New York City: My Type of Place
My experience in New York and why it became my favorite place in the world.
Last year my family took a trip to New York City. It was a ten day long vacation, and excluding my dad, it was my family’s first time in New York. Over the course of ten days, we saw all we could see, from small brownstone Brooklyn neighborhoods, to the crowded stores and bustling streets of Times Square. We even saw the grassy, cow covered plains of the countryside in upstate New York when we visited our cousins by Buffalo for a few days.
We tried not to rush or plan too much, allowing curiosity and eagerness alone (with a little bit of help from Siri) to guide us, so we could absorb as many new and exciting places as time allowed. From the well known and common tourist spots like Central Park, Times Square, Coney Island, and Grand Central Station, to the more common, real New York places like Harlem, Bedstuy, and Chinatown; I wanted to see it all.
We drove, walked, and took the subway around the city. We saw more of the real life New York in small sections of the city’s vibrant boroughs, each with its own rhythm and soul. I literally fell in love with New York. It was my kind of place.
In New York, I felt more at home than here in Los Angeles. There’s culture everywhere in New York. There’s friendlier people, and more things to do. There was no where else in the city where I felt this then in Harlem.
Ahh, Harlem; a place where you can hear the culture in the music and see it in the architecture. It’s definitely not one of those hot spot, New York tourist attractions. It does not stand out with towering skyscrapers and expensive designer stores like Manhattan’s Upper East Side and there aren't million dollar condominiums like on 5th Avenue, but there was no where else in the city where I found more real New York culture or art, from the music to the food, from the buildings to the paint on their old walls, and everything in between. The streets are lined with old brick buildings, covered in colorful murals and urban street art. The windows release the scent of fresh food and sound of different music; jazz, hip-hop, Latin, you name it. The stairs of the colorful and intricately designed buildings are filled with friends, talking and listening to music and greeting us as we walk by.
Being born and raised in Los Angeles, California, I can go months and months without saying a word to my neighbor, and no one will notice or care. That won’t pass in New York. Everyone knows each other in New York. People want to know you. My type of place.
In New York, you can go from shops and tall buildings to crowded Chinatown streets in a matter of minutes.
In Chinatown, which neighbors Little Italy, we ate at one of the best Chinese restaurants I’ve ever been to, (because America has the best Chinese food). It was called Big Wong’s. The chefs and waiters shouted orders across the restaurant and chopped up duck at the chop block in the front. The first thing you see when you walk in is a glass case stacked with racks of heating chicken, duck, and pig, with thousands of smells of sauce and spices and cooking meat drifting through the air.
You walk outside of Big Wong’s with your stomach filled and your belts a little looser, and out to the crowded, bustling Chinatown alleys. There are shops with “I heart New York” t-shirts and Statue of Liberty pencil sharpeners. The alleyways are places where you hear languages thrown into the air; Chinese, English, and the unidentifiable languages spoken by tourists in the city. I remember the streets were wet from rain and the my little sister carrying a clear “I Love New York!” umbrella. Down the street form Big Wong’s you’ll find shops with the smell of fish flowing out of their doors and cases full of sea animals for sale. At a local park, you’ll find elderly Chinese citizens enjoying karaoke and a picnic. Chinatown is like a whole separate city of its own in the center of New York. So different and diverse yet so close to home. My type of place.
One of our next, very memorable stops was in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. We wanted real, New York style pizza. So of course, we pulled out the iPhones and hit up the Yelp! app. A list of four-star pizza spots pop up, and we find the one that appeals most to our eye. After driving about twenty minutes to get there, we discover it’s new spot serving unique, unappealing pizza types. The clientele are people with RayBan glasses, button up flannel shirts, rolled up jeans, and flip-flops. In other words: hipsters. The menu is only about fifty pages long and with their “large pizza” priced at twenty dollars for a pizza fit for one person. Not my type of place.
So we walk down the street and come across a small place called Franklin’s. On the inside, it’s the perfect New York pizza place. The walls are lined with old pictures of players from the Yankees. Out of the kitchen comes a heavyset, tough looking and sweaty Brooklyn man with the most ideal New York accent straight out of a TV show. He greets us with more friendliness than ever, telling us about himself and his cooking as he bakes us a fresh pepperoni pizza. He talks trash about the Mets, makes jokes about the hipsters or “yuppies” taking over the area, and happily serves us a huge pizza for half the price of the small pizzas down the street. I take one bite and fall in love. It’s the best pizza I’ve had in the fourteen years of my life so far. Before we leave, he gives a complimentary tray of his signature, greasy garlic knots and insists that we don’t pay and enjoy it. He slowly walks us out after our meal, taking time to keep talking and to tell us to come back during our next visit. Now that was my type of place.
We get back in the car and head to Coney Island, where I get on the world famous and nearly century old wooden roller coaster, Cyclone. The ride is fast and jerky and water from the rain sprays my face and soaks my shirt with every drop. I get on old carnival rides, rides that feel like they’ll collapse at any moment but I don’t let fear get in the way and enjoy every single one of them. My type of place.
Even in Central Park, a midst the shady trees and bridges and ponds, we come across a pair of young black musicians, dressed casually with sunglasses and shorts and playing their heart and soul out on the cello and the trombone. I drop a dollar in their hat and let the sound of jazz and classical music follows me throughout the park. My type of place.
Surprisingly, my least favorite place is Times Square. The bright lights and billboards are one thing, but the shops and crowded sidewalks take away form the real culture and heart of the Big Apple.
After ten days of time spent in New York, I wanted nothing more than to stay for another ten. But our flight awaits, and after checking out of the our hotel in the Flat Iron district, we pick up fresh bagels and coffee at a deli and make our way to La Guardia airport.
Since my arrival home, a year ago, a day hasn’t gone by where a thought of New York City hasn’t passed through my mind. All I can think about is returning. Returning to the cultured and art filled streets of Harlem and the flashing lights of Times Square, the scent of duck in Chinatown, and the fresh garlic knots of Franklin’s. The city inspired me. The city encompasses all of my passions and goals into one big metropolis. I’m a LA boy, but New York seems like the place I was meant to call home.
I’d give anything to go back, but for now, all I can do is write and get lost in pictures of my trip on Instagram. As I sit here, writing this last sentence, I can imagine myself in Franklin’s; hearing the chef’s accent, smelling the cheesy pizza, and eating the fresh baked garlic knots. My type of place.
