North America > United States > New York State > New York > Articles > New York

It was 9.30am mid-February and my three sons and I were practically alone at the Top of the Rock, the observation deck at the Rockefeller Centre, 850 feet above sea level. Below, under a perfect blue sky and glittering with the snow that had closed off the city two days earlier, forcing us to land in Cleveland, Ohio, lay the skyscrapers of New York.

Twenty-seven hours later than expected, and travelling east instead of west, we saw the skyline for the first time, gleaming steel rising from a flat plain in clear sunlight, like science fiction. Then the bridges and the snaking highways, so familiar as to seem unreal.

Our taxi driver was from Haiti. He told us of the troubles there and how he would go back and stand for senator. Then he passed back a picture of his younger self in a jazz band and put on a tape of Haitian music, singing along and translating for us. At the Holland Tunnel he chatted in Creole to a fellow Haitian who collected the toll.

The taxi veered towards East Village, the boys and I peering up at the streets around us, the skyscrapers seeming somehow smaller now we were among them, the buildings round East Village like the apartment block in Friends. All the time the Haitian jazz pumped out from the cab and the boys bounced around to the rhythm in the back. ‘Welcome to America, guys,’ the driver said, turning round with a broad grin. ‘Thank you,’ they said.

I hadn’t wanted to come to America. Why should I choose to visit a country that infiltrated every corner of the earth? Trying to wean my sons, aged 14, 12 and 10, off American influences I had hauled them round France, Italy and Spain. When I first raised the possibility of visiting New York, encouraged by cheap fares and the belief that it would be more European, more ‘cultured’, that the rest of the States, their enthusiasm outstripped any response I’d had to other trips. What I didn’t expect was how much I would love it.

It was the people that did it. Their relentless helpfulness and pride in their city. If we hesitated for a second on a street corner we were inundated with assistance. And I’ve never felt safer in any city. East Village, 20 years ago the haunt of bums and drug addicts, according to one cab driver, who lives there, is now virtually crime free. He has no fears of carrying large amounts of money in his cab. Mayor Rudy Giuliani took on the clean-up at street level. The area is now relaxed and bohemian, with carefully tended small parks and gardens and atmospheric neighbourhood cafes.

East Village Bed and Coffee is categorised ‘cheap chic’ by the Time Out New York guide. For $140 a night we had a spacious comfortable room opening onto a sitting room with free cable tv, phone and broadband internet, a kitchen/dining room and bathroom. It was like having our own apartment. There were three other rooms but we saw little of the occupants. While they sampled New York night life, we were happy to stay in the warm, recover from pounding the streets and pick from a thick file of local takeaways – delivery free and choices ranging from Afghan to Vegan, with the deli across the road open late for beer supplies.

On the floor below was an identical layout and the ground floor was the owner, Anne’s, space – a glimpse of which gave me a whole new take on interior design, rooms curtained off on stilts, bikes hanging from the ceiling, sawn-off wine bottles dangling from the ceiling as lights.

Lunch times gave us a chance to sample Indian, Chinese and Italian places we came across on our wanderings – all excellent and cheap. Chinatown came out tops with soup, four dishes, rice and drink for $4 each. We were the only non-Chinese in the packed restaurant. A couple of streets away, we were the only non-Italian.

The boys took to shopping with a vengeance, which surprised me. They couldn’t get enough of Abercrombie and Fitch, American Eagle and Macy’s. Opposite Ground Zero, they checked out the bargains in Century 21. Their natural reluctance to galleries – on a recent trip to the Uffizi in Florence my eldest spent the whole time in the coffee bar – was triumphantly overcome by the Guggenheim and the Museum of Modern Art. The Natural History Museum, reached via Central Park, had enough dinosaurs and forgotten tribes to feed any boy’s imagination.

On Brooklyn Bridge they were in T-shirts, the temperature ranging from minus ten to plus ten degrees centigrade during our stay. Staten Island ferry, which has a bright new terminal, took us as close as we got to the Statue of Liberty. Queues to go up it disappeared into the distance. The ferry is free, relatively tourist-free, and offers a classic view of the Manhattan skyline.

Articles

• More from Maxine Jones