Buffeted by heavy winds, the plane tilted from one side to another before making a hard landing on the tarmac of Newark Airport. I picked up my luggage, saw the attractive woman who had occupied the seat beside me on the flight run into the arms of her boyfriend, and then hopped on a bus to midtown Manhattan. I had a one day layover in the Big Apple before heading off to London, so I had to make the most of my limited time in the city so great that they named it twice.
With a systematic naming scheme for streets and avenues, Manhattan was easy to navigate for a newcomer. I walked to many of the famous sites in New York City, such as Times Square, Empire State Building, Grand Central Terminal, the Waldorf Astoria hotel, Chrysler Building, Rockefeller Center, Radio City Music Hall, the Public Library, the theater district, and Macy's, the world’s largest store. As it was wintertime, the ice rink in front of Rockefeller Center was filled with skaters. I got a proper sense of the scale of the world’s unofficial capital city from atop the Empire State Building, before rendezvousing with a lady I had traveled together with in Morocco at the New York Times building. We had lunch in the Hell’s Kitchen area of town, and then I collected my belongings and headed off to the airport.
*****
“A city is the pulsating product of the human hand and mind, reflecting man's history, his struggle for freedom, creativity, genius-and his selfishness and errors.” - Charles Abrams
