world (in May of 1931 this position was taken over by the Empire State Building). Although no longer tallest either in New York or the world, the Chrysler Building still continues to be one of the most important and easiest to spot on Manhattan.
Walking further down the 14th Street I reached a corner by the Union Square Park and there, along Park Avenue, I could see the top of the Grand Central Terminal, a large station for suburban trains, as well as yet another famous New York building – the MetLife Building. It is also interesting that the Grand Central Terminal, the MetLife Building and another building have been built in such a way that they take up a block that crosses Park Avenue and it is precisely in this place that this avenue deviates from a straight line, going around this block of buildings. By the way, in order to see the scale of New York where everything somehow seems particularly big, let me point out that from the place from which I made the following photo to the MetLife Building there are over 2 km!
Although the MetLife Building has “only” 59 floors, it is still quite interesting on account of its architecture and history. It was constructed in 1963 as the building with the biggest commercial office space by the number of square metres and at the time it was called the Pan Am Building after the then biggest airline company. This airline went bankrupt in 1991 and with time the building itself has changed its name.