(Pittsburgh – Philadelphia – Atlantic City – New York City – Boston)
It was a 5am alarm to get the "T" into the Amtrak station (really the rather sad basement of the majestic Pennsylvania RR Station which is now classy apartments with an unlovely view of the Greyhound station, but I wasn't the going there...).
Puzzling linguistics at the "T" station: "WE DO NOT MAKE CHANGE"...
Near the streetcar stop was a red clothing bin ..."for paralysed veterans..."
There are few sadder post-Christmas sights than deflated Santas, reindeers and "snow" men in soggy pre-dawn gardens passing by the early morning trolley.
The upstairs train queue (why don't US trains and buses allocate civilized booked seat numbers to avoid the routine queue-and-rush to get on board?) was regularly and politely shoved against the wall by baggage-carrying pre-boarding Business class passengers and the lame and the old, being wheel-chaired or trolleyed to the head of the line.
All day "The Pennsylvanian" train followed the curving and forested Conemaugh River to the Appalachian Mountains, then travelled down the broad valley of the Susquehanna River towards Philadelphia. For hours we tracked the sweeping wide brown winter-forested rivers through mountains and villages and small industrial towns then into to neat green Amish small holdings of Lancaster farmlands with their horse drawn carts and wagons. This was punctuated by occasional stops in dimly picturesque towns and deeply fascinating announcements about when the cafe attendant would or would not take "my allocated break".
Throughout the train, most passengers had their "devices" plugged into wall mounted-power to iPods, email on the train's quite good wifi, or to mutter in hushed tones into their cellphones between dozes... By about an hour into the trip, several Amish families had effectively found each other scattered throughout the train, so they combined to colonise half of the cafe car, presumably because they had no-plug-in-at-seat-diversionary-devices.
At even the smallest stops (usually a bleak, icy, rail-level strip of bitumen, situated a great distance from the original railroad's elegant station house now converted into a cafe, tourist office, doctors' surgery or just abandoned) the train was picking up passengers heading to Philly or New York for New Year's Eve.
The train staff were now urgently asking everyone to occupy only their "own allocated seat" (as there are no booked seats on Amtrak: the conductor checks your ticket once the train is on its way and puts a coloured paper slip with some secret code on the luggage rack above you which tells him/her when to bundle you off the train) ...as the train was fully booked.
This was something of an understatement as the train was wildly OVERbooked with people with heading east for New Year's Eve. The cafe-car-colonising Amish "detrained" in the murky depths of Harrisburg station. Boarding passengers without a seat were then "accommodated" in the back-to-back cafe car table seating with their bags on the cafe tables or blocking the aisles for the nearly-two-hours-to-Philadelphia when they hustled to grab any spare coach seat that was vacated, like mine. The cafe car announcements of breaks for the operator were largely irrelevant now as the car was out of reach.
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In Philadelphia, Days Inn was advertised as a comfortable budget place, convenient to the convention centre in Center City, which used to be the huge Reading Railroad terminal. Fortunately the fresh food market and German food stores and cafes downstairs survived the makeover.
The hotel blurb forgot to mention that it was adjacent to the local homeless hostel and a couple of interesting red-lit doorways. The street life outside the pub was... errr... relentlessly “colourful” and diverse. The hotel clerk muttered something abut the door being locked at 11, and it would be good if I was on the correct side of it before then.
There didn't appear to be much in the way of (lactose free) food offerings at first glance however, behind the hotel (and a couple of much larger and grander conference gin joints) was a small and somewhat dingy looking Chinese bar. Inside was excellent wine and some really creative food in 'Philadelphia's First Dim Sum Cafe: established: 1922'. I ate there both nights, working my way through the non-Kiwi and non-Australian wines by the glass: all three of them.
New Year's Eve: I toasted the new year with bad hotel coffee and non-dairy whitener at 8am (fireworks time in Sydney), having celebrated with an early night (on the correct side of the door by 11pm).
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Outside Frankford elevated station, a large poster: "Pennsylvania Lottery: Helping Older Pennsylvanians get where they're going."
Really!
REALLY??
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The Girard line is Philadelphia's remaining traditional streetcar line, running the dark green and cream Art Deco inspired PCC trams of the 1940's with strange little air conditioning pods on the roof trying to look art-deco-1990's. The route is east-west across the inner suburbs through not-very-prosperous looking line-housing of 80 to 100 years ago. The MacDonalds at the Girard overhead station was deeply entertaining as the not-very-rich loudly bullied and intimidated the minimum-waged to get their orders right while a 40ish grey bearded bloke leaned on a stick and worked his way through the plastic-seedy "restaurant" trying to sell bootleg DVDs.
By contrast, the tram ride was more like a party: everyone else seemed to know everyone else, including the young driver, with loud greetings and yelled conversation and smart comments the length of the streetcar. The five 60ish men of colour sitting opposite me had gone to school together and still reminisced about the women they had grown up with and who had 'got lucky' with whom... The stoic young "operator" greeted everyone with a friendly "Happy New Year" including the three wheelchair passengers who were quickly hoisted in and out of the car’s centre door. The middle section of the journey serves colleges and medical centres and big crowds from the Broad St subway before edging through growing urban blight of semi-abandoned and crooked line housing until it curves through more prosperous bungalows and cobbled streets in the west of the city. Five excited little kids scrambled on with their new-Christmas-present-scooters and took some convincing to fold them, until the old guys reminiscing school helped their father to make it happen. This part of the ride is less party and more suburban-business-like, a bit like Moreland or Fitzroy in Melbourne.
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Atlantic City: Blackpool with bigger casinos, better hamburgers and no trams.
It possibly wasn't looking its best at 10.30 on New Year's Day, but the several blocks of factory outlets between the New Jersey Transit station and the Boardwalk were already doing a roaring trade.
Cuisines on offer included Salt Water Taffy, Philly Cheese Steak, and something called "hoagies". In the middle of the Boardwalk was 100 metres of flat hoardings painted with the 1930's shopfronts of "Boardwalk Empire". The personalised transport on offer was a chair on trolley wheels, under plastic wrap, pushed along by a couple of middle aged black men. The (non-black) passengers were generously built.
Overlooking the bleak beach and bleaker casinos is a large advertising hoarding of John Wayne: "Don't much like quitters".
At the far end of the cold, flat, windswept grey beach, near the failed TRUMP casino,another sign: "Fun times ahead!".
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Travelling back to Philly I transferred from the subway at Camden, New Jersey (just across the Delaware River), possibly the least safe thing I've done this trip. There are no obvious station or security staff (this alone is unusual) and you have to step over sleeping bodies stretched out in their own excrement to access the platform. Above them are fluorescent advertising for "PENN TRANSPLANT: Most Experienced In The Region!" There are plenty of people around, lurking with no seeming conversation or purpose. I couldn't leave the place fast enough. Downtown Philadelphia, in contrast, was alive with celebrating crowds and tourists visiting Liberty Bell and other Revolutionary monuments. In the icy wind, another warming dim sum meal was looking good.
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New York Subways have cleaned up their act (certainly when compared to Camden, New Jersey...). Original tile work is painstakingly restored, people ask and give directions; its not as warm and friendly as the Girard streetcar, but getting there.
Fulton station: a brilliant trumpeter on the platform was playing Ellington as I was taking the "A Train".
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9/11 Memorial and Museum: crowded, subdued, confronting, dark and overwhelming, especially so when the "heroic" fire fighters and police who survived had to fight for funded medical care for years, and when you consider the subsequent actions of the Bush Jr White House. The crushed fire engine, in situ remains of steelwork and foundations, and stray, scorched pages of an in-flight magazine, as well as the walls and walls of faces of the dead are hard images to erase.
All the while I was there, I had the sensation I had been somewhere similar before, and then it hit: the Nanjing Massacre Museum in China: smaller, similar grey concrete layout, strong moral and patriotic overtones and resulting in an equal urge to climb back up those stairs to the cold bright fresh winter air and to breathe deeply.
The 9/11 Memorial above the basemented museum is huge and understated. Etched names of the victims on a stainless steel perimeter surround huge square charcoal-black water cascades into the void of the two devastated towers. And behind them is a replacement building with the tall communications tower reminiscent of the destroyed South Tower, inviting you to elevate to the top and experience the view. I headed to Wall St and the half price ticket booth on the Brooklyn side of Manhattan.
An afternoon of the Agiprop exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum (featuring a fictitious and widely distributed New Your Times, dated 6 months after Obama's election featuring the declaration of world peace supported by corporate America, the world's unified action to defeat climate change and racial harmony) was a suitably life-affirming antidote to a 9/11 kind of morning, along with Puerto Rican Impressionism and Jamaican funk music and the design history of Coney Island.
A sign at Brooklyn Museum: "Alarmed Stairway".
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Before visiting my lovely cousin Marilyn in Hastings-on Hdsn, she gave me detailed advice about what to see and do in the "cultural capital of the world". I did take her advice on Saturday night and hit the half tix booth for "An American In Paris". If nothing else, the music would be wonderful, and it was. Ignoring the "book" which was the usual Broadway schlock to frame brilliant performances, and they were, what really struck was the brilliant design, introduced by moving flat screens and computerised charcoal drawing and erasures of Paris landscapes and silhouettes which gradually "morphed", as the performance developed, into brilliant 50's primary-coloured abstracted art, also reflected in costumes and props. The audience seemed a bit quiet, really, given the energetic brilliance of the music, dance and performance, until the final curtain when they leapt to their feet, yelling, stamping, calling for more (which they were denied...).
The other "best performance" on the night was our energetic usher, a buxom woman of a certain age and knockabout humour who was asked by an audience member if she enjoyed her job. This led to animated repartee across the theatre between ushers and an admission that her being cast in "Orange is the New Black" was maybe a little more rewarding that ushering holiday crowds on Broadway. (Smattering of applause).
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The Empire State Building, 8.15 Sunday: clear-near-Winter-dawn (with not many people but still many hundreds of metres of roped off queue lines to navigate on three different levels through two lots of elevators, before getting to the actual observatory floor) was stunning, with silvery New Jersey skyscrapers reflecting on the placid Hudson River, while we were gripping the jump-proof railings to stay upright in a blisteringly cold wind.
Staggering around to the Brooklyn side was difficult as a young Italian guy and his girl (black leathers, wraparound Sunnies, matching jewellery...) were posing with a selfie stick while the guy said "Chiz, chiz, chiz, chiz,..." And blocked the way. They then checked the shots. Not happy. It was: "Chiz, chiz, chiz, chiz,..." yet again as they grimaced up the selfie stick. STILL not happy they aimed the stick again: "Chiz, chiz, chiz..." until a windswept Spanish family had had enough and their little kids pushed past, followed by scrum 10 more people escaping the icy windchill. On this side: Brooklyn Bridge, Hell's Gate Bridge (a kind of small Sydney Harbour Bridge) and as we moved left for a close-up shot of the Chrysler Building, there were the crazy Italians again: "Chiz, chiz, chiz, chiz...". No-one was "doing" polite now and we elbowed past to view the Hudson Valley. The Italians must have taken the hint. They were next seen indoors, posing in front of the mirrors with selfie stick: "Chiz, chiz, chiz..."
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Hastings-on-Hudson: 45 minutes north of Grand Central Station (and delightful river and forest scenery after departing the nastiness of the Bronx tunnels). Cousin Marylyn has been living and teaching around here and in Yonkers (after growing up in Chatswood) for as long as I remember. The afternoon was spent amongst sleepy wooden riverside buildings looking over to the forested cliffs of the western shoreline, and at the local diner and mart, then to Marylyn's elementary school and the attached Romanesque style church still set up for Christmas. I could enjoy the nativity and subtle Christmas lighting in front of the softly lit apse and altar and the weak winter sunset through stained glass while Marilyn lit a candle. As we left the church, the house across the road had its grander, more garish competing Christmas lights and tacky nativity.
Dinner in the local Asian restaurant with husband Lyndon (a base player and also a teacher with some interesting world views and nearly intact Kiwi iccint) was great, sampling more of the US dry white wine list with brilliant Orange Beef. No: I've not seen that on any restaurant stir fry menu before, but it was melt-in-the-mouth stuff. More riding the clutch of the 1990 Honda just dragged us over the bridge for the night commute back to downtown New York City: a very different world.
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The subway shuttle from Grand Central to Times Square: while awaiting departure two rugged up twenty something women (one guitar) were loudly discussing their friend and arguing about whether their friend's latest boyfriend would lead her to a "satisfied self". They were arguing LOUD, and oblivious, and in distressing gynaecological detail among the growing load of standing passengers. The doors shut for the 3 minute trip and the women immediately launched into louder two-part harmony with guitar to a trapped-crush-load-crowd, back announcing themselves as: "WeareAuralChocolateblablablahopeyouenjoyedourmusicblablablablablaFacebookblablaCDbla bla,YouTube bla bla..."
I was well out the door and running for the 7th Avenue subway by this time.
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Boston: my destination was the JFK Presidential Library and I was thinking that maybe the idea of a Presidential Library could be adapted to Australia, for our prime ministers who suffer relevance deprivation syndrome... On second thoughts: we roll through so many ex-prime ministers now that it might blow (what's left of) the budget. Then I considered what a Prime Ministerial Library might look like for Paul Keating: perhaps French clocks and a wall of invective, non?
JFK Library is a stunning minimalist white building with one glass curtain wall behind which is a huge American flag. The usual "securityandcoatcheck" stuff done, I found myself as the only occupant in a huge theatrette where the film concentrated on Kennedy's rise to become the Democrat nominee for President. Downstairs I was alone in a replica Jackie-decorated White House interior for displays and videos in each room of the presidential campaign, the inauguration speech, and Presidential career. Vietnam is covered in one printed cable acceding to the coup against Diem, Cuba gets big coverage as do the Peace Corps and the cultured life in the White House. After a brief coverage of Dallas in tiny videos along one white wall, his legacy (no mention of Vietnam...) and research areas lead you back to that huge American flag inside the huge glass atrium looking out to a pristine blue Boston Harbour, and a climb of many stairs to the gift shop.
I wallowed happily in all of the political campaigns, the Nixon/Kennedy debates and oratory for a quick couple of hours....
One section of the "Inaugural" stands out:
"If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich".
Sadly this seems to now be more a reflection on modern America with the millions of "working poor" and the remnants of trickle-down Reaganomics.
I did like that the shuttle bus was run by Paul Revere Transit.
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In 1979 I was in Boston, staying in the same downtown area. Back then, after dark, I'd walked gingerly back to the hotel in the middle of the street because the sidewalk and alleys were dark and threatening with lurking, shadowy figures. I was booked into the "Koala Hotel"(!) which was gutted in 5 of the 10 floors and was well past "down at heel" and was in that part of town called: "Boston's Combat Zone". (I bought the T shirt.) It was across the sad street from a run down theatre and vacant lot. At about 5pm each night a tall black man would arrive in a stylish dark suit and briefcase, disappear down the back of the vacant lot, and re-emerge in drag, heels and makeup to attract passing trade... At 7 the next morning, he would morph back into the stylish suit and brief case and saunter off to the subway....
I found I had now booked into a pub which backed on to this same street. I was a tad concerned, but the "Koala Hotel" is now a rather flash Marriot. The run down theatre and vacant lot have morphed into some steel, concrete and glass thing called "Wang Theatre", and all else is a glossy medical centre, thriving Chinatown and next door to my pub were the very classy "New England Lawyers". (They could hardly call themselves do "Boston Legal", I suppose.) The place looks prosperous and well lit and safe, apart from the "Snow Emergency" signs around the place, after Boston had been brought to an extended halt in extreme storms last January.
A wander of the 3 mile "Freedom Trail" to very prosperous Charlestown (topped by the Bunker Hill monument) and even more prosperous Harvard finished the Boston experience except for the unexpected grand piano Chopin recital in front of the train indicators at South Station.
It was very a civilised departure for commuters and we long distance patrons of another Amtrak train…
