New York, New York - In and Out again

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  Binghamton, New York, United States
Thursday, June 7, 2007

I flew into JFK at about 6 am. The flight from LA was full, so not very comfortable. Thus not a lot of sleep. All I needed to do was drive into the city, to the Port Authority Building and get a Greyhound bus upstate to the university town of Binghamton, where the Fernand Braudel Centre is located. The drive in, in my slightly groggy state was kind of overwhelming. New York is BIG. It covers a lot of area, and the buildings (certainly once you cross the East River from Queens into Manhattan are huge! The traffic volume is incredible, and at 6.30 in the morning the bridges and tunnels wee already reporting 30 minute delays. But what really brought the scale of the place home to me were the 2 cemeteries we drove past. Literally acres of headstones, close together like a forest of marble, stone and concrete. They were full. As the old poem says "Ah, but the dead are many." I was reminded of H P Lovecraft's horror stories of ghouls dwelling underground in New York and New England cemeteries feasting on the bodies, and one could see how the idea could develop

Bingo High Street

.

Driving down Fifth Avenue and then 42nd street, assign Times Square was the same weird sense of familiarity with the unknown that I had experienced in LA. I recognised some of these places, I knew something about them. In fact the taxi driver wouldn't believe it was my first trip - I talked like someone who knew the city, he said.

At the Port Authority my first call was breakfast and across the road was a classic crowded New York deli, whose customers were all big, burly (and yes, full bellied) men; they appeared to be in the main train drivers and off duty (and some on duty) cops. Breakfast was franks (grilled beef sausages to us) with baked beans and eggs, to which came automatically a side serve of fried potatoes. It doesn't matter what you order for a cooked breakfast in the City, fried potatoes is a normal addition. Few cups of coffee (I like this about America, you can refill your brewed coffee as often as you like for the price of 1 cup, often only $1.00) and another New York specialty - cheese Danish. I remember reading Ed McBain's police novels as teenager, set in a thinly fictionalised NYC, and the cops always ate cheese Danish. Pretty good - it's like custard Danish only with cream cheese. They seem to eat a lot of cream cheese here; it often substitutes for butter on bagels and bialys for example

Courthouse and Civil War monument Binghamton

. There is even a dish called philly cheese steak, which seems to be a grilled steak coated in cream cheese. Not actually game to try it.

Bus ride out was interesting. It went through Jersey City, across the Hudson in New Jersey. It just looked like one endless city to me. After an hour and a half of urban driving, without the intervening belt of suburbs and blocks like in Oz, we were suddenly in the country, rolling through Pennsylvania and back into New York State along the Susquehanna river. Two hours of county driving. And I mean country. Not suburban sprawl, not farmland. Forest. Thick, native tangled forest, not plantations, with rocky hills and lots of creeks, streams and rivers. Thick, green and wet. A stunning vision if you come form the arid world of WA. The contrast of forest to city is disorienting to say the least. You go from hypermodernity (post modernity) into premodernity in no time flat. So the occasional 2 storey white washed with porch timber farmhouse, alongside a  red barn with those funny round roofs and the2 grain silos ever so often. But the land has obviously been largely abandoned and left to regrowth forest that is pretty vigorous. I have never seen forest like this, not even in Europe.

Pulled into Binghamton early afternoon. A decayed industrial town the road in for the bus passes abandoned freight yards, and dilapidated nineteenth century derelict factories and tenement buildings. That's the view from the back of the bus station, which itself has probably had no maintenance other than daily cleaning since it was built! The front opened on to the renovated town with modern office block for the council building, and some grassy areas. The red brick four story old blocks to the front were also been restored, little art / antique shop and coffee shops and gay bars (with rainbow flags out front) opening up in the street fronts and the apartments at the top being advertised a student housing

Derelict Buildings from the Bingo Bus station

. Down the road was the older town centre, radiating out from the courthouse and Episcopalian church, with office blocks in that over blown elaborate late Victorian style that is called 'beaux arts' locally. Apparently the guy who directed Twilight Zone came from here, and some of the scenes were actually shot here, inclding around the bus station.

Campus is about 7 km out of town, along the new expressway, where some high tech businesses have developed, but otherwise it is lined with fast food joints, retail showrooms and hotels. I shared the cab with a guy I met on the street, a PhD Candidate from Berkeley in Ethnic Studies who was going to a conference at SUNY, and was very aware of the FBC where I was going. We have developed an email contact since.

I am staying fr the next five days at the Hampton Inn and Suites, a fairly modern bright ad clean establishment on a hill overlooking the valley in which the expressway runs. It is about 1.5 km from the campus and the forests that surround the town came round down behind the hotel. A very pleasant  and quiet place, provides a good laundry, poll, gym etc, room is ample with private bathroom, cleaned and tidied and fresh towels everyday. Complimentary buffet breakfast - eggs, ham, biscuits (read scones), sausage (read patties), fruit (including bananas!), cereal, breads, pastries, juice and coffee

Gay pub Bingo

. Hotel ahs no eating, coffee or bar facilities, you gotta look after yourself in that regard, but there was a coffee maker to brew coffee in the room, with pre packaged in a filter bag ground coffee supplied.

For the days I was there, I was able to walk down to the campus everyday and back, much to the surprise of everyone around. The publications officer at the FBC, Susan, was initially quite anxious at the idea of me walking - the road was busy...there wee cars...I think it was just the walking that stunned them. AT the hotel I aske done mornig where the nearest pharmacy was, basically down the hill, across the road and at the back of the shopping center. Maybe 300 metres. Cool I said. Then they asked: did I want a taxi? I couln't believe it!

Half way between the campus and the hotel is an English style pub called the Alebarn. Has a huge range of local craft / micro brewery beers on tap. Great place to stop for a few pints on the way home. Pub grub was good too - spicy Buffalo chicken wings, and also ribs. Very large serves of chef's salad too. On the Friday which was a nasty day weather wise (about 34 degrees C,  but really, really humid, like Brisbane) it was a life saver during the walk! Had some good chats with locals too. All very interested in Australia

Gentrified tenements in Binghamton

. Curious to know how we saw America. I tactfully emphasised that our view was conditioned by media reporting which tend to focus on violence and crime on the one hand, satirical shows that used some people's ignorance o imply everyone was like that, and this tended to colour our view. I had been anxious coming over, but had really enjoyed myself and found Americans to be likeable, polite people, although perhaps a little too inclined to be formal for Aussie tastes. This normally led to explanations about Australian of handedness and rudeness as a way of proving we were all the same, a long with the tall poppy culture of purposely not admiring and deflating prominent / high profile people. They saw this as a reaction against our ongoing British connections. By the second night some women began asking about politics. Initially I stuck to explaining some of the cultural differences (although pointing out they were disappearing) the idea of fair go as opposed to equality of opportunity; the collective nature of traditional mateship the basically social democratic instincts of most Australians. They seemed to like that. But what did we think of America? I pointed out that most people didn't like American foreign policy or the way it dominated world trade / economic agendas and assumed its own interests were the same as every one else's. Gently suggested that America had a big footprint and that all we asked of American citizens was to think beyond their own interests a bit and recognise that what the US did had a big impact outside, and they should think of this. As citizens of the world's only superpower they had an obligation to consider the rest of the world. That seemed bland but encouraging enough to avoid arguments, and some of my conversation partners then began discussing how that had convinced them that they should vote!

With the woods so close I go for a walk in them every morning. I have seen deer, rabbits, squirrels, and a fox, but they are all too damn quick to photograph! But what a magic experience!

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