Observation #1 Arriving

Here I am in my sixth decade and finally I have arrived to live in New York City. You can listen to or read my first observation.

It was with mixed feelings of excitement and anticipation, two weeks ago, after seven days crossing the Atlantic that I stood, in the early morning, on the deck of the ocean liner. As we gently sailed under the Verrazzano Narrows Bridge into the Upper Bay, flanked by New Jersey on one side and Brooklyn on the other, I could not help but imagine the feelings of the countless refugees from wars and persecution who have taken this journey and arrived here to begin a new life. As we approached the pier, the lights of Manhattan were obscured by fog and only an impression of the Statue of Liberty emerged against the dark. This seemed to echo the disturbances and uncertainties of arriving here at this time and the slight sense of apprehension of what lies ahead.

Since I was a child, so many books, songs, poems and films left their depictions of New York in my imagination. From the tv cop shows of the 1970s and the countless movies filmed here, to the big-voiced jazz singers and the poets and writers who told us its stories, my imagination had roosted itself in the city. For a small town boy, it held an enduring fascination, a restless idea. New York existed as a place beyond possibility.

As I grew into adolescence, all I wanted that was dangerous and sexy was born in Manhattan. Among my friends, we borrowed from our heroes and adored them from afar. In those days, fashion was the hallmark of New York; the big brands, the famous models, the sidewalk styles we wanted to emulate, but were a little too shy to carry off. As we grew up, we couldn’t get enough of that New York state of mind. The bands we loved came here to be influenced by its musicians and producers. Paddy McAloon’s words in ‘Oh Manhattan’ summed it all up. Announcing his arrival here “A billion souls all dying to know me, Well here I am! Loaded with promise and knee deep in grace…” Creativity itself seemed supercharged in New York.

The grand metropolis reaching into the sky, the dream of Gotham, has always seemed so familiar and yet so unreachable. It was a world apart from my parochial beginnings. We knew it was far from perfect, full of trash and crime, guns and dope. But so alluring, here wealth and shabbiness, grime and glamour existed side by side; people flowed through the streets in crazy parallel lives. That very collision of cultures is what made it so appealing.

And then there was New York gay. At some point in my sexual awakening, every book I read seemed to explore the lives and loves of gay men here. That openness and freedom was an inspiration, bold and celebratory; it gave us hope in the cold, closeted world of Thatcher’s Britain. The clones, the bathhouses, the porn and the dancefloors were enticing beyond our horizons. A place where gay men were strong, wholly themselves. Until, everything changed and the city was decimated by AIDS. For a while, we wondered if we were the lucky ones.

Alongside the rumours and whispers, the snippets and headlines that travelled across the ocean to us in Britain, America was still strong and indomitable. Whatever might have been lost, there was high energy, always more. And there was hope. Despite that disaster, the many deaths, New York City remained intact. The shimmering, jagged skyline continued to flower and the skyscrapers towering over the long avenues became the iconic symbols of millennial success.

Then the next disaster. The collapse and destruction of the twin towers, like the end of empire; the sobering moment that changed all of our lives in some way. Visiting New York then became more like a pilgrimage, a chance to pay our respects for all the losses. It exposed us to our own vulnerabilities like never before. But build back bravely it did. The city made a powerful statement of resistance against fear. The bounce and bravado returned.

I visited over the years but it remained a city I knew only superficially. I felt that I had always missed the moment just passed. I wanted to have been to the places I had read about, Studio 54 and the Continental Baths, parties that were like Woody Allen movies or Paul Auster novels, Bowie and Roxy Music at CBGB. But that was all long gone and like every other tourist, I simply went through the motions.

Here I am in my sixth decade and finally I have arrived to live in New York City. I am always eager for change and a new adventure but at a stage of life where many people are contemplating winding down, I am taking on the city which, more than any other I know, demands full attention at all times, requires constant alertness to your surroundings and a nose for your destination. I have been listening to Prefab Sprout again. After a lifetime of doing other things, being elsewhere, now those words “knee deep in fate”, come with a different meaning for me. As Paddy was then when he came to record, I too am immersed in the myths, as I observe the city. Not a visitor but a resident alien in a country where the unpredictable has become the norm.

In these observations, I hope to bring to life some aspects of the city and my life here; the ideas that spring from its foundations to surround and inspire me, like the steam that rises from the heating pipes under the streets. While I am waiting to cross 23rd St, sometimes I stand next to those vents from which the drainy vapours ascend and it feels like being baptised in the very lifeblood of New York. “But stay in lane man, and get over to the other side”. There are so many who do not make it.